Transcripts For CSPAN Democratic Secretaries Of State Discus

Because there has been a long history of it but it is a different scenario now. We all want fair am a secure, timely elections, but we have three essential problems facing this upcoming president ial election. First, the Global Pandemic, which none of us have ever seen, throughrough, or voted before. Second, the emerging tactics of a white house that is moving to very broadly and very clearly suppress the vote and third, the impact of both the white house strategy and the Global Pandemic on marginalized groups. That included black, brown, native, or those with differing disabilities, etc. In the past, in different administrations when the question of suppression came up, it could be put squarely on how the state treated black folks. It lost drew lines, how ballots, and that sort of thing. How they had been targeted by state policy but it is more complicated now. Moment where the administrations tactic is bolder, broader, and in some levels, it is extremely transparent and that tactic is to suppress the vote overall by a criminalizing mailing and absentee mailing by weaponizing the United States Postal Service that would be delivering the ballots and by dangling the specter of a delay in the elections due to a national emergency. Each of those things i laid out is a constitutional nonstarter on its own. Add to the effect on marginalized groups and voters, which will become pounded,. Ecomes broader im not sure the stakes could be any higher for the ability of the country to determine its future this november, but ive got good news. We are joined by three people who will navigate all of these questions and concerns in real time. They will be facing the high wire challenges that we are all facing, including breaking news about what the president is doing about the United States Postal Service and we hope this panel will be able to provide some information about what theyve learned from the current president ial primary season, some of which happened precovid. Some of it is happening post covid or during covid, what that has been, what they are watching to for, what we can expect happen in february, even if the only thing we can expect is the unexpected, which i think is going to be the case. Im very pleased to introduce to you three secretaries of state. Secretary of state of connecticut, the secretary of state of colorado, and the secretary of state for michigan. It is great to have you all here. I am going to throw out a question i told you i was going to ask before the news broke and im really interested, starting with secretary griswold. It would be great if you could of whate us a sense were some of the challenges you were facing precovid . You had a primary that happened before a lot of the lockdowns happened and what are you thinking about now . I would like to ask secretary griswold that and then secretary bentsen, if you could chime in with your piece and then we will move to secretary merrill, who just had a state and president ial primary a day or so give us some of your thoughts on those questions. We actually had our president ial primary on super tuesday, a week before the feeling theeally shutdowns and the fear of covid19, but we actually had our state primary june 30, so in the middle of the pandemic and i will say colorados election model is a great model and enables us to be in a really good spot when it comes to voting during a pandemic. We have online Voter Registration, sameday Voter Registration, in person early voting, and we mail a ballot to every coloradan. Pandemic, that has an able thus to have the highest rate of registered eligible voters in the nation and often, we are the leader in election turnout. I will say,rd, and we did a lot of work for our statewide primary to make sure it was safe and secure. Issued a series of election rules. By the way, when we talk about younger people, working class people, people of color, it is important to have mail valves and in person voting. In the statewide primary on june 30, during the pandemic, we set a voter turnout record. We absolutely did. It is proof of how well the colorado election model works. I want to share with you one of the reasons i am so passionate about expanding vote by mail for because my mom is a nurse and has been taking care of covid patients. And i feel like it is my job to save lives in the democracy. I am not willing to allow americans to die because they are forced into crowded voting. We talk about all commute is their voice heard. It is a great tool for that. It can save lives. President tax the mail ballots in the post office and now he is attacking drop boxes. Anything you want to do to make sure americans dont have to risk their health, the president and the postmaster general are attacking. I think it is important highlight today that he admitted that he is suppressing voters and he said he is trying to defund the Postal Service to stop mail ballots. He wants americans to risk their health to cast ballots. It is so undemocratic and unamerican. Every single american regardless of party should be concerned where this nation is headed under this administration. Thank you for that extraordinary work. You got a plus one because it is so easy to vote in colorado. Secretary benson, thank you for joining us your thoughts on the precovid, because i think also had primary precovid and what the post covid world looks like 10your thoughts about the and against going on with the United States Postal Service. Thanks for having me. I was withme i spoke my current colleague anyone of us were secretaries of state. It is great to come back 10 years later in share with you the perspective of overseeing elections in a critical swing state that is going to have an impact and has been under fire. Had three of the four elections this year. We had one in march, may, and last week on august 4, and of course in november. But that enabled us to do is prepare what that enabled us to do is prepare and develop data to make sure what will work best for voters in michigan in