The partnership with the Stimson Center and enables to put on that dignity is like this. I have a very simple job this morning to introduce our moderator for today, larry jacobs professor of walter and Joe Montville professor study of politics at the department of Political Science at the university of minnesota. He also directs the tenor for this study of politics and governance and he is a prolific author and scholar in writing and some of the most important issues of the day. In the last year or two where he has authored books i can think of unfettered power, Health Care Reform in american politics in an important study on politics and Public Opinion as well. We are delighted to have the university of minnesota and to serve as moderator of this panel. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. A lot of people know dean sorts for the service and the diplomatic corps and im here from minnesota to tell you hes also announced the ending dean. Seen a tremendous rise in funding for scholarships for students come the scholarship of our faculty and engagement with the community. We are here to talk about one of the most important issues as they moved into the last two and a half weeks in the three weeks of the election, which is the concern about half of american now say they think voter fraud is something going on. We have an allstar Panel Hearing part of my job is to get out of the way so they can speak. The shape man who is the director of the program was started at the Humphrey School, the program for excellence in Election Administration and part of that is a new Online Program for training folks who want to become Election Officials. Is the first on my program of the sort in the country. Before coming to the Humphrey School worked as a nonexpert on election law. We are delighted to have witnessed him a patrick is currently a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She worked at the federal Compliance Officer and was a member of the press than commission on elections. Thanks to both of you for being here. What should start off and make sure we know what were talking about. What is raking as you see it . Do you want to start . I think its really critical in this discussion because we are seeing a lot of variety in the news to distinguish exactly what we are talking about here. So there have been reports of breaking, reports of hacking and those are two very separate and distinct things we will talk about both this morning. I really want to focus first and foremost on the rigging allegations. The other thing is really critical to consider as well is that there have been discussions about the election of the system as a whole. We really need to be cognizant of the fact that there were two real channels here we are talking about. One is Voter Registration and Voter Registration databases and systems that with our eligible voters and also the mechanisms that are used to cast and capture and tabulate our votes. I think it is important to first of all lay out the background work. When we talk about reagan, reagan is the free determination of an election before it occurs or some sort of action thats going to take place in order to influence the outcome of that election in a way they dont necessarily in hand. You dont have good commercials that certainly can sway an election or influence the outcome of elections. What we are talking about here is malfeasance and exactly what that means. I think tammys got it right. When you think about elections in this country, reagan focuses on the very narrow piece of real estate that is the polling place. Theres a great line attributed to lots of people but its actually Tom Stallworth that democracy is not in the boat and its an accounting. Reagan at least in theory occurs when something breaks at the counting station where there is some sort of split between the duly cast ballots of voters in the tabulation of the results. When we think about rigigng and what we want to talk about today is whether theres something going on with bad backs by somebody to interfere with the process going from a duly cast ballot to a ballot certified result. Lets pick up on just that issue. What evidence is there that rigging and neither respects the scientists actually going on . I would argue that there really isnt any sort of evidence that this is happening. The other thing that i think is really important to talk about is how this has been brought into the public conversation is specifically about the president ial election. We need to talk about a national scale. There are instances where there are some broke actors that have done bad things. But the majority of those types of instances in local elections well have some might vote buying a semicasting an absentee ballot that is not their own. It occurs occasionally and rarely in local elections but with ever seen it happen in a largescale national election. I would argue that there are known vulnerabilities and Election Administrators to note those vulnerabilities are and has both mitigated as well as trained their workers, their staff as well as all the Stakeholder Groups and others what to look out for to make sure that it doesnt. The list of things that people worry about in terms of socalled rigging, who are dead. How is that possible . Weve got impersonation or with god mexicans sneaking over the border in casting a ballot. Can you get a sense of what we know about those incidents . A lot of what you just mentioned ties back to Voter Registration. In order for anyone to receive the ballot, they have to have registered with the exception of a few places that have election day registration in which case they can register at that point. So if youre talking about individuals who are ineligible for any reason, citizenship, age, only 15 but related disaster, thereve been saying all the rock the vote where they