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 get it below get it before the election. Early, if you are voting in person, go and vote as early as you can. It is going to be important to make a plan for this election cycle, for every voter in the United States. Host a couple comments on text and twitter. This tweet says my mailin ballot is literally in my mailbox today waiting to be picked up by my mailman. President ial primaries are due by august 11. If trump spent half the time helping mailin voting as he does whining about it, we would be assured a safe secure election. A good question for you, are all mailin ballots sent to registered voters with their name on it . Guest yes. That is the only way they can be sent. The Election Officials need to have a name and address on file, and what they do is they send ballots out with a specific name and address. There is always coding. They are printed on special paper with special ink. Each ballot is assigned a particular voter. Is not like ballots or just available for pickup it is not like ballots are just available for pickup. The only place someone can pick up a ballot is at a specific polling location, for people to go in person to vote, and of course they need to go through a check in process, where they are validated by pull workers before they are handed that ballot pull workers before pull workers before they are handed that ballot. Host if my Voter Registration card has my Voter Registration card has been 1972 signature, it doesnt look anything at all like my current signature. Guest that is one of the problems. One of the problems that exists with mailin voting is we are seeing in states with less familiarity with large numbers of mail ballots is that a lot of ballots get rejected. Ballot will be flagged and now cant and not counted because the signature does not match or something was not fully filled out on the outside of the ballot envelope. Aery state has what it calls notice provision where it is supposed to contact you and give you some time to fix the problem. You can come in and prove your identity, for example with a signature mismatch and confirm that ballot is yours. If you have any doubt about this, a great way to vote is early and in person. Your identity is validated before you are given a ballot. You get a ballot, and then you vote. People asked me how i prefer to vote, and i always vote whenever possible, early and in person. It is the most convenient for me. I am confident i can do so safely, and i know if there are any issues, that i will be able to deal with it at that time with human beings. Host does your organization favor voting favor voting id laws . Guest we take no position on voter id laws. There are different laws around the country based on how states operate. We do think that given the need for safe and convenient voting that states should be thinking about how integrity of the ballot isnt important balances with access for voters and every state is going to make a different decision. Host here is linda in tennessee, independent line. Yes, i, yes caller dont have no confidence. Voted three times for her brothers and uncle [indiscernible] jail or get put in whatever . Host was that in your your calla to . Caller no, that was an ohio host was that in your locality . Ohio no, that was an that was in ohio. Guest anecdotal claims of voter fraud, there are occasional instances. They are almost always caught and prosecuted. The secretary of state in ohio is a republican. Job of a remarkably good identifying potential fraud, investigating it and prosecuting it. They put out a report after every single major election. You can go onto their website and look at the 2018 report, and what they will show is that the percentage of voter fraud that they detected possibly existing in ohio is measured in the of a percentage point. It is very rare. I highly encourage you to volunteer and ask the secretary. Host President Trump raise concern on a mailin primary race in new york and his News Conference yesterday. The headline, why President Trump is calling for a revote in a primary election. On monday he suggested the democratic primary in new york should undergo a quote, revote. It has been six weeks since the election took place, and there are still no declared winners in the full Congressional District which includes parts of manhattan, brooklyn and queens. The president saying, i think you probably have to take the race and run it over again, referencing the sitting congresswoman from the 12 Congressional District. How can you do this . This is a small race with literally thousands of people, and it is all messed up. They are six weeks into it now and they have no clue what is going on. What is going on in those races . Guest the Election Officials are doing what they should be doing. New york is a state that does not have a lot of experience with mail voting, and voters have chosen to request mail ballots at rates much higher than before, due to the pandemic most likely. Election officials are very closely validating every single one of those ballots. This is how we protect against potential fraud. This is how we demonstrate to anyone who is even thinking about committing fraud that we will catch them. It is much more important to get it accurate than to get it fast. It took six weeks to get to the point in november and december of 2000 where we were in florida, with president bush narrowly defeating Vice President gore. I ask people with their partisan lenses, we look at these things from the perspective of whod we want to win and what is going to benefit our party, but what is good for the goose is good for the gander. We wanted to ask for a revote in florida with such a narrow election there, and officials trying to do their job. Similarly, we have seen close elections in other places. What we are seeing in new york is electionaces officials diligently doing their jobs under very challenging circumstances. They will reach a determination on the final count in new york, and we should give them the time to do so. Host howard on our democrats line. Caller good morning to you. Not a person that looks at color or white or black. If you treat me like a person, i treat you like a person. I have heard three white women say they can duplicate signatures, or go into a mothers home and do what they wanted. A black to say person got caught and she admitted it. If you were correct, you could do it, but you are going to get caught. This is the thing with me. Life, this year, in salisbury, north carolina, you have to ask for an application first. This is what is going to lock you in with your signature. Years before 10 you voted again, that application, if they dont want the candidate to receive you would get your ballot. You can send that ballot in, as soon as you fill it out and you are already in there. How many people do you think that right now, this year, right in georgia or kentucky, how many people with one pull open one poll open, have any people do you think were discouraged and turned away and did not get a chance to vote at all . Host ok, howard. David becker . Guest you raise a very good point. The majority of states, including almost all battleground states, there were multiple levels of validation. Someone has to go through the process of applying for a mail ballot. There is a signature on that or other personal information that is validated before someday can even receive a ballot. There is a second level of validation that occurs when the ballot is returned. You are right. We need to be concerned, particularly in the pandemic when people are worried about their health and you may have fewer polling places and poll workers. We have to make sure everyone has a convenient way to vote. There have been some challenges with that, there have been a lot of polling places closed, and there have been some success stories. Louisville, somewhat of a success story, where they used the Kentucky Expo Center which is a large arena like structure with parking around it. Thousands voted that day in that large structure, and very few lines. Everyone got in and out in about 1520 minutes. It was probably not so great that it was the only place devote during the primary in Jefferson County probable the only place to vote during the primary in Jefferson County. If you look at other states, north carolina, kentucky, pennsylvania, etc. , Election Officials are working hard to secure enough sites to make sure there are more sites available, because smaller sites are not appropriate right now because we cannot socially distance, or there are sites we have used in the past like Senior Centers where there are too many people at risk. They were going to be some precinct consolidations, fewer sites there are probably going to be some precinct consolidations, fewer sites. It is a major concern for all of us working elections, including Election Officials from both parties around the part around the country. We have to make sure voters feel safe and can get to a voting place conveniently. Host our next caller on the republican line. Caller ive got one question for him. Why didnt he come out two days after Stacey Abrams said all the voting was fraud and tell her about his wonderful system . Why would anyone in the right mind want to vote early, without listening to any of the debates, when you can hear if biden screws up or not . Guest