november and not to just ensure the system is assessable to thatter, but that is it is secure. We dont have to be pioneers in implementing vote by mail which voters voted for. Iteady for 2020, we knew would be a momentous cycle because my job would met same day registration automatic registration, audits, and the right to vote by mail, including the membership that will be announced next week. With all of those changes, we were already prepared for an enormous amount of stress on our current infrastructure they need s about how they can vote this year. That was exacerbated by the pandemic. We had already been on track to be prepared to ensure every citizen had the rope to vote by mail in michigan and develop had the right to vote by mail in michigan. We are now fully right to vote by mail state. The fact that it was citizens who overwhelmingly give us that enabled us to transition so quickly but also the fact that the amount of attention we have seen placed on vote by mail from the state. We invited people to vote by mail, educated them on how to do so with an application that became hyper politicized. The president attacked me in a number of tweets, some of which were inaccurate, of course. Incidents inn that every incident so far is the truth is on our side. In michigan, it is a right that citizens want and demonstrated they voted to give themselves that right in 2018. To doing this during a pandemic is one we have been able to successfully do because of all of these factors. Safehe government provided options to vote early in person or by mail. The last thing i will say is the evolving uncertainties and attacks by mail, is most of us have seen this storm coming since the pandemic hit in march. So in michigan and others, we have been adamant about not postponing our election, ensuring that citizens know bout their rights to vote by mail and how secure that is. We have done that successfully and we have had Record Numbers of voters by mail. And finally by being prepared for challenges of the postal and we have drop boxes all across the state. Citizens have multiple ways to return ballots once they receive them. And close partnerships with my colleagues in colorado, washington, oregon, and others who have done this work for years that we were able to quickly import that and be prepared for november. The last thing i will say and this is our greatest challenge in where we need a lot of help, is that we are doing all of this work in the midst of significant pushback at the National Level and likely from foreign adversaries as well. As we get closer to election day, the work will increase to educate voters about the truth, how safe it is, the true opportunity to have issue vote in person, and everything we are ensure that our elections are an accurate reflection of the people. We are also prepared for is the effort that may come after the election to try to to impact citizenss perception Citizens Perception about the accurate reflection. And we can ensure voters that they have the confidence that it is an accurate representation. Thank you. It is extraordinary that you have been able to switch from a system where you didnt have mail and to now or you have absentee, extraordinary. Interesting to hear the very steps you had to take to make thata reality, to backup democratically based shift in the way people want to express. Acknowledge that secretary griswold, but for the in your we would be state right now. We are sorry we couldnt be there. The good thing is it only took us 15 minutes to get ready for this panel rather than having to drive. Thank you for being an estate that was willing to post. Whato want to acknowledge is bubbling up in the chat. Michigan,ensign in secretary griswold in colorado secretary benson in michigan, secretary griswold in colorado, with states that havent done this around voting. There may be some questions about how you might help move ine of secretaries of states particular where republicans are in control, to do something different. I am going to return to secretary merrill, who has had the wondrous experience of doing both state and president ial about 45 seconds ago and has lived to tell the tale. Being with a spirit what was that experience like and what can we learn . Let me take you to the east coast, a blue state. You would think we would be really good. We are tied for last and access to voting in connecticut and alabama. Theyre the only two states left that have no early voting and you have to have an excuse to get an absentee ballot. Very tightly controlled. In other ways we have made progress, lots of work on Voter Registration and election date registration, but we have not been able to crack this. I have been trying for 10 years and it is embedded in our state constitution and republicans have blocked my efforts to establish more voting by mail, days of early voting, whatever it was, for years now. So here we are. I will say i was warned by my colleagues in colorado, oregon, other places, that this is not easy to implement. Along came covid. There was no public experience with voting by mail or absentee balloting. Officially we get 4 who vote by absentee because they are out of town that day. Ofdont have the kind restrictions like tennessee or texas, or if you are over 65 you automatically get an absentee ballot. Not in connecticut. I have been fought every inch of the way by republicans who have sued me several times. We have one all of the lawsuit. The short version is, yes, we just had a primary two days ago on top of covid, which was frankly the excuse we had for allowing people to vote by mail. It is wildly popular with the public. They are on our side. They are scared and feeling let they might get sick if they go to an in person polling place. Connecticut is in very good place with covid. Trajectory ofing covid is also in real time changing peoples attitudes about going to the polls. We learn from other states that we shouldnt be close and pulling cities, particularly where there are big cities with a lot of people where they shouldnt be standing in line because they could get sick. Made all of the districts we have no counties. 