Transcripts For CSPAN2 Tonight From Washington 20121211

This is i think, as you all know, a place where Public Policy and research meet. I bring together the world of ideas with the world of policy action. Very happy that tim johnson, the director of the Latin American Program is here this morning. And also want to acknowledge sal low star who had a lot to do with the planning, and this is an event were cosponsoring with immigration works, to tamar a jacoby, and Arizona State university, working on the issues. I want to acknowledge cardenas, a former governor and distinguished mexican colleague and many other good friends. And mane others back at the Woodrow Wilson system. And dan, who is out of government and into this civilian life. Theres no doubt the latino vote was important in this past election. When we put this together we didnt foe how important. This was an event that ambulanced ahead of the elections themselves and we started with a question mark, and decided to keep the question mark on there only because there are many people that will claim that Election Outcomes were the result of different factors, but i dont think theres any doubt, and for anyone who watched endless hours of talk tv and talk radio, the days after the election, like me, knows there was probably no theme that came up more often than the importance of the latino vote. For many of us that followed these issues from some like roberto with great expertise, others like me, with much more general recall generality, for the past couple of decree okayed we said the latino vote is going to matter in the national elections. This is the year the latino vote comes home. I think after a while we stopped believing it. We figured some day it bill be divisive factor. The you can can make a plausible argument that in this election it really was a decisive factors, and we can ask, how much of a decisive factor was it . How much did it matter in the outcome. Not just the president ial rateraise but the congressional races and state races. Why was it such a decisive factor . Why now and not other teams times. How much was immigration policy factor in this . I think well hear from the panelists. These are actually different things, immigration policy has a different set of constituency, and to what extent did immigration policy play into this and are there effect ops immigration policy, and also ways that candidates approach issues that may affect the way different groups vote. Thats a specific question. The assumption is that immigration policy drove the latino vote in a lot of the general media. There may be much indirect correlation there which is how candidates and parties talk about immigrants overall, and latinos for the most part at this point have closer ties to an immigrant past or an immigrant present within families than other groups in u. S. Society, sow how can it approach immigrants rather than immigration policy may be decisive. There was a great commentary, a republican analyst who said, the Republican Party did really well on latino leaders but not on latino followers, and if you look at it in fact the two governors were latino in this country are both republican. Who of the three senators who are latino are republicans. Republicans have not down so badly on recruiting latino politicians. We could not have said ten years ago democrats were on their ware but the republicans have caught up. And its catching up relative the support they have gotten from the latino electorate. So is there a difference between latino leaders and supporters. Does this look forward the fact that the Republican Party is getting ahead of the game and will do better in the future, othe fact the republicans have made inroads and still unable to attract latino votes and the converse for democrats. Can the feel its a strong base of latino voters or should democrats be worried that in the long term republicans may eat their lunch. And i think these are things youll hear different perspectives from the group. Now that i have made time for some of you to arrive, let me turn it over to the real host here, and before i do that, let me acknowledge those who came in actually. Good to see you. Thank you so much, thank you for coming and thank you for being on time. Im tam mar jacoby, president of immigration works u. S. A. A National Federation of employers, mostly Small Business owners, working for better immigration law. Were the advocacy side of this trio but not wearing our advocacy hat today. Very pleased to cohost this with Woodrow Wilson center and Arizona State university. So thank you to sin thea, or all lies at asu who are not here, were grateful to general consul jose card necessary and Vice President jim obryan who made this happen on asu, and very grateful to my team. So, i think the andrew framed the issue very nicely for us. We dont need too much more of that. The frame that says it all in my view is 7127. 71 and 27 , the president ial vote margin, and its not just incredibly lopside, president ial vote margin. Its a president ial vote margin in in nations Fastest Growing votingblock, voting bloc likely to double in size over the next 20 years ump you heard me right. Double in size by 2030. Anybody who didnt realize, a lot of republicans out there anybody who didnt realize the latino vote was important before november 6th, probably knows by now. Although i think its true, what andrew said. Many of white house knew it would be important didnt really know how important and how significant and how stunning in effect it would be. No matter what the numbers were, how it would make an impression on the public and the Political Class this time. Certainly when we planned this event, as andrew said, we had no idea how much attention the issue would get in the days after the election, and i think we thought we would come on kind of a blank slate and talk about how many people voted where and we would kind of say its going to be important Going Forward. Obviously our job is harder now because you have already read those stories in a way that gives us and our panelists room to dig a little deeper, to look into the future, to think about significance and to talk about choices that lie ahead that we might not have done if the issue hadnt gotten so much attention in the last couple of weeks. So, the morning is divided into two sessions. The first is a conversation about arizona, narrowly focused on arizona. What exactly happened in arizona. And that needs a. Built of an explanation or disclaimer. Arizona was a little bit of an anomaly this time. Latinos made up 18 of the people who voted in arizona, so one of the states with the biggest latino vote, but obama didnt carry the state. In fact, romney won big. The latino Democratic Senate candidate, richard carmona, didnt win. And sheriff joe arpaio, surge of immigrants, legal and illegal, did win reelection comfortably. So not exactly what you expect with the latino vote, didnt translate into votes. We think theres a lot to be said about arizona and i wont steal the fire of the people who are going to say it. We obviously are looking at it in particular because of the asu connection but theres a lot to learn. Its a very interesting microcosm. So the first panel is about arizona with that kind of just to be aware of that disclaimer, somebody not saying arizona is typical. The second section will zoom out, pull back from arizona and look at the big picture, the scope and significance of the latino vote nationally. And ill say more about that when the time comes. But for now, i want to thank you all for being here and lets get going. Im going to hand the stage over to steven dinan, who is going to conduct the conversation about arizona with rudolpho espino, an associate professor in the school of politics alta at asu. So the. Thank you. So, good to have you here. Im stephen dinan, politics editor at the washington times. I believe what if she said. You can learn a lot about in the National Stage from immigration conversations and the latino voter in particular, from what went on in arizona, particularly the counterfactual explosion of the limits of test the limits of what we can learn about latino voters and their effect on electoral politics and on policy. So, i guess id like to start with just sort of a basic question. If somebody were to ask you what a the white voter is, i would have no clue how to actually answer that question. So, lets start with the very tough one, which is what is the latino voter . What is a latino voter, in particular, what is the latino voter in arizona . Who is he or she . How much of the electorate, how much of the population, the citizenry, who is that person . Okay. As many in the audience already know, the latino population in the its is very diverse. Various origin, Mexican American primarily, also cubans and Puerto Ricans. In america the latino population is primarily mexican origin. But one thing that is unique about the latino population in arizona, a lot of them are recent arrivals. Not necessarily foreignborn but have might grated from, say, california, texas, new mexico, because of Job Opportunities in arizona over the last decade or so. But thats not unlike perhaps the white population, too. Its very hard to find native arizonans. So, a lot of the people there are transplants from elsewhere and i think that explains a lot as to why the latino voters are still the Sleeping Giant in arizona. We saw them surge in new mexico and of course colorado and nevada, but in arizona theyre still asleep some people ask why. I think in part its because they have not established rooting, the roots in the Community Like in, say, california or texas. Go into the numbers a little bit. What percentage of the population we heard the percentage of electorate. Give us a sense of the percentage of the population, what they growth rate, expansion. In arizona, approximately onethird of the population are hispanic background. But when we take into consideration the qualifications to vote, the voting age population, only have 25 eligible to vote in terms of being over 18. But of that population, onethird are disqualified from participating because of their citizenship status. So that whittles the numbers down dramatically so you really only have 15 of the electorate being registered of registered voters being hispanic. What are the projections for, say, the next two decades or so . Well they double . What are they going to do . Yes, demographic trends in arizona suggest that latino populations will theyll be a much large share of the electorate in elections to come. But one thing thats important to keep in mine in arizona is not just what the latino population is like but who is the white population in arizona . The white population in arizona is a much older population than, lets say, white populations in other states you. Have a lot of snow birds, retirees coming there. So one thing you have to take into account is the electoral population is aging, you have an older white population not replacing itself and is dying off. So that replacement of latinos into the electorate will, i thinkprobably happen a lot fastener arizona than we have seen in other states. Lets get into who the what the latino voter in arizona cares about. I guess, give me a sense for we heard from andrew theres been this latino voters theres definitely at lot of nuance. What are the issues for arizonans and do we believe what they tell pollsters . I guess deal with both of those. Theres question about polling and particularly among latino voters in particular. With respect to latter question i refer to any members of the audience that want to get good insight into the mind of latino voters, i refer them to latino vision. Com, that does polling of la latinos in arizona and a lot of the numbers come from there now, with respect to the concerns of latino voters. Latino voteres are not unlike other vetters in the country. Over the last couple years one of their primary concerns has been the state of the economy. Of course, their position on how to fix the economy is different, and its along partisan lines but choice related is Immigration Reform and in arizona latino voters show more concern over Immigration Reform than, say, latinos in other states, in part because of what has been happening in arizona. Arizona is famous for or infamous for the passage of sb1070 and that has remain passed in the spring of 2010 but the drum beet of sb1070 remained in the news over the last couple years and was helped with the recent Supreme Court ruling and latino activists on the ground, speaking to get latino voters registered and turned out to vote and they used the issue of sb1070 as a galvanizing lightning rod to get them mobilized. I think the we were talking earlier about the comparisons of polling from a number of states. Latino polling looked a was it preelex polling . Looked at a number of states and arizona and North Carolina both were the ones that had that distinction, i guess, of immigration versus the economy and whatnot. Do you draw any significance from that versus the other states they looked at . I think that presents an opportunity. As tamar mentioned there was expectations on latino votersor, gore going to get a latino elected to u. S. Senate from arizona and perhaps arpaio will be gone now. That did not transpire but you look at the coaches latino voters in arizona, and theyre split 5050, 47 , 48 , are saying the economy is important. 