are in a state where disenfranchisement is not restored to raise. The help america vote act requires when a registrar of voters received a Voter Registration form that it goes through a verification with other state agencies. The sorts of things are checked and verified. Its very difficult for someone whos not an eligible director to burst of pharmacy get registered because of these. And then you have to in fact perceive the ballot. If youre talking about requesting a ballot to be mailed to someone, many states require signature verification. So you may well easily be able to obtain someones personal information on facebook. It may be much more difficult to obtain what the signature looks like in order to receive a ballot, cast a ballot and have the signature verify a second time and have it actually be cast. Doug chapin, you are an expert on election law with folks around the country and local level on elections. You work with officials by pretesting are those helpful in terms of picking up in detecting wholesale rigging voter fraud that would change the outcome of an election . Absolutely. Thats a nice followon to attend had to say about the process. I often talk about the polling places. It is a black box in the traditional sense you cant see inside. There actually is a fairly lengthy process that begins weeks, months before an election whereby Election Officials are testing an retesting different parts of the process. They are doing checks on the registration list. They are guaranteeing requesting to read open to the public test of their Voting Machines, and ends in many jurisdictions there are opportunities for people to be observers, legal, well behaved observers at the polls. The elections dont end on Election Night. We go through a process called canvassing before we certified the vote. In many states including minnesota, you have a procedure called postelection auditing. Weird to be markup into the election screen numerous times throughout the process. While tammy notes you can have small disturbances that happened at the local level, the kind of wholesale outcome altering conspiracies if you will better being discussed right now would be so improbable as to be impossible given the number of times that we check and verify the process. Theres a great line that came out during the arms debates in the 1980s. The russian phrase which means trust but verify. Election officials stressed their voters, but they verify the process numerous times said that both they and the voting public can have confidence the outcome is what the outcome should be. I would just add that its also noteworthy to consider exactly what the numbers were talking about here. If youre talking about jurisdictions that conduct elections in the United States between eight and 10,000 depending whether including Voter Registration which i would, then its more 10,000. 10,000 jurisdictions. Some of them run by republicans, some democrats. All of the employees, all of them have workers are onsite election day workers that many states require you to have a complement of Party Affiliations within the board traditionally and historically used to be ds and r. s with the growth of independent or nonaffiliated voters come in many states have had to adjust their statues in order to allow for unaffiliated voters to still participate in the boats. You have a complement within the polling place to keep an eye on what is happening and is recommended to take a sworn duty in her mouth at the beginning of election day to uphold the constitution. Not a lot of people have to take a sworn to before they take their job duty for the day and theyll take it very seriously. Doug chapin. Obviously the red and blue country everywhere but many parts of the country. I think theres some trepidation on both sides of the aisle among voters that when you get to it deep blue state or you get to a deep red state that despite the fact patrick has mentioned that the partisan are able to work their way and stuff the ballot box or allow individuals to register who are not actually eligible. If that something weve seen in america . I dont think it is. At the risk of being redundant, repetitive, we have lots of opportunities in the system to check that its working the way it should. The vast majority of Election Officials in this country, its possible it they are part of these at your thumb literally or figuratively over the letter that follows their name and not be able to tell their Part Assembly name. Many of these Election Officials do have very strong policy positions and we can talk about differences between the parties if you like, but examples of that kind of thumb on the scale inside job are aware existence because again you cant get away with it because it will be detected by all the different checks throughout the process. Who worked in florida. For people thinking about elections, florida 2000 part of conversation. I was in arizona but i see where youre going with this so its okay. Was florida in 2000 example of partisanship . I would say to answer the question you asked a dog in a different way and answered questions just ask, the last of the partisan steps are registering voters that are not eligible. I would say the exact opposite is in fact the case, that people who are eligible electors are having obstacles put in their path in order to her in her dissipate. I am a Firm Believer in fax and data and so in 2004 in arizona, we had a Voter Initiative password voters had to document proof of citizenship before they could registered to. There was no longer a sworn affidavit was no longer relevant. Tens of thousands of people who registered that did not provide documentation. The vast majority of them were able to do send documentation and could registered but some are not. Many of them were elderly and no longer have a valid traverse license or birth certificate. I