True regardless of where they are, and whether they are run by republicans or democrats, are trying to find a way to give voters options, ways they can vote that they feel safe, and feel convenient to them. This means expanded voting in almost every case. Every state is going to see a Record Number of ballots received by mail. It also means expanded early voting, finding appropriate voting sites for voting in a pandemic, which means they need to be large enough to accommodate social distancing. Also making sure that Election Officials can recruit enough poll workers to staff those sites. We need about one million poll workers in the president ial election, but the fast majority but the majority of poll workers historically have been over the age of 60. Host define for us, the difference between mailin voting and absentee voting. Guest that is easy. There is essentially no difference. There are basically three types of mailin voting in the United States. There are a small number of states with universal male voting where they universal mail voting. Nevada Just Announced this weekend, but other states include states like utah, washington, oregon, etc. And these are states that are run by republicans and democrats. They have been doing this for a long time. They are a handful of states that require an excuse to do mail voting. You can request a ballot if you have an excuse and in many of those states, Election Officials fearsaid that covid19 would count as an excuse in some of those states. The majority of states, including almost all battleground states offer what is called no excuse mail voting or no excuse absentee voting, and these are essentially the same thing. This is when a voter has to request a mail ballot sent to them specific to that election. That ballot gets validated against the voters information on file the voters information on file. They then fill out the ballot which has a lot of verification they can return that ballot either by sending it back in postal mail or delivering it to a drop off location. That is the way it is being done in states like georgia, florida, pennsylvania, ohio, michigan, etc. Ita very common thing was a very common thing it is a very common thing. About 20 of ballots were turned in by mail. Host our guest, david becker, talking about mailin ballots. 202 7488001 is the line republicans. 202 7488000 is the line for democrats. Independents, 202 7488002. We will get to your calls momentarily. You bubbly have seen this study, the m. I. T. Election lab, the Data Science Lab study on mailin voting, part of which says this. Ofere are two major features voting by mail that raises concerns. First is the ballot is cast outside the public eye. The concern for voter impersonation is greater. The transmission path for vbm beings not as requested without the voters permission. How do you respond to those . Guest i can tell you what states that have done a lot of mail voting have found. It is fair to say those risks exist, but they are extremely rare. There are so many checks and balances in place, on the ballots themselves, on the envelopes, the applications, that it would be exceedingly different exceedingly difficult for someone to commit fraud. When it happens, it is almost always discovered. Fraud. Asy to catch voter demonstrate that you submitted a vote that you werent supposed to. If you hope to get away with it, you have to hope the person does not show up to vote. If they do, you are going to get caught. What republican Election Officials will tell you is that there are several checks and balances in place. The more likely risks of mail voting is that people unfamiliar with mailin voting could fill out their ballot incorrectly, and it could result in their vote being rejected, or that the Postal Service will take too long to deliver the ballot in the first place, and the voter might have to go to plan b and vote in person. There is no perfect voting system. Every voter has to make their choices. Host are there states that currently have done and successfully done vote by mail exclusively . Guest exclusively isnt quite the right word but there are states who do it almost excessively, well over where 90 of their electorate vote by mail. Colorado is next in line. They have been moving toward nearly all mail ballots for some time. Well over 90 of their ballots are cast by mail. Utah is moving to all mail voting. Even a state like california, prepandemic was on pace for about 75 of their ballots being returned or being delivered to voters by mail. An in personys option for voters, but states like those are nearly as close as 100 as you can get. Host attorney general william barr testified before the house last week, and was asked about the potential for voter fraud in the upcoming election. Lets take a listen. [video clip] as attorney general of the United States, do you believe this 2020 president election will be rigged . I have no reason to think it will be. Thatesident trump tweeted the election will be rigged, but he also tweeted that, when he was losing to hillary clinton, and he tweeted that the day after fox showed he was losing. I dont want to be few political to be too political. Do you believe that mailin voting will lead to massive voter fraud . I think there is a high risk that it will. Do you ever vote by mailin ballot . I did once, at least. But you believe that other people voting by mail could lead to massive fraud. What i talked about and made clear is that i am not talking about accommodations for people out of the state or have some particular need or inability to go and vote. What im talking about is the wholesale conversion of alexion to him of election to mailin voting. Do know that africanamericans proportionally do not survive covid19. I did not hear the question. You are aware that africanamericans disproportionately die from the covid19 virus. Correct . Thats right. Theot that it would be first time that africanamericans would risk their lives to vote in this country, to preserve its democracy, but the suggestion is that them having the ability