47 saying Immigration Reform is important. Thats at the forefront and that is going to remain up there because the latino activists on the ground registering latino voters are still going out there and using that as a talking point to get them out to the polls. Ive been dancing around this question. Why did arpaio win . What happened in arizona this year . What was the difference between arizona and other places where we believe latino voters and particular issues they promoted carried elections. When it comes down to it, why did arpaio win . It was money. He raised approximately 8 million for his campaign. For a county sheriff seat. Blew all records out of the water. Do we know what the previous record was . Maybe two million. Im not sure, but it was hand over fist money and he used almost all of it for campaign ads, and now phoenix is not an expensive media market. His opponent, democratic opponent, had about six to eight hundred thousand dollars on hand. So it was unfair for the democratic candidate. The other thing that signals the latino vote did make a difference was how arpaio changed his campaign ads. In the past he talked. How he was tough on the border, tough on immigration. Hi added shifted tone, what political scientists refer to as rather than issue oriented it became warm, fuzzy biographical ads. They featured him with his wife, who we have never seen before really, talking about his 50 years in law enforcement, how he is a grandmother, grandfather, cares about children. Who doesnt care about children. So very much shifted the tone. I think the recall of russell pierce sent a signal to a lot of elect republicans in arizona that if you continue to march down the road of scapegoating latino voters they can turn out and vote you out of office, as we saw of russell pierce who. Who was the author of sb10700 . Do we know anything about the votes in the that election. What im hearing from people who are active in mobilizing latino voters, they did break records in terms of getting more latinos registered. There was a 40 increase in the number of latinos registered from 2008 to 2012. And, of course, that results in more latinos turning out for the vote. So one this thing these activists did was educate latino voters, educationing them on how to vote and how to vote in arizona because we have a mailin ballot process and a voter i. D. Law in place so a lot of organizations were educate latino voters, it may be easier to sign up on the mailin list so you dont have to deal with identification if you dont have the proper i. D. And choose to vote in person. I think that explains why there were so many mailin ballots cast in the general election in 2012. I want to get back to the senate race but stick with the voter i. D. Requirements. Talk about the restrictions, what exactly the requirements are, and in particular theres been this discussion at the National Level about republicans are using voter i. D. Requirements to tamp down on voter turnout from certain areas. What are the concerns . How is the latino populationlatino voters in arizona how are they dealing with that . Are there problems . Is there going to be a battle over trying to tight the voter i. D. Requirements . Is it a photo i. D. Requirement . Really quickly. Arizonas voter i. D. Law was put voted on by the citizens of arizona back in 2004 with proposition 200. It was challenged in federal court. And it was shot down at the district level and it was going to be put on appeal but the Marion County indiana case rendered that moot. The decision in which indiana has a tougher i. D. Voter law than arizona so challenge to arizonas voter i. D. Law were dropped. Basically requirements you have to have a picture i. D. Not a state drivers license, for instance, and the important thing is that your address youre registered to vote at has to match the address on the identification. So this hits populations that are more mobile than others, younger than others, and thats latino voters. Is there a sense that this was targeted towards latino vote or a sense it will be used to try to tamp down on latino votes in the future . Well, the initial challenge is you had challenges being filed by the Navajo Nation bought is faked them. They actually settled out of court with the state of arizona and there were exceptions given to them about Navajo Nation i. D. They could use to vote but latino voters the lawsuit was filed and the evidence they were bringing to bear was showing there was a dropoff in latino Voter Registration following the implementation of prop 200. But as far as i see it, prop 200 that voter i. D. Law in arizona is the law. Its not going to be challenged. Its going to stay in place. I thought we would get back to the senate race you hat had are bioand ina latino democratic candidate lose. What happened in the senate someplace you had a longtime incumbent who has a track record, an interesting track record, on the immigration issue. Talk about the latinos voter and the way immigration played in that race. Yes. Well, to answer your question, why did flake win and carmelo lose . Name wreck nation, flake is a wellknown name in arizona politics. Serving since over a decade and the family name goes way back. He is his heritage goes back to early pioneers and thats another factor to keep in mind. The level of enthusiasm among mormon voters to vote for those two candidates and that was a significant hurdle for carmona and obamas campaign to overcome in arizona. Lets delve into that briefly. Seems like there is seems likelike the potential path for victory for republicans doesnt necessarily involve latino voters if they can find other ways to tap in and expand their wases. As you just said, such as the mormon vote. Do republicans try to reach out to latino voters and how viable is that there is a viable strategy for them to find voters elsewhere and ignore latino votes . I dont think they can continue to ignore the latino vote, and now that jeff flake is in office it will be interesting to watch his whether he comes back home to his original pakistan being an advocate for Immigration Reform. When he made the run for the u. S. Senate seat, given the politics of arizona, he shifted back and became a border hawk, much like john mccain in 2008, build that dang fence first now. He is safely elected he might be one of the key runs that brings up and pushes for comprehensive Immigration Reform in the u. S. Senate, and one interesting survey note that came from the latino decisions poll on election eve, was a question that asked latino voters in arizona about their willingness to vote for republicans if they took a leadership rope on comprehensive Immigration Reform, and 39 of latino voters said if the republican part ensured passage of Immigration Reform that would make them more likely to vote for the Republican Party, and that tells republicans in arizona that, rather than pursuing a strategy that perhaps arpaio and Russell Pearce chose to do in the pass anyway want to rethink their strategy in arizona. Which leads abuse the issue of the over the last generation has steadily moved from a democratic voting bloc to the republican stronghold. We he seen the emergence of something similar, latino voters, in colorado, nevada, and new mexico. How did arizona fit into that . Arizona it not yet there talk about why arizona is not at the level of those, i would put nevada and colorado as swing states and new mexico might be more solidly democratic at this point. Where is arizona along that trajectory and is it will we eventually see the emergence of the solid latino swing bloc, a solid latino democratic bloc or main arizona on one side and others on the other. Im always hesitant to look into a crystal ball and make predicts about politics. Theres so many whatifs. Assuming nothing changes in arkansas arizona in arizona, arizona will become a swing state or blue state like new mexico. Colorado and never das are now swing states because of the latino vote. The reason arizona is not there yet is because the white vote theres much more conservative than the white vote in nevada and colorado. But the white vote is dying off and being replaced by younger latino votes. So pure demographics. That will make the latino vote that much more important. Absolutely. That does not mean that republicans dont stand a chance in arizona. Latinos are willing to vote for republicans and they have indicated theyre willing to do so if republicans take up the cause of something that is near and dear to latino voters and that Immigration Reform. Lets talk about this specifically. What are latino voters looking for specifically on Immigration Reform in arizona . Is pathway to citizenship i went back and was looking over these numbers and the word pathway to citizenship were almost nonexistent in my profession in articles. People never talked about pathway to citizen shipment it was the difference between amnesty and enforce. Back ten years ago. Its shocking how Little People actually did it. Its a sixfold increase in the use of the words pathway to citizenship since 2004 through 2008. If patway to citizenship the be all and end awe all for those voter 0 or there is something less than that they would settle for . Are they looking fog a goodfaith evident or accept legal status short of pathway to citizenship . What are the looking for . Well, pathway to citizenship or amnesty as we might have called it in 1986, with Ronald Reagan, is one of the key thing that latinos are looking for with comprehensive Immigration Reform and one of the reasons why you might ask, well, latino voters are u. S. Citizens so why care battle pathway to citizenship. Theyre already citizen is. Latino voters are connected to individuals who do not have the that citizenship. Whether theyre here legally or illegally. The survey data compiled by latino decisions found that of latino voters, approximately twothirds indicated they know someone that is here with an undocumented status, and furthermore, theres classifications of undocumented status and one we hear a lot about is the dream act students. The question here which is the republican trap, the primary general election trap that republicans seem to experience. The what is the situation without an arizona . You mentioned conservative drn theres the conservative white population there. Go into what the Republican Space is trying to run in a primary versus a general election or tow a harder line on immigration orla tee know voters overall . Yeah. One thing thats well, i get a lot of questions from people olds of arizona, oftentimes evening the first question which is, what is wrong with arizona . [laughter] one thing i tell individuals is we have a unique election system, specifically with clean elections. You can get matching dollar for dollar contributions from the state of arizona should you go up against a wellfinanced candidate, primary or general election, and this has dramatically shifted the type of republicans now elected, Arizona State legislature. Now with clean election, rather than having to appeal to certain bases, say the chamber of commerce in arizona, what i call the country club republican, go to the state of arizona, be an ideolog, gets matching dollar per dollar, and your moderate, business oriented republican pushed out over the last 1015 years because of those clean election candidates that come with a specific issue or ideology or agenda. That explains a lot like the rise of russ of piers recall, but that happened at the primary level, the primary election grassroot activists in the backyard and the recruitment of a more moderate republican to knock off russell, and it was an interesting race because that shows the divide within the Mormon Community. Russell, a mormon, lewis, a mormon, but one adopting what salt lake has a moderate decision on immigration than does, say, russell piers. The church was instrumental passing in what was then called the utah compact, a decree by the Mormon Church and organizations in utah saying were treating all individuals with dignity and respect and not demonize them essentially. Thats come to arizona, specifically the Mormon Community because the Mormon Church is very concerned about its outreach to la latino voter. One the biggest growth groups are latinos. Raptive of the mormon representative of the Mormon Church, doing what hes done, missionaries find doors slammed in their faces. I think thats something that Going Forward that the role of the Mormon Church in arizona in pushes for the republican elected officials, moderate position is something i expect to see happening more and more. I guess, do we have a microphone . I guess is there a question for professor from the audience . One of these theres been this gets into the National Discussion as well, but the big debate among republicans right now is latino voters a conservative power house waiting to be passed if republicans get past the immigration issue, or if you look beyond the