would say that there are more statutory and legislative factors in the hopes of ensuring that no one who is ineligible can register sometimes at the cost of preventing eligible a lack to us from participating. Thats a policy question people have to decide. Is it justifiable to prevent an american citizen eligible in every way to exercise the franchise if in fact it allows some strict rule that insurers no one is able to register who is ineligible. Just to be clear, the voter i. D. Law in arizona and efforts elsewhere is directed at one type of issue related to this big concept of rigging. Individuals trying to impersonate a voter or an individual whos not eligible to register. Correct. This is sometimes folded in a secure rock, but its from the perspective of view while in the trenches or have been in the trenches, this is a pretty narrow solution. I guess i want to jump in. Was in. With the two dozen election in florida and in dimple of partisanship run amok. The answer is no. I think it is true that the two parties have very different views on election policy, democrats had to worry more about access for them in the worst possible outcome is somewhat otherwise eligible and unable to cast a ballot. Republicans tend to worry about the integrity of the system. For them the worst possible outcome is somewhat ineligible and still able to cast a ballot. Election officials come at the very differently. In that environment would happen in florida as much about the other tensions we have in Election Administration. There you had a secretary of state who happened to be a republican who had responsibility for but not necessarily authority over election offices, some of which are run by democrats in the county Election Officials and most of florida. So while those two groups might have seen the problem very differently, it was as much about the lack of fit between what the state requires that was the issue and the fact that youre the dean the leader of the free world and parties since literally across the country are physically flooding courthouses and election offices. There was the system itself partisanship run amok. The answer is no. There are folks who are convinced that there is a front often involve a decoration that we just dont know about, that is going on in the kinds of issues you raise. Thats fine. It is so rampant in that are detecting systems are just not taking it up and we are blind to it. What about this kind of issue of rampant situation of voter fraud that would not be detected and we change the outcome of an election. I think were better than that. If there was that timothy and action taking place, we would know about it. The reason i feel that way is because theres meticulous oversight and elections are ongoing in the state. The officials are using the equipment, laying out their ballots multiple times a year. If there was something widescale and prevalent, we would definitely know about it. His documentation of chain of custody, security access to the physical machines themselves. The machines are not connected to the internet, so there are air gaps in between the machines you can preclude any sort of nowhere or issues being transported from one machine to the maximum effect in the entire election. Because theyre such observation of the process, i just dont believe its as wide scale or even present at all because i think we would know about it. Many Election Officials have said they been diverted by this attention in the last few months and let a really needed to be doing was focusing on the details because elections are all about the details and ballot rotation and about making sure that the dates right at the top of the ballot. Its things they should be focusing in on and not this other topic and this other object is not that its an important topic because it is but the timing for it is really unfortunate. But i think we are seeing is they are reacting in a way because they are hearing from their voters that there is concerned, lack of confidence in the system because they are continually hearing that there will be a long line but its all good anyway. Governments terrible. Thats incredibly pragmatic. Local Election Officials are even more trained parent. They are putting their inaccuracy test out on periscope. They are putting it on twitter. Their Facebook Live in, the testing of ballots. They are trying to make sure voters know that this is a transparent process and Election Administrators from the side of the aisle are coming out and say you know, stop it because secretaries of state that are republican and the secretaries of state singing this is not the case. We run a good election and people need to have confidence. It sounds like one of your concerns is the rigging and half of america registered voters are being worried about voter fraud is actually starting to have a cost and the officials to do what they need to do to be ready for election day. At the end of the day they will get the job done. I think we may see some miss eggs and things like that for small errors that hopefully will be caught before election day in the last week or so. These are the types of things elections are doing not talking about cybersecurity and i dont want to discount that conversation because its a very important conversation to have. They just wouldve been a better conversation to have last year were even in january or february, did not disclose to an election because that is part of what is impacting a think the voters confidence. What is interesting is yesterday Charles Stuart issued a review, a study he had done. A professor of Political Science at m. I. T. Exactly. And he had done a study back in 2012 and how confident are you about happening naturally. Another survey came up recently thats not exact verbatim question but if im getting this part wrong i read it quickly yesterday for repub