to leadby mail would somehow to massive voter fraud. I wont stick to that. I didnt say that. I stated what i think is the reality, which is if you have wholesale mailin voting, it substantially increases the risk for fraud. Host david becker. The attorney general saying if you have wholesale mailin voting, it increases the likelihood for fraud. Do you agree with that . Guest absolutely not. I encourage the attorney general to talk to my former colleagues in his own Justice Department about how voting works, and talk to secretaries of state and his own party, such as in utah, to find out the facts about this. Im not sure what he means by wholesale mailin voting wholesale mail voting. States like washington, oregon and utah, all run by republicans, they will tell you there are many checks and balances in place. When fraud occurs, it is extremely rare, and it is caught as it should be. Georgia,n officials in florida and ohio have seen increased rates of mail balloting. Florida is very used to mail balloting. There are many checks and balances in place, many protections. Republicans no and have been encouraging their voters to vote by mail. Democrats have been doing the same. Some voters who are very comfortable with paper ballots, mail ballots should be voting by mail. It is important to note that we are going to need significant in person voting options so voters who need or want to vote in person can do so safely and conveniently. Host our guest, david becker, founder and executive of the center for election innovation and research. Lines are 202 7488001 the republicans. 202 7488000 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. Our first caller in texas on the republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Leftecker, when i california, we were gone for six years, when i found out we were still receiving the people who bought our house, we were still receiving election ballots. Thatw years before california was as crooked as it could be. Nevada just recently passed laws, where there are no boundaries. Anybody can pick up, whether related or not, they can go and pick up ballots for people they dont know, and pass coronavirus to them. Havee in a home now that i lived in since 2009. Evidently, there were 11 people that lived here before me, and i still havent been able to get their mail delivered to their correct address. I have tried my best to find these people. I have put in for changes of address on these people. I have been with the post office. I have received mailin ballots for these people. Tell me that i cant fill out these, because i am good at signatures. Host we will get a response from our guest. Guest i highly encourage you not to do that, because if you fill out any ballots that come to your house, you wont be getting one in texas because that is not how they run elections but if you fill out one that comes to your house, you will get caught. There is a lot of private information that only the voters themselves would have. It is very unlikely that you would know exactly how the person signed on their voter file when they register to vote, which e again matched against. You better hope that person does not show up to vote in person because if they do, they will know a fraudulent vote was cast and they will find you and prosecute. That is years you will spend in jail, and there will be a Fine Associated with that. Statesgard to ballots in that do mostly mail balloting, it is important that voter records be uptodate. States are doing a better job of keeping their voter records uptodate. It is something we have worked on with states for some time, and there is still some work to do. Even if a ballot gets delivered in error to a voter, if they try to vote that, they will be caught and they will be prosecuted. It is not the crime of the century. Youll be risking many years in jail and a very large fine, for the right to cast one additional fraudulent ballot in an election. That is one of the reasons that americans take their elections so seriously. There have been many studies on this by the Justice Department, by President Trumps own Election Integrity commission. We have confirmed that there is very little voter fraud in the United States. Host we will go to our democrats line. Claude is in florida. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call, mr. Becker. A few points of interest that i would like for you to address. President has been for four years undermining our elections, from asking russia to find hillarys emails, saying the election it was saying the election was rigged even before he was elected, before the vote. Up untilntinued that, this point, still saying and undermining our elections. How do you square that with the pack of lies he has told from building a wall that mexico was going to pay for, how does that affect our elections . Guest thank you. It is a big concern to Election Officials around the country. I have talked to them about this, regularly. It is not just democrats, republicans as well. Voters are losing confidence in our elections. This has been the goal of our foreign adversaries like russia and china and iran. They want citizens of a democracy to lose confidence in the system of government, and the democratic system of government and the elections that elect our leaders. It is very disappointing when he domestic actors, particularly our leaders use when any domestic actors, particularly our leaders use rhetoric that would lead to losing confidence. Election officials have done more to increase the security of our elections in the face of foreign interference. They are trying to provide the best possible voting experience, even during the pandemic, even as they have very few resources. Voters should feel confident that their vote is going to be counted properly, and i think we all need to work harder to make sure that we encourage our fellow citizens to have confidence in our system and make sure we have a system that has integrity. If you look at polling, we should be concerned about diminished confidence in our elections, and i can