demographic numbers in terms of the socioeconomic characteristics, you know, some single parent households use of welfare program, you know, low income tax burden, they look a lot like democratic voters. Whats the situation in arizona . Are those voters waiting to become are they conservative voters waiting to be tapped by republicans or democratic voters or swing voters . I mean, at the moment, they are hard core democratic voters, but, you know, they are positioned their loyalty to the Democratic Party is not rock hard. We saw this in 2010, following, you know, the long drawn out processes, the health care reform, the congressional calendar compressed, democrats in congress, and the white house said what are we going to take up, the remaining six months we have, comprehensive Immigration Reform or Climate Change legislation . They chose the path of the claimant change legislation, capandtrade act, to deal with global warming. This upset the voters, but especially in arizona, and the latino voters, across the country, not in arizona, chose to stay home. Not that they didnt vote for the Republican Party, but they did not see their loyalty to the Democratic Party, not that strong in 2010 because of democrats to signal they valued Immigration Reform as something important. Talk real briefly about the actual Leadership Organization within within arizona, who is going after the voters . Who is recruiting them . Whats the relationship between them . Are the latino voters polling the organizations . How does that work . Yeah. I think theres been a change in the organizations and partly the organizational structure, but, also, the strategy in going autoto latino communities ready to go out and mobilize. I describe it as activists from the 1960s, a lot of the people with the long hair, the bandannas, and, you know, marching their civil right songs, and it just didnt work; right . Latino voters did not connect to that message. Now you have latino organizations m one of the biggest ones in arizona lately is a group calledded promise arizona, led by patrick falcone, and they are not harking back to the 1960s, but talking about 2012 and what voters need now, which is Immigration Reform. Not just that, not organizations like promise arizona, but theres dream act individuals that are not allowed to vote in election. They are going out and registering latino voters, and former students that are impacted by this, and what they say to me is that while they cannot vote, they make sure they get people there that nay know can vote for them. Thats dramatic change from what we saw in 2008 and 2004. Going ahead an doing pairing, saying, look, you vote because i cant vote, you individually. Very interesting situation. Yes. I see we got some, so that will be all. Thank you very much, professor. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] the concept is not all that high, but the high concept is well hear different points of view. We have [inaudible] we have republicans personally involved in the campaign, a democrat very personally involved in the campaign, and a nonpartisan analyst looking at this subject for many years. They are going to look at two really big questions, all the questions they look at that fall into two buckets. One is what happened this fall . What happened on election day, the runup to elections, who voted where . Well try to get you detail on that, sort of dig deeper under the myth of, you know, the giant not the myth, but the Big National Story of the giant that determined the election. Number two, they are going to look from their different points of view at the future because the future really is the game here. Theres no doubt that were at the very beginning changes thats going to transform american politics. To unpack that a little bit, i want to go deeper into a vote thats going to double in size over the next 20 years. Thats a pugh number, and if you want to look it up, issued on november 14th, and, of course, theres a number of different assumptions that go into a projection like that, some variables, so, number one, the authors authors assumed that this years success, this flexing of muscle and sense of power will encourage more latinos to recommendation steer and volt, and although the vote was important this time, voting rates are still very, very low, way beneath Nonhispanic White and latino voters. Well be told more about that. This years successful encouragement more political civic activity. Paper also assumed that congress will create a path to citizenship for the millions of unauthorized immigrants already in the country, and the third assumption was that the 5 million latinos living in the u. S. Who are already eligible to become citizens, but have not done it yet, green card holders who could become citizens, but have not naturalized, that they will. All those three assumptions together made up only a small piece of the doubling. The real motor of the doubling, the real driver of change is age, or, actually, more accurately, youth, and to understand this, you have to think about two numbers. This year, 12. 5 million latinos votes, 12. 5. The other number, there are 18 million latinos in america who are under 18 years old, 12. 5 and 18. 93 of them are u. S. Born citizens. All they have to do is grow up. Like, nothing has to happen. All they have to do, and i guarantee you they will, is grow up. [laughter] welcome to the future. A vote thats likely to double by 2030. That opens a whole lot of a whole box not pandoras box because its a good box, but interesting questions for the panel. How do they use the newfound growing power . What does the latino vote mean for both parties . What are latino voters in the future going to look like . After all, the generation youre seeing now is really a transitional generation; right . Immigrants and the children of immigrants. They are on their way to becoming americans. In a generation, la tee know votes may look different, may remember what happened now, and well talk about that, but they will look different, and, you know, a bigger question, and im taxing the crystal ball powers of the panel, but what does the vote mean for the issues at the center of american politics . You know, could that change . Will that change . Theres a lot of really interesting questions. We will do future gazing here, but i want to dig in to what we know and what we can say on the big questions. Ill introduce the panelists as i ask them their first question rather than just a boring repetition of your qualifications. Dan, what did you do on your autumn vacation . You came out of a lot of big jobs in the Obama Administration, but you were, most recently, one of president obamas principle surrogates in the Spanish Language media. What did the election look like from your point of view . What can you tell us that we didnt read in the newspaper . You know, from your personal experience, tell us what happened. I think the way to understand, kind of my role of the surrogate this year, is in juxtaposition to four years ago. Basically played the same role in 2008 and 2012. The fascinating thing for me as i emergedded from government and went back out into Campaign Land was the proliferation of spanish Media Outlets. In 2008, Spanish Language media essentially met national Spanish Language media, which was two. Local media in south florida, and thats pretty much the sum total of what of the outlets i hit over and over and over and over again four years. This time, i ended up doing media in, again, the national, mundo, and cspan espanol has a bigger foot print, and in ten states, i did radio in iowa and ohio, in North Carolina, in virginia. Obviously, in florida, but in nevada and colorado and new mexico and arizona, and its that deepening and that proliferation of Spanish Language Media Outlets that i think tells you a lot about what to go into later, about the proliferation of the latino vote. Obviously, this is a segment of the latino vote. I think that difference between 2008 and 12 gets into structural difference campaign, obama in america versus 12, but we can get into that later. Talk more about that. You talk about how it changed the media, and rudy talked about arizona, changing the organization style, so how is it changing the substance . Is the way democrats talking to latinos, is that changing . Absolutely. I think a couple things happen. We started much, much earlier this time. I think for all of those that word of hope for republicans, not something i often do, lets remember back to the spring of 2008, there was a candidate in that election who had a latino problem. That latinos were not going to vote for, quite famously said by a wellrecognized expert on the latino vote, and that candidate was barack obama. He got a later start engaging with the latino electric than senator clinton. This time, and it was true. We started later in 2008 for a variety reasons than had the clinton campaign. This time, you have a latino vote director in chicago . A year out. You. You had many more people in chicago dedicated to targeting latino voters, finding them, and communicating with them in the whole speck rum of ways you heard about spectrum of ways you heard about the Obama Campaign communicating with folks with new technologies. Theres a lot of segmentation. One of the reasons i did interviews in all the places i talk about is i speak a neutral spanish. You cant place my spanish geographically for a corky set of reasons allowing them to use me in a multitude of places. Theres one place where i did one interview all fall, which was orlando. That has a large Spanish Language media. Its a puerto rican area, and you dont need someone with my skill set speaking to Puerto Ricans, but fellow port Puerto Ricans. Thats true in other parts of the country. Theres a much more deliberate effort this time to ensure in ads and media outreach, and just people to people outreach that you speak to and through folks through the same subgroup. And different issues as well . Yeah. I mean, is information coming in a different way . Issues, this time, at least in my experience, born out in the National Exit polls, the issues latinos cared about this time were the issues, the mainstream, if you will, the national issues, the economy with 60 , health care, overperformed in the issue that latinos cared about more in the National Exit polls than did the rest of the elector rat, the budget deficit, and then Foreign Policy. The four top issues were the same in a slightly different order than they were for the rest of the electorat. The budget deficit and health care were in opposite places for the electorat. This time, there was more of those domestic issues, domestic issues than four years ago in my experience. Again, part of that is where the media was focused and the nature of the Spanish Speaking community in south florida, particularly Foreign Policy driven, but this time, even that community wasnt, and to the extent i talked about Foreign Policy, i was talking about benghazi rather than cuba. Last question. You didnt use the word immigration. It was not in there . It came up a little bit. A little bit. It came up in the following way. People wanted to know that the president cared about the issue. They wanted to understand why it hasnt be achieved in his first term. It served, almost in these interviews the same function i view it serving generally that of the threshold issue, and by that i mean, if youre okay on immigration, they listen to the rest of it. If youre not okay on immigration, they are not going to listen to the rest of it, which, i think, is part of, i dont think its fully the problem republicans have, but its part of it, receivers a little, again, in these antedoal evidence derived from interviews that it was an issue, but it was almost a youre okay on this issue, lets talk about the rest of it. Fascinating, great. Same question. What did you do on your autumn vacation . Now, i know you organized an independent expenditure, Spanish Language Tv Ad Campaign in nevada. Explain to us what that means, how does that work, what was the ads like . What did the election look like from your point of view, and if you will, in your first intervention, stick to your personal experience, and then well broaden it out. Right, well, the great thing about doing independent expenditure is that its independent. You know, coordinate with the Republican Party or the Romney Campaign. Im not here to defend, thank goodness, the Romney Campaign, but we realized that we needed to do something different, that the latino vote was decisive, and with the limited funding we had, lets go to a state where we can make a difference, a state thats manageable, and show that, yes, indeed, we recognize that the economys the number one issue on unemployment, but that we cant just talk about it through ads. We have to actually go to the Community Community and go one vote go after every single voter, something that i think the Obama Campaign did very well. Thats what we did in nevada. Again, with very limited funding. There was a very organized grassroots effort. Because we knew we had limited funding, we couldnt reach engage absolutely every single latino voter in nevada. The latino vote