169 mostlyections by very small towns with election officials. The massive education project we embarked on was not just of the public to explain what was going on but to the local officials, many of whom were not in favor of this, because they had never changed anything in years. Ith all that, we managed it was an enormous turnout of absentee ballot voters. People did take advantage of the fact that we mailed applications to every eligible primary voter. I was sued on that factor alone. They lost. So we then mailed absentee ballots to anyone who requested them. 300,000 out of 1. 2 million requests. Then struck a major storm. Bout a week ago now so it out powers 800,000 people and most polling places. Connectivity was down for the couldnt process ballots and the the other x factor was the Postal Service. Like elsewhere we are compromised in the Postal Service we were compromised before trump eliminated services by the post office. And Fairfield County your mail goes to new york and back again if you mail something across the street. We knew that was a factor. People didnt get mail for three or four days. Everything was gone. So we had to extend for voting. Ig winner was the ballot boxes people already hearing the National News about the compromising of the Postal Service and the statements overtlyt trump, he very and transparently saying im going to compromise the Postal Service or eliminated because i dont want all this voting by mail. Particularly Minority Community came to life with the drop boxes. We watched hundreds of people. Ome by and drop ballots cnn did a special on the ballot box and they watched as people came up and said im not going to trust the Postal Service, im going to make sure my vote gets delivered. Eople are determined to vote weve never had that turnout in any primary in connecticut for many years. That is the good news. People are fired up and they are going to vote. Now it is up to us to try to manage this incredible situation. In a state like connecticut, it is a real challenge. My colleagues were right. It is very difficult to implement on the fly. Had the cares funds to be able to do this because we were able to provide resources to the town. We did all the mailing of the ballots. Without that money, we would not have been able to do this this way. I agree with the greatest challenge is the pushback we will get every step of the way. The republicans have an harshly criticizing me up through yesterday. First it was the ballot boxes. They went to court to try to block them just as is going on in pennsylvania. Now they are saying the ballots werent on time. It wasnt the storm. It was secretary mail and secretary merrill and her miss handling her mishandling. You fight off challenges to your authority. Legislators get involved. It is a difficult atmosphere. But as you are hearing right here in three very different , who the secretary of state is matters dramatically in these circumstances. Without we had some Kindred Souls in some states like ohio, but just in the last few days, i believe the republican secretary of state has reversed himself on things. Am so grateful and some of my College Colleagues who got elected in arizona and michigan and colorado, because we gained back a lot from the last election. It is going to matter dramatically this year. Thank you so much for that. As i was preparing for this, i all ofinning to look at the complexity and the players. Just the legal ones. Whatho is responsible for and there has been a labyrinth of layered protocol that has to be now advocated. I have tremendous expect for the work that you do. Lets drill down on the post office situation. Are filled with people that comment on these things and are organizing and when you talk about Voter Education, now it is not just education on who the candidates are, it is education and how to get your vote in and is if plan a b doesnt work out. A few years ago, people were this postal think, service, i dont know what this is about. Do we actually need it when we have our phones. Ist we are finding now things like the Postal Service, things like oldschool stuff like drop boxes become really key mechanisms to be able to ensure votes get placed and votes get counted. I am going to ask a hard question, which is, what the way do we do when the only to get rid of and administration that is trying to dismantle the Postal Service so they can state in office is to vote that person out. It is a catch22. You cant vote to get the person out of the office because the person who is in office that you are trying to get out will not let the Postal Service deliver your ballot. Something along those lines. What are you thinking about doing and what are some of the scenarios. When the court says we are going to count the ballot from the date it was mailed or the date it was postmarked or the date it your ived, what are starting with secretary griswold , what will that mean . I do want to tell everybody, i was born before 1990 and the youngest secretary of state the nation. You know that throwback is popular. What is popular is voting by mail. You are exactly right, the administration is trying to create not a catch22 for them,. Ut corruption of our democracy they are literally, the president just said that he is trying to stop vote by mail by defunding the post office. That is Voter Suppression plain and simple. I do think that we all have to fight. Take awayrying to access people have to change our future. Whether it is closing down in person voting, then they lie about mail ballots. Issueets make sure any with the post office is resolved, they are going to kill the post office. Lets go for drop boxes to get around the post office, and then the mitigate drop boxes. This administration is trying to take the boys away from americans. It is hard, but we cannot allow them to win. In colorado, we will do everything he can to stop the president. That there is direct conflict with the post office. They are trying to slow down loading boxes it is very cl