tell you if you have any doubts about that whatsoever, if you want to learn about how elections work, volunteer to be a poll worker. Go to your county election website or state election website and volunteer and see it from the inside. You will be doing a Tremendous Service for your fellow citizens, and you will get a chance to see how the system works and protects against any possible fraud or other problems. Host the number a number of about must be concerned poll workers being there in person. It is pretty much a wellknown fact that many poll workers are older americans, who have the time to volunteer and work at the polls. Any sense on states who may be struggling to fill those positions is election day approaches . Guest i would say every state is concerned about filling those positions, and struggling to some degree. There are huge percentages of poll workers they have used in the past who are in at risk pout at risk populations and probably should not volunteer to be a poll worker again. Younger healthier segments of the population to setup to step up and volunteer and serve as poll workers. Election officials are doing what they can to make sure polling sites are such that people are minimizing any risk, similar to what we might do in a Grocery Store. Officials are working to get plexiglas shields to separate people in the polling place. They are keeping polling stations far apart. They are having enough ppe and disinfecting supplies on hand, and training their poll workers to use them during the day. What you will see if you go to vote in person, you will see that the polling places are safe, that Election Officials have done what they needed to do, even though they needed a lot more resources to do it. We are seeing some elements of society stepping up. I am helping advise the more than a Vote Initiative that lebron james started, and they have been successful getting sports teams to volunteer their facilities, their arenas which are very large and can accommodate social distancing. Large polling places near public transit. Voting centers that can be used in early voting and on election day. Election officials are doing things they have never had to do in the past, trying to find ways. In olympia,p is washington. Elaine, good morning. Caller good morning. I live in a paper ballot state. It didnt take trump to lose my confidence in the paper ballot system. My mother died, and for four election cycles, ballots were delivered to her home. After one of the families bought her house, the family ended up getting the last ballot. Somebody used her ballot, and in my opinion, the only way that they could ever secure the paper idlot system, is to put an bar code on every one of them that is different, so no ballot could be duplicated any place in the state. That is the only way that they could honestly secure the thation and make sure every address or every person has a particular barcode, and that barcode is on their ballot, and that barcode stays with them. That is my opinion. Guest it is interesting that you say that, because that is what they do in almost every state. There is a unique coding on every ballot envelope, to make sure there is a onetoone match between the envelope and the individual. Even if a voter who has passed away receives a ballot, and that happens sometimes unfortunately. Sometimes Election Officials dont get information about that. It will be exceedingly difficult it would be exceedingly difficult for someone else to cast a ballot on behalf of that person because of the identifying information that would be required. Every single signature in Washington State as well as oregon and other and every other state that does mail balloting gets checked. There are checks in place to make sure that ballot would not be voted, and we are working really hard. Washington has been at the forefront of this, to ensure that the voter lists are accurate. One thing a lot of the states have is they have more mail contact with voters, so if a voter has moved or passed away, and people do their duty and right on the outside of the envelope that the person is no longer there, that gets back to the Election Officials and helps them maintain very accurate voter lists. That is a very important aspect of it, and states with a lot of mail voting tends to have tend to have the most accurate voter lists. Host our next caller from silver spring, maryland. Democrats line. Caller the way i see it, i see that trump is trying to cripple the post office right before the election, and i also see that you were talking about other people stepping in and other companies stepping in to try and help the problem. In my opinion, the washington post, which has the word post in it, they should team up with the United StatesPostal Service, do everything they can to fight back against administration that is literally trying to put the post office out of business. You raise a very important point, and that is the health of the Postal Service. We are seeing some very disturbing things at the Postal Service right now. The delivery of mail ballots, there is no choice here. There are going to be more mail ballots this year than we have ever seen before. We are going to need to get them there, early and successfully. This stresses a major point for voters this fall. Unlike past elections were a lot of voters would show up three present elections which show up for president ial elections, we are all we need to make a plan to vote this fall. Just like i used to go to the Grocery Store and not think about it, and i could go every day and linger, i dont do that anymore. I make a plan, get everything i need, and then leave so i can minimize my time inside. We are going to need to do that with voting. The most important aspects of that are checking your registration status. Register to vote if you are not already there. Make sure the information is accurate. A great place to start is ca nivote. Org. If you want to vote by mail, ask for a mail ballot as soon as you can. Do it early so that even if the Postal Service has delays, you will