went from 15 to 18 dramatically, and so we worked with evangelical churches recognizes thats a sector of the latinos where conservatives are very strong, and so we did community meetings, town halls. We had town halls of over 200 people. Imagine, conservatives doing a town hall with over 200 people. Nobody read about this or heard about this because it was not happening. It was just happening in nevada. We run ads. The issue set was that we believe with latinos we needed a combinedded message. We couldnt win just by talking out on unemployment and the economy. Again, talking about unemployment and the economy in a grassroots way in a popular way, making the argument that the policies of the president are not good for the Latino Community orla teen know businesses, but then we understood that immigration was a very important issue, and somehow we needed to neutralize it, so we talked about obamas failed promise on immigration, promised immigration, didnt deliver with a Democratic House and senate, and we brought up another issue, which was deportations, it was not talked about at all in the campaign, where the president was attacking mitt romney for saying that the arrest law was a model for the nation. He didnt exactly say that, but regardless, the Romney Campaign did not explain the governors position very well, but attacking arizona in the first term, president implemented an enforcement policy thats much more punitive than the arizona law, reporting more than any other president in history. We ran ads in Spanish Language about this. We toppedded it off talking about social issues, the president s position on life, marriage, saying the president is too radical for latinos understanding theres a big chunk of the latino electorat that is socially conservative and votes exclusively for those issues. Finally, there was a strong get out the vote act for persuasive calls. It was an overall effort, just to include the only state where romney did better than mccain, this time around, was nevada. Okay. By about four points. Thats nothing; right . But is it a coincidence . Perhaps, but i think it shows that if you invest in an effort and have a broad message, you can win. We were out spend. Governor romney made very unfortunate statements during the campaign about immigration. He was handicap from the beginning. I think he was mortally wounded from the beginning, but, however, i agree with dan in the sense that immigration was key. Thats interesting. The symmetry here is fascinating. Democrats dont have to talk about it because its a threshold issue and they passed that, but for republicans who are not over the threshold, and we have to talk about it all the time. Thats a fascinating symmetry. What about pressing you a little on the social issues, the polling mixed on that. Said for years its the reagan line on republicans, they dont know it, but the polling is mixed. Well, first of all, we understand as we went in that this is important, that latinos are not a mop littic monolithic community. You come here from cuba, guatemala, mexico youre not latino. You come here, and all the sudden, you are latino. Whats that mean . We are seeing an incredible change in the Latino Community. The Latino Community 30 years ago is different from today. 40 of latinos today are foreignborn, generally. The rest, many, perhaps most, are the children of immigrants so with the electoral vote, were seeing that. Multigenerational latinos from the southwest, Puerto Ricans in new york and chicago, very liberal, seeing the rise of foreign born latinos and their children who tend to be more conservative. On abortion, the majority believe it should be legal compared to 40 of the rest of the population. Marriage, thats shifting. It is certainly shifted in the past five years, but theres still a good chunk of that electorat thats conservative when it comes to marriage. The question is with social issues is not are you going to scare voters away . You believe that those who vote exclusively for those are mostly religious people who are going to vote for the candidate who has the traditional positions. Nobodys not going to go against the cap date because of the position of life and marriage within the community. Right. Its scary for me because its a place were not looking to the future. As a republicans, were counting on the older ones, not how the changes. Youll be surprised. With the children of foreign born latinos, theres still much more conservative than the rest of the population. Okay. Well come back to this. Well come back to this. Reporto, your turn. Youre the analyst. Im sure youre partisan deep down, but youre here in the nonpartisan guy. Youre in the school for policy planning and development, also directer of the Thomas Rivera institute. Do a don king thing for us here. Where like we dont have that map with the counties, but i got a spread sheet. Good. Everybody nationally has been talking about this in a very undifferentiated way talking about states, the image of big numbers. I think its not quite like that; right . Its a significant phenomena, still talking about small numbers and relatively contained so, i mean, just setting it up for folks, i mean, we know that in some of the swing states, latino votes didnt matter, didnt make the margin at all, ohio, virginia, new hampshire, latinos had nothing to do with it. In new mexico, colorado, florida, could have made the difference. What was involvedded in that . Don king, what can you tell us . All right. Well, i think people already spoke about the importance of disag at a timing cult it a lot of different ways. One of in trying to understand what happened november, one, a still thought in my mind is trying to understand how latino voters in different part of the country function as part of a larger the larger coalition that legislated obama. The focus has been, traditionally, very much, and throughout this conversation, as if these were actors operating in a void. Its all about their characteristics, their identity, their views, when, in fact, we know they that politics, especially, in this goaround, the nature of Coalition Building in the end turned out to be one of the really critical factors, maybe the historical, the last seen historical change in electoral politics in the last two cycles is the effect of the Coalition Building, a oneoff, or not, thats another question. If you think about latinos that way, as an element of the bamako ligs more so than just this isolated, Sleeping Giant, really up fortunate metaphor that ive been dealing with since i first started writing about this too many years ago, you, one of the pattern that developments is the extent to which you see, with preliminary data still, that latino voters in different parts of the country really did respond to circumstances, and that in the key the key states where they made a difference, the swing states that didnt matter in the end, colorado, nevada, florida in particular, new mexicos an outliar because of its own demographics, but in those states, theres very interesting places to look and see what you got so and to contrast to places like texas where a lot of the future plays out okay, take us into that. Okay. Take a place like clark county nevada suburbs of las las vegas. Its a suburb of los angeles. [laughter] in more ways than one. Spoken like a true angelino, okay. Politically, it is what do you mean . The internal the migration from within the United States to las vegas over the last ten years has been driven overwhelmingly by californians, and mostly to clark county, and as a result, you now have the state where one urban area has got the biggest concentration of votes, and the people in that urban area are distinctly different than the rest of the state, latinos included. They have, to a certain extent, cultureated. They have their own life there, the Political Party has its own life there. The Republican Party there developed a tea party alternative that went way off the charts. Its an example of there denver as well, democratic coalitions, somewhat different roots, different flavor, different opposition, but in arap arapaho county, you so them in a working coalition. Whats that mean in terms of numbers . Help us understand that. Well, in so in denver, latinos make up 30 of the population . 30 . 30, 30 yeah, 30 of the eligibles in denver are latinos, in denver county. Obama carried it by 74 . Clark county, latinos make up 20 of the electorat, and obama carrieded it. Part of democratic not singularly making a decision on their own, but operating within a coalition. That has real implications in the way you read the numbers, and more importantly in the second part of the conversation, how you imagine them as political actors Going Forward, but i would contrast this, for example, to bear county stock exchange, san antonio, home of the castro brothers, the future of the Democratic Party the good castro brothers [laughter] right, our castro brothers. They are of san antonio. [laughter] 50 of the eligibles are latino; right . Obama carried that by 51. 6 of the vote. This takes the numbers take digging, but its clear that there you had in bear county, where this new coalition is born, this place where texas is going to turn purple and bear county is the new boston, its ask yourself about the vote. Its a very middle class, very middle of the road mexicanamerican vote, and in that context, a weaker coalition and a larger messaging from the Republican Party, you got what appeared to be an even split. In other words, theres prelevel analysis to really figure that out. I mean, actually, theres a if you were not a listener, what we spend here is the places in america where its 20 , 30 , 50 latino vow; right . Thats the first right, but that does not predict what the outcomes going to be. Thats right. Thats what im saying. You can look at the hispanic share doesnt tell you how it turns out. What was the pardon me . Just among latinos, percentage we dont know we dont know yet. We dont know yet. Oh, wow. We have to look for it. Right. Maims miami daid is home of the mixed up political coalition, they find common cause with africanamericans, haitians, and big lgtb community, arts community, internal migrants from new york where the same way clark county has been you got a pop a core of white democratic activists bringing politics in nevada, and in miami, you got a core of new york, North Eastern democratic activists who brought those politics to south florida, and within that, you are now starting to see very effective latino players. Democratic congressmen want to race against highly flawed republican candidate, but still won, who formed coalitions that went from miami beach through working class neighborhoods all the way down to the keys with very different working class whites, gays, you know, snow birders, and then a big chunk of cuban and noncuban latinos. You ask this, in the second part of it, you start thinking about identify politics in a different way. If you were thinking of a group that has flexed its muscles by virtue of a coalition opposed to flexing its muscles as being a plaintiff, as having been alone, as being outside saying these are my claims, pressing these claims alone opposed to saying i achieved a level of success by being part of a much larger political establishment. Interesting. Dan, youre nodding away. Come in. I agree, but you have to see it and understand the latino vote as part of, and, certainly, chicago viewed la tee knows, and the president from, you know, multiple years back, saw them as part of the coalition, the political coalition, and also, a governing coalition, and a historical evidence for what was talked about in terms of who engages which community and voting behavior later. Cubans interesting example. Two big pockets of cubanamericans in the United States. One in south florida, which, until this election, predominantly republican voting phenomena, and those in union city, new jersey, who have, you know, electorally expressed themselves via the Democratic Party. That goes to who engaged them when they showed up, and cultivated their political activity and included them in the political activity that was going on at that time no those communities. Theres a lot to be said in in cycle and Going Forward as part of a broader koa litionz, and one coalition, and one that i heard time and time again, and republicans love to go back to the reagan quote. The National Polls this year should not give you comfort. Its, you know, twothirds support for abortion, and 60 support for the Affordable Care act. The about 59 for samesex marriage. This is among hispanics in the National Exit poll. That doesnt sound socially conservative to me. No. And so also, the question, it becomes, and this is more for the people who im not a dangerous thing to say, but the hispanic millennials more like millennials or hispanic millennials like traditional hispanics exist . Save that thought. Dig peeper, and sorry to put you on the spot on this. , robert, interested on your take too. Can republicans appeal to hispanics, take the immigration thing off the table, can we appeal . Quickly respond to dan. Look, i think on social issues and latinos, we have to do research. Theres data, the exit polling, recent polling from illinois showing that latinos there are the majority are for marriage and for abortion being illegal. The few hispanic numbers on abortion contradict that exit polling. I never said we were going to win the latino vote exclusively with social issues. That had to be part of the mix. My point is that we going to robertos point, absolutely. I think that the Obama Campaign did a marvelous job in building coalitions in really spending money outspending us on outreach incredibly. In some places, absolutely no outreach from the republican side, but it seems to me that at the end, its not only about coalitions or about being in the community. Yes, we have to be there early we have to spend money in grassroots efforts, key to compete, but in the end, with latinos, ideas matter. I go back to immigration. Republicans bought this idea that fed to them by republican strategists within the beltway, people say you know about, heard about. Mr. Rove, and i say this because they say, oh, go back to carl rrk oves con cement of the big tent. No, that is big, but its empty. Its just to talk about the economy. Talk about the economy. Talk about the economy. Dont talk immigration. We went to nevada. People said dont talk about social issues or immigration. I said im talking about social issues and immigration. We need the problem was they thought that the strategists told the republican candidates to win the primary, you have to move to the extreme right on immigration. You have to sound like a restrictionist. That is wrong. Every study shows, american people, republicans and democrats, support Immigration Reform. He could have had a more constructive message from the beginning of the primary, and if he would have been more competitive in the general election. Now, im not saying that if you have a good position on immigration you win enough support from latino voters, but at least they will not tune you out. We were tuned out completely. They were not listening to us, and, again, i go back to the media, part of election night, and it sounded like were covering the president ial election and immigration because of the emphasis on immigration. It was about immigration. It can go a long way, ideas, ideas, matter. To finish, it i think that also the last few Hispanic Center polls on party aquilluation is very revealing. I think that shows up to 51 of latinos today, in terms of party affiliation, identify as independent. You know, i would not reach the conclusion that republicans have lost the latino vote forever, and democrats, you know, winning over the latino vote. Latinos, in the end, didnt vote for obama because they were enamored with barack obama. Thats what the campaign thinks, but thats not what happened. We had a terrible candidate, lousy campaign, and terrible positions on immigration. Going down the road, starting with roberto, can we assuming they wipe the slate clean on immigration next week, but its a long hard road to solve it, how long is the memory of the memory going to last . So lopsidedly democratic, they are not remming the 1960s and 1970s, but in some levels they are. I want to hear you talk about whats the half lifer . You know, getting it right now, how do you see that playing out . Well, you know, judging from we dont have a lot of past performances to base it on other than one dramatic one, which is california where the Republican Party succeeded in the mid1990s as painting itself as the party taking a hard line on immigration, and it was one that was exuberant about red rhetoric in images, quite graphically they keep coming. Right. They keep coming. That was the pete wilsons ode in 1994, his successful reelection, much harsher rhetoric than weve seen, more memorable on youtube, but had a really Lasting Impact m one of the dynamics of the immigration issue that i think seems quite clear is that it works very well, always has, as a negative mobilization issue. You can mobilize people over to anger on immigration on both sides of the issue. It works both ways. It has a much longer and effective history of animating Political Behavior towards restriction than it does towards generous policies, but you can as republicans have shown in the last 10 15 years consistently, you can really get you can create grudges among people by demonizing them through immigration so lounge does it last . How deeply was is the wound here . You know, its really hard to say. You look at the president ial level, in particular, we the republican share bounced around. You know, to some extent, i mean, it. George hw bush got up to the mid30s. Ronald reagan brought it up to the mid30s. Bob dole, in the middest of the sentiment in fact 1990s took it back below 30. George w. Bush got it back up to the imagine irk 40 that carl thought was the jumping off point for neutralizing the questions. You know, were talking about a fairly small margin of voters here so if you, you know, a 10 shift in latino vote moving a milliontwo, a millionthree, you know, what the turnout is is we dont really know yet. It will take awhile. The exit poll numbers lose credibility as time goes on, but i dont want to get too geeky with you, but say, you know, shift of a million voters, million and a half voters, and romney would have been in the mid30s in terms of the share saying that was a good night for republicans. Now, what would have happened in terms of actual states . I know you were going to ask. [laughter] then i want to go down the road. Its interesting because it doesnt it would have if the exit polls were correct, which is insent, shifted 10 of the vote out of obamas column on romneys column, romney would have squeaked florida. Clearly, carried florida, would not necessarily have carried nevada or colorado, but they would have been close. Nevada would have been whisper close, and colorado would have been closer. It would have been close. It was not even close. Its not that would not have been a panacea. You know, a lot of the latino vote is padding states like new york and california. You know, obama had this much touted margin of 4. 5 million votes of latinos; right . 3. 5 million la tee know votes, but 40 of the margin, it sits in new york, california, illinois. Just where he got ridiculous amounts of votes, but it doesnt, you know doesnt matter. You can spend a lot of time and money racking up the votes, and its bragging rights for one night. So then but we did; right . The interesting thing is those are places where its a hypothetical, but the, what a targeted campaign to turn out latinos look like . What would the effect be if pete wilson had not done us the favor in california decades ago . One other thought thats important to this move that moves the conversation forward, briefly, the other part of this narrative of immigration, this election, i think, is really one of the extraordinary achievements of the Obama Campaign was to deflect all blame of what happened on immigration, and make it an issue where republicans are consistently the bad guy. Poor candidate. Forget romney. Leave him out. Romney they put a giant pile of doo doo there for him, and he stepped into it, but they put the doo doo there in a remarkable way. One Key Statistics in this, is since the day barack obama was inaugurated, one in every ten mexicans leaving in the United States has been deported. Yeah. One out of ten. Nobody mentioned that. Yeah, yeah. Other than alfonso in the town hall. Under me, you selfdeport, but the answer was under you they are being deported. Republican congress who appropriate the funds to do that has a lot to do with that, but rather than immigration debate talk about this long term thing yes. In your view, are we scared forever . Can we get over this . This goes to robertos point. Theres a huge brand problem right now among latinos, and its sb1070. Its, you know, simpson runner; right . A lot of it stems from from the immigration issue and how its been handled by the two parties, and i think but in, and this is somewhat dangerous with the word immigration behind me to say, but i think immigration, i think theres an immigration remitted lesson theres a danger of overlearning immigration related lessons for both parties. I think republicans fool themselves if they think they fully solve their problem by now coming to the table on comprehensive Immigration Reform, and i think democrats are fooling ourselves if we think we lost this. The president gets this done, and we block it up for a time in memorial. The result what we saw in 12, obviously, had app immigration overlay, a republican bran, but it was the result of very deliberate corporation of latinos into the governing coalition into the daily life of the Obama Administration sering administration; right . Its little things. Its inviting the anchors on telemundo to the prestate of the union lunch when before it was just the Mainstream Media that got invited. Its that, you know, speaking spanish from the white house podium First Time Ever in a regularly scheduled White House Press briefing. Theres a lot of this, you know, in respect respect. Issues matter tremendously. Respect has to go with the issues. I think its that thats combination. Again, 50 support for the Affordable Care act. A middle class mentality for latinos who appreciate what the president has done and president s priority on the middle class, and opponents elsewhere. That combination is what work and what continues to work. Democrats make a mistake if we go out, blocked this up, this is ours, all we have to do is really nail it down is comprehensive immigration. Not good for latinos either. Last you want is africanamericans taken for granted by one and ignored by the other; right . Thats the last thing. I dont think you can get away with that. Well, lets let me finish two things quickly. The ignoring part of it . I dont think that works anymore. I think americans score the points there with the guy. When we rang the ad just in nevada, i had never seen the Obama Campaign reacting so quickly. I mean, they issueded several statements that, and, again, run in clark county in nevada, got cove coverage from cnn, all the Media Outlets. I said that time, were on to something. Hopefully, the Republican Party, the cop servetive super packs get it. Whats your rediction, how can we get over this . Absolutely. The great thing on latinos is they are very independent minded. I dont know if you can poll this, but they are. This is a community in flux. We have to understand that. Again, i think if we engage them, they respond favorably to the message. This idea and a half he this idea he was the first one to invite many to the white house, you know, i was in the bush administration, and i remember president bush being good with Spanish Language media. I mean, we president bush and in the 2004 campaign was extraordinary in terms of the latino media. Can latinos forget . Absolutely. You mentioned the battle in california, all the few years later, george w. Bush won with 40 44 of the latino vote in 2004. Not in california. Not california, thats right. Not california. Not california. Not california, not new york, thats right, but we were competitive. I dont think latinos have forgotten about that. I think latinos understand that Ronald Reagan was the last one to pass Immigration Reform, understand that george w. Bush worked hard for Immigration Reform, and i think what we alloweds is for a small group within the g. O. P. To hijack this issue and become the vocal voice on immigration. The problem with republicans is the majority remained silent. Remaneed silent. Can we take over . Absolutely. I dont think latinos keep it in their mind. If they have one good in immigration, make a case for why limited government and the free economy is better phenomenon latinos, they support a republican candidate, no problem. Good, dan, take us back, also say what you were going to but go back to the millennial voter looks like. Ill grant you that the bush family has got it right in terms of how to message the latinos; right . You can go to school on ad of jeb bush ran in the reelection campaign. You can go george w. Bush ran an ad that is inconceivable candidate running today where the only flag that the candidate waved during the ad was the mexican flag. Yeah. Right. In his hand, i mean, again, if you just watch the image, looks like he was running for president of the mexico, not United States. Texas. Right, its a different sensibility. [inaudible] again, i think, we, as departments, have to be careful to think this is over with latinos. Its not. I think the playing surface is a beneficial one to the democrats right now, and i think theres plenty but the work needs to continue to solidify that. This is an electorat too diverse. Theres generational change happening in it. You need to stay engaged. So again, you can overlearned the lesson in any given moment politically but again, theyre coming of age aging into the electorate in places like texas is one experience and that the likelihood for the values and voting behavior and when theyre eating into the electorate in south florida its different, yet we have to be very difficult careful to oversimplify this as we do the analysis. Lets talk about this of course. Theres a very good political analyst who isnt much in favor of many circles these past few weeks for his productive skills and for his electoral arithmetic skills on camera but karl rove worked these numbers in 1992, 93. I remember hearing him talk about this stuff in texas and 1980s. The people were talking about but the graphics havent changed. His numerology argued that the republicans were to be competitive in what to consistently reach between 40, 45, sometimes the high 40s of the latino vote nationally. Were talking about a huge dramatic shift one. Where the latino voters are and this brings a series of assumptions and theres a number of assumptions that you then peel away from those numbers. One of them as one not anticipated, its a really important factor of all of this is the recession on Population Trends so people have stopped moving. We have low rates of internal migration which is one of the factors that was transforming the politics in places like virginia, North Carolina and metropolitan texas, used in dallas had been converted by people coming from elsewhere so if you think of it as a part of a coalition, the key element of that coalition was this mixture of newcomers from other places particularly if you think to the future some place like North Carolina or georgia and the Congressional District level. So if you hold that we are into a fiveyear lag so when does it pick up, how long does it take to get back to the levels of migration that created this political environment created ten or 15 years ago. And by the time her the latino electorate gets to the voting age its always a question one side or the other very hard to tell, difficult to understand what mobilizes people when they are young. The other question is who are they . What are their values. Debate otas people who didnt go to college to have a very hard time winning . Do they vote economic interest . We have a good idea of what those economic interests are likely to be. Lowincome working class many of them were, their parents dont have the money easily to send them to college and Public Education system is doing terribly with them. The College Going rates are up the they are not going to the four year degrees. There are a lot of reasons to assume the economic shape of this. If you take the idea that they are coming they are going to come into the politics as coalition players. You are looking at a different Kind Coalition that rather i think we are agreeing. The point here is building of the last thing you said it behooves whomever wants them to be a part of their electoral engaged in the coalition that hasnt made them a permanent member of the coalition and we cant over thing get. One of the projections, of the interests is hard to say right now. One thing is clear. I was in tampa and i was talking to one of the cochairs of the hispanic effort and complaining that i hadnt seen anything going on in the battleground states and he looked at my eyes and said now is when the campaign starts. But it can be either six months before the election. It has to be an effort to engage latinos, and again if i said why the policies are based on limited government or the free economy or the latino witnesses as fast as the National Average i dont think they have the obamacare to do business but if we dont engage them they are not going to understand, so this is the key. And then finally i go back to the issue of immigration those that remain silent for so long at this point has to raise their voices. The great thing is now there are some republicans coming forward on the reform would from Rick Santorum to sean hannity you are going to see a lot of people that remained quiet on the issue coming forward and saying ibm actually going to tackle this issue and finally the conversations are starting in the house and the senate so i am hopeful that if we have the position on immigration, if we engage in the latino vote by likely understanding its diversity for the business elite. I remember one event they do great work for the latino voters we have to go to the communities, the basic community organizations. Lets open it to audience questions. Lets start on the alleged there. Senate from the Latin American Program of care as you mentioned the the record way to deportation under barack obama im wondering if you can look ahead into your crystal ball there is Immigration Reform its going to involve a compromise between things democrats want and republicans want what do you think of the elements of the reform that would turn off the latino voters and turning off some form of the legalization of people already in the country in exchange for tougher enforcement where do you see the politics of this driving wedges . To the path to citizenship the other stuff will not be that significant in the Latino Community. I agree the legal residency i dont think would be an issue the question here is the path to citizenship. I can already see the democrats saying the republicans are against the path to citizenships against a special pass to citizenship. Ideally i would like to see especially for the young dreamers, but i think i agree with the legalization has to be part of this. Im curious as to what you meant by legalization. I know that peace is much more important. The path to citizenship i think again. In a reasonable amount of time then i think the rest of it falls into place quite simply from a kind of latino perspective i think quite frankly as you heard they are willing to see how far they are going to go on the question of the path to citizenship, not just secondclass status here in the United States. That i think will be. I have to respectfully disagree. [laughter] if you look if you think back over the last ten years or so of the failure on immigration policy to 15 years, 20 years, one of the developments particularly since the mid 2000s has been the emergence of a fairly Vigorous Movement in this country in the litigation power and a protest power that didnt exist before. All of you have taught here as if you miss the key to immigration and the past maybe it will be different this time it is in the details. Soa legalization just means there are two things that i think we know from past experience about the nature of these proposals. One is that the legalization proposal was going to be a giant game of chutes and ladders. All kinds of qualifications. A process for getting into it. They are going to be right to the lastminute bargaining over lets set the start date here or here and your tossing a Million People one way or the other depending on a deal that is made, you know, in one of those rooms in the Capitol Building when this goes to conference. So we know that. All that stuff will be litigated. It will be processed, the process of legalization itself given the current framework is designed to be long. So it is clear to be litigated and its going to be processed people will be going through for a long time. The other thing is it will be full of potholes, full of questions about the implementation of devotee, rights to counsel, and we are talking about taking a free market now that is intensely hostile to the legal rights of the foreign. But let me continue. We have five minutes left. The other piece of the architecture of the immigration policy that we that i think we can be pretty confident about is that as you build an umbrella under which certain people are sheltered outside of that underlie it gets harsh, no question. So outside of that it means whoever doesnt get in is going to face a much more wicked situation in much higher rates of deportation, fewer rights. People are portraying this to pass a law it would be a living breathing controversy in the communities for the next decade. Islamic maybe we will accumulate ischemic emigration seems has been discussed more as a unilateral issue. Where does mexico have a role . This is in many ways a Foreign Policy question. The Obama Administration has little or no relationship with mexico and at least even the new president coming and i do wonder whether this will ultimately become a matter of solving this as the two nations can, rather than just one. The next question from the foreign service. Two questions if i may. Im not sure whether i did it to scare devotees is out of the Romney Campaign or what they have done for the hispanics, and i guess my question is can you quantify this for fear of the Republican Party versus the love of the democratic agenda, and to what extent are those different approaches informed the way that the different campaigns might go after the hispanic voters . That is a great question. Please identify yourself. George mason university. I am wondering whether you think celestino position on abortion is more like that of joe biden who said he personally opposes abortion but he didnt impose his views on the rest of the country or their whether it was similar to paul ryan with his particular religious views should be on the rest of the country. Who might not share them. The man right here in a white shirt. Three Sestak Barack Obama four years ago because it be treated most of his promises and i would like to see it with strong, too said this would be the first in the nobel prize. But given that, i think the republicans should move in my opinion to the left of the democrats which means for the fascists you have that the party, and thats the only way to win, and i hope is there a question . Will the country move just like we did after he screwed up for four years . If Hillary Clinton runs as a democratic she will get all of the failures for the Obama Administration. The last question we have lots of questions still. Lets take this round and then see if we have time left over. We do only have a few minutes. [laughter] the question dealing with mexico, you can imagine a situation particularly where there are conversations of mexico about security and immigration and particularly Central American migration from mexico which is i think likely to be increasing traffic and substantially mounting migration and some of the countries are disintegrating mexico the conversations in the new administration there are great concerns about having essentially failed states next to them and looking to the u. S. For how they are dealing with them. That could be a we have right now there is ground that the government ministerial level put into how you approach that with think tanks working on that we will see of that agenda develops. The fear of the question with latinos, this vote has to be in the segregated and a big chunk of it has to be set off the one side. I would say 50 of it may be 55 of it is just not going to be in play. The puerto rican voters in new jersey, new york, connecticut, massachusetts are among the most liberal democratic voters there are. They voted for obama 80, 90 . They were with the most vocal democratic constituency of host to the war in iraq in 2003. They are just they are a very distinctive part of our political landscape. They are not krin to change. Latino democrats and california its just really hard to see where you get to republicans that hope to get more than 25 or 30 of that big chunk. In the rio grande from the in texas and in chicago in its suburbs. I think in cuba of the new dynamic has started opening travel to cuba has totally changed the game for the way the cubans think about it. So if you are talking about large chunks of this electorate that are solidly democratic and theres a solid base for so it has been and will continue to be about eight fairly small margin in the key places. I will duties as quickly as i can. I am still wondering what happened in november 2012. Its been a a two word answer to your question, joe biden which is a segue over to your question before my son revocation was the main latinamerican adviser in the white house for three and a half years but the countrys i was responsible for i had no country other than the one more than three times the intensity of the governments, the prior government and now youre seeing it in the economy in the inaugural hoo Vice President ial wyden going to the inaugural doesnt go to a lot of inaugurations so you should read into that. The media focuses on the security questions but it goes a lot for them at. So, i think that you will see that continuing it immigration is a complicated question to deal with in the bilateral context. The president in mexico kind of learned a political lesson in mexico of stating too much on inspecting the immigration debate in the United States over something that he really couldnt get paid a political price at home for the failure to deliver something that was never in his power to deliver which was comprehensive Immigration Reform in the United States. I feel that he has learned that lesson. And i dont think that you will see him being particularly assertive of what should have been in the legal construct in the United States. I think you are exactly right the trend of the migration, the Mexican Government, the prior Mexican Government and this Mexican Government are very concerned and they are looking at the problem in a very different way than they traditionally have. What comes of that, how you wrestle with it, that isnt clear. I think that will be a part of the conversation between the two governments. Central america i know is a part of the conversation and has been for several years between the two governments and will continue to be. So, i think there is a very intense relationship between the government and the United States and the government of mexico across a broad range of issues on the particulars of what an immigration deal in the United States looks like i dont think that you will see a whole lot of public and i think even private interactions. A quick last word on the latino vote. I think it is really hard to articulate what happened in that sense. There was clearly concerned in quebec to the brand problems that the republicans have fought with the republican victory would mean for the latino voters. But there was also i think i growing recognition among latinos that they were a part of a coalition. That they were wanted. They really were part of a Going Forward vision. Which one and where is hard to say what theyre in line is the lesson of the selection from a political standpoint, the inclusion in a very real way and i think it is a twoway street. Organized political latinos also have to think about what they do now. Do they do their own or do they incorporate themselves and multiple places in the coalition during washington and across the country, and i think that will have a lot to say about the shape of the latino politics moving forward with it really takes on this question majeure were it is still this other that has a variable relationship and it may be that there are different answers to that. Very quickly on this issue of mexico, sadly in 2000 when we begin before mine elephant the waiver granted immediately on Immigration Reform with president foxx was extraordinary and very close they took a hit because of mexicos position on a number of issues including the effort in iraq. However the relationship with mexico continued to be very intense. I think most experts would agree that the relationship with mexico has weakened dramatically but i just dont see the same type of for a poor report or relationships with. He himself criticized the u. S. For that whole effort. On abortion i would say that poll after poll every single study that i see with exception of the exit polling shows the majority should be legal from 40 to 40 of the rest of the population. I think they would agree with the catholic and the Christian Church which means the churches have a lot of influence in the latino vote. And then finally and on the latino vote, its really hard to say. We are not among the working community, and i think that as has been said the party has to a major effort towards latinos and we cannot wait until the election. It has to be an ongoing effort about every single other issue explaining why conservative politics are good for latinos. I dont believe at the end that latinos voted for obama i dont think it was because of obamacare or anything else. It had to do a lot of immigration and the lack of inclusion in the efforts. Right. Thank you very much. Thank you. I apologize to you that didnt get to ask a question. I think the speakers will be around for a few minutes. I love this year and love question. Triet politics are about issues and outreach and the machine. Politics in this case is about this one big issue that we have to get off the table. But you know, really what this is about is how dynamic this is and how both parties particularly have a lot of work to do. Thank you so much for being here and to the panelists. [applause] the act and distributes spending had to states if Older Americans remain in their homes and communities. Our live coverage begins at 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan. A discussion with of the secretary of the state of ohio and West Virginia about voter i. D. Laws in the 2012 elections and how they were implemented. This is part of a center on the States Conference on the Voter Experience in 2012. Its about one hour. We have to sessions this afternoon. They both look good and we are fortunate to have a good panel we have this afternoon. And we have to end by five so we will get started as quickly as possible. This panel we brought together a series of experts and leaders in the field to kind of talk about the issue of integrity versus access and elections for the variety fits into all of this and i dont think we could do better than the panel that we have right now. I will let our moderator introduce the panel with that let me introduce adam correspondent for the new york times. As david said you are in full retreat [inaudible] to think through these issues of how to balance the integrity and access. Im going to say just a word theyre out each of the panelists and their biographical materials available to you. And then we will hear a brief presentation from each of them and then have a more general conversation and we will try to see some time for your questions at the end. Natalie is the secretary of state from West Virginia. This is in the materials that she is the states most transparent officeholder. [laughter] little minded more seriously see she has had investigations more than any other security in West Virginias history and maybe later on we can talk about what the data is and what kind of problems the administrators face. And then we will hear from ground zero of the 2012 election as the secretary of state of ohio, john huston, who has had a distinguished career before his current job in the Ohio Legislature and having served as speaker of the ohio house and a member of the senate. Then finally, Michael Pitts a law professor from Indiana University and a specialist in Voting Rights and the administration and related matters and a law clerk on the eighth circuit and attorney of the Voting Rights section of the Civil Rights Division of the justice department. So i think first we will hear from the secretary of state. Good afternoon, everyone. It is good to be here. And i must say that as the secretary elect, i was here four years ago and honored to be back again and have the opportunity. And we are talking about insuring integrity and valid access at the same time and what i was asked to talk about is what wv does and how we have our own voter i. D. Law and we yes wv does have a voter identification laws, and many of them follow what many other states followed especially when it comes to the help america attack and to have a requirement, and i will just give you a little brief of what it takes. The help america attacked and since we have our discussion today this is a very bad thing. From what im understanding, and i am trying to get rid of this and West Virginia this is your mail and Voter Registration application and remember we dont like the people which costs about 6 i would like to be able to have online Voter Registration as well that costs about a dollar to be able to process. With the help america vote act requires especially if you vote for if you register by mail and do not provide some type of a federal identification, you have to provide that by either mailing it in or the first time you dont need to show that theyve of identification that to you are. Or if you go in person to the clerks office, and you shall identification through showing a copy of the utility bill, banks did come up the check or other government document that shows your name and current president s address. So wed require that in West Virginia. Then when you go to food and must virginia time and time again, and you do not show photo i. D. , but you have to state some verification. You see your name from your address, and then you sign your name as your voter verification. And so, the question is is that enough . Is that enough of what we require . And i say yes, it is, and it has been for the last ten years or so. And some will say to me doesnt West Virginia have this reputation . And i would say yes West Virginia does have this reputation of Election Fraud and as a matter of fact we just had three elective officials from southern West Virginia who will be serving and are serving in federal prison but in those cases the stronger federal identification law wouldnt put a stop to what took place they try to manipulate the process of the absentee voting. So for me this is the interesting part that comes together because i was up for reelection in 2012 and i didnt push for the voter i. D. And West Virginia. So my opponent accused me of being soft on voter fraud so i had to laugh a little bit and i thought you know what im learning something here. They will say anything in a political race, what they . So i laugh about that because here i am that to assist secretary of state that was ever seen when it comes to more investigation and more convictions where the election law violations than any other in state history and not just talking about this one particular county. We have a county commissioner who tried to vote twice and we went after that person also. So my thought is how can they say that and how can they say about me . What is that distinction . Heres what i think is an interesting prospect when i say that im tough on the elections because as has been stated that your before coming you see of voter fraud is very, very small when you go to the 0. 00 that has been talked about. But where we have these investigations we have canada fraud weekend official fraud, and so why do i tell you all of this . I tell you all of this to give you a little bit of background and i tell you all of this because for me this is where ensuring integrity and access to the ballot meets right here. I have been and i have said before that you can be pro voter access and the entire Election Fraud at the same time. Ive shown that, and it is a history that we now have in West Virginia. And for me as the secretary of state, for me as the chief Election Officials i see the big picture of what needs to be taking place when it comes to integrity for election. This isnt one aspect its the larger picture that we have that comes into play. And for me, this is why approach it as the most transparent officeholder. I approach it as integrity is knowledge or knowledge is integrity when it comes to elections, and the way that i put that into play is through the many different aspects through training of Election Officials, and youve heard that talked about today because if you had that knowledge and that understanding and welltrained Election Officials from the ground up, from the poll worker to the county court to the state, Election Officials would have met making sure they are following the process. Thats why we have put on line worker training for not just the poll workers but anybody that is going in to load. We have put videos on the web site about the canvassing process because that is another step in the checks and balances that take place and voters and citizens of West Virginia also have the knowledge that if you are trying to manipulate the process, you have a serious secretary of state that is going to look into that and uphold the integrity of the process. And so all of that together for me comes together. We do online in what casts of the press conferences, we give folks knowledge we have liaisons letter out and about on election day but the reason i want to be so open and i want folks to know how the process takes place because he is there are 55 counties in West Virginia but there are about 1800 precincts and its the voters on the front line that have to be armed in the same knowledge that we Work Together and we have a bigger focus of the election of the process and the election process. So thats where i am on this. I will sit down and listen to other folks who that have any other questions and take questions as we go along. [applause] good afternoon i have this idea of balancing access and accuracy if you want to find that balance in their reelection dont become secretary of state in the swing state to rated just presents multiple problems, and frankly it is politics that stands in the way of achieving that balance, not policy. Its the process of getting their that has been the biggest impediment for being where i think we should be in our state, and i am going to explain to you feel how you experience. Not long after i was elected, i made a proposal that included a balanced approach and it had ideas from local boards of elections and it had ideas from white democratic predecessor, even had some ideas from que to the tebeau and we called it election modernization in the ohio elections and as the former speaker of the house i can tell you i know how to from the bill through the legislative process and i checked all the boxes. We know how to sell the reform package and we went through the leadership of both parties and we visited individually with all of the Committee Members from both Political Parties. We are endorsed by every major newspaper of the state. What could go wrong . Right . This is what happened. We have a bipartisan plan and began to trouble for the legislative process and the partisan bickering broke broke out and both sides wanted to see the scales tilted in their favor and there were claims of voter fraud that needed to be dealt with and charges of the Voter Suppression and urged and a separate sodalite the bill emerged of those harsh discussions that excited the situation and the amendments were introduced and its true of this balance. At that point in time it passed on the party lines and they were being controlled by republicans in ohio. Immediately after that, the democrats and the obama for America Campaign filed petitions to put it up to a referendum. They got enough petitions come and then eventually the legislature repealed it at my suggestion because it was becoming too the rhetoric was heated and we needed to start over and avoided the cost of the referendum. Thats what happened during the course of the battle trying to find the balance between access and accuracy in balancing that reform and a high of. We had no reform, the damage was done. A set of the partisan feelings that continued through 2012 and even spawned if there was one moment of bipartisan agreement we did pass in the military voter bill during that process it had an amendment to shut down the early voting during the saturday, sunday and monday before the election so that the board of elections would have time to accommodate all of the early votes since the expected to do cash. They passed on a unanimous basis, and eventually it blew up and became the first of the eight federal lawsuits in ohio said even the moments of bipartisan agreement ended up blowing up in the end over the desire for both Political Parties and their allies to achieve victory in terms of tilting the scales in their favor. Finding that balance on a policy note is really not that hard. Honestly reasonable people can find a way to harvard as political. And i will tell you that election reform efforts, the partisan forces have stood in the way of this in our state, and i think they will in every swing state because its not just the people in your state that get involved, its the people from across the country that decide from the places in washington and other places that because of your swing state status that they just dont like your rules, and they participate. But voting is a culture of the state. If you want to have confidence it has to come from both sides. It has to come from within. People have to believe in that process and it is different in all of our states. And it really there were a lot of outrageous claims that occurred in the legislative process and the election process in ohio. But if you are talking about the balance, what are the big churches . Suppression and fraud. Those are the two those are the two charges. Welcome of the churches of the Voter Suppression and ohio i will give you a few of them. They were having easy access to vote. For the First Time Every single voter in the state received an absentee ballot request mailed to their home that was nearly 7 million voters so every voter had nearly 35 days to vote without ever leaving their house apartment or wherever they might have been over that early voting they were open weekdays from 85 for the first three weeks and eight to seven its pretty easy to vote for ohio. You have more than a month to do it and when you consider the fact to consider this voting schedule and at a record 1. 8 million votes were cast i believe that reasonable people will conclude that its pretty easy to vote in ohio and suppression was not an issue. What about fraud . Lets define it. What is fraught . You have the Legal Definition and the political definition of fraud is. For example, if a student from kentucky is going to college in ohio and decide to go there because the president ial election isnt close to their state even the very kentucky resident for the purpose of their education is that fraud . About the lifting his sisters driveway and decided to register and vote 35 days before the election because he decided he wanted to be in ohio resident for a while. Not under the ohio law. What if you receive free pizza or food for casting about that day . Is that voter fraud . Under the ohio law, it is not. Yet there are a lot of people who believe it is or that it should be. But what if you vote twice . Is that fraud . Under the ohio law most people think that is coming and we have hundreds of cases where this happened. Or at least they are being investigated and reviewed right now. But the important thing i want folks to remember as they are running away with the story and they didnt actually have the vote counted twice, they tried to vote twice and the system called it. Its very easy to vote in our state is a very rare occurrence cant let me just say to move forward many to get all of the systems in the political process that its easy to vote and the fraud is rare and until we can overcome those misperceptions i think it is going to be very hard to get that balance in the swing states like ohio that we all seek. Thanks. [applause] scan it with such an esteemed panel appear i feel like i should announce my candidacy for the indiana secretary of state triet [applause] with the never ending election cycle and i think about all of the academic writing that ive done and what the opposition would do with the those, secretary lieutenants, and i think i wont. I hear i work in indiana and in great dhaka at indiana and our experience so far with identification indiana is important. I think nationally for a couple reasons. Number one, we were just is their anybody from georgia in the room . At present, then indiana will take credit for being first in line on the voter identification as a requirement. And also, indiana served as essentially the model for other photo identification laws that have been passed and have been litigated in the court system. And so, one of the things that i have been doing for the last few years is trying to assess how many folks get caught up by indianans voter identification requirement. There are two major issues in this debate that called for empirical analysis. One is the extent of voter fraud. In particular, in person who voter fraud, but i call voter Identity Theft on election day. And the second is how many folks are actually disfranchised or if you dont like that word, not capable of having a ballett the cast get counted because of the Photo Education requirement that indiana has, and in indiana if you dont have a photo identification on election day when you go in to cast a regular but, you get to vote provisionally. And if the poll worker is doing their job correctly, and a little bit more on that later, they will check on the provisional velte form the fact the person didnt have an id, the idea that was required and we were going county by county by county went into the polling place in indiana cast about because they didnt have an ied and how many of those votes were counted or not counted as the case may be. And here are some members for your consideration considering the primary, the 2012 primary, and i will tell you this coming in 2008 the data that i collected from the countys bus survey data to recall that the Election Officials and ask them how many professional balance the had overall and how many i. T. Related provisional ballots overall for the count for each of those items ha and of the nice things happened in indiana is that a law was passed that actually compels the county Election Administrators to cover the provisional balad and materials to basically indianas law have to go county by county and stay on for all the folks that use them, but you can see that there are a fairly significant number of the ballots that were cast in the 2008 primary and the 2012 primary. And not that many provisional outlets were cast. About 2700 in 2008, and about 62012, and even below that there were not that many provisional but whats related to identification and most levy identification now lets work related to the voter identification requirement, and a few of them about 10 are related xu the help american vote requirement that the secretary spoke about. So those are the numbers, about 450 people had an idea provisional ball was passed in 2000 primary if what you see on the trend line and indiana is one of the two states you can do the trend between 2008 and 2012 there is an overall reduction in the rate of the provisional but in the state of indiana and the buck, and reduction in the number of ayittey related provisional ballots that forecast, and then the rate at which those professional bouts were actually counted has remained about the same, roughly one of every five provisional bullets actually gets counted for to be this research comes with some qualifications. Kristoff, we dont know the folks that cast a provisional but because they didnt have an i. T. Or not fraud stirs. I cant prove that. I cant suspect somebody committed fraud isnt likely to create a paper trail of the professional balloting that would lead them to more easily be taught but i cant 100 certainly say all those folks were legitimate voters for treated as other countries folks might get caught up in the requirement. We dont have really good data out there on how many people are deterred from even going to a polling place in the first instance by the existence of the total identification laws semidey talk about in an earlier panel but that really isnt out there. Theres also an issue if the offer and acceptance of the provision about whats. They may not be offered to folks by the poll workers and even if they are the man not be accepting them if they dont have an id and they might walk away from the polling place, and the third thing and this kind of deals with professional bouts generally. I love poll workers. They are wonderful folks, but at least in indiana, and i suspect this is true elsewhere, they have an awful tough time getting the paperwork for about right so theres often provisional brauts letter and envelopes, and you have no idea why the provision about what was actually cast khabur for. We come up with good practices generally should also be a part of the conversation Going Forward in the 2012 election cycle i think. What does this research suggest . It suggests that maybe the food through edification doesnt have the massive disfranchising impact that some folks might think and you got a sense of that earlier on the stage where the democrats were open to talking about some kind of a voter ratification system. Am i said just over time since there is a reduction of about whats there are close problems. The number one thing i think it suggests is that the provision about what are more likely to be sold out by folks who will vote democratic in the they are more likely to have the right the problems. The difference between 2008 and 2012 primaries in indiana is what percentage cast the ballots in the democratic primary for the republican primary. In 2008 about 75 of the voters in the 2008 primary cast about what and president obama, senator quentin contest and the 2012 primary is almost reversed. They cast about in the context of the republican contest between senator lugar and richard murdock. So it suggests the balance skew in favor and i guess that is the way to put it of democratic voters for their research. I think we really need to find out how many folks are being deterred to go to a polling place at all to really find out the disfranchising impact of the for the way the medication requirements number two, now that these provisions allowance are subject to Public Access law, we could actually perform a census of the folks in indiana who went to the point and didnt have an id to figure out whats going on with these folks and white this is happening. The last one is the hardest to figure out how many people were offered a provisional balad or not offered a provisional but in the first instance i dont know how many people didnt accept it. So with that data i will turn it back over to respect that is a nice set of perspectives, and maybe we can try to synthesize them a little bit to see what Common Ground there is. And let me start with secretary houston to followup on what i understood West Virginias rights to become a which is the photo id to register but only a signature to code. Is there a problem with that . There are a dozen ways that you can do that as long as it is respected in your state. If you can get the political pieces in your state, the people to generally agree on what the rules are, and thats why i love the title, is a balance. Every time that you had something, that makes it easier to vote then you have to balance that with something that also makes it secure. That is the more secure unit unique to make sure you are not denying access. And i think it is a formula that is that needs to be accepted to take the stage. There are any number of ways you could do this i made a proposal on the when the february he was being discussed in ohio, and it had the value of being ignored by both Political Parties. Because they wanted what they wanted. They didnt want what was the balance. So there were any number of ways than you could do this. Its about getting people again, for me its not the policy. The policy can be worked out. There are any number of ways to win a good election system. Its about setting aside the partisanship and the people that are constantly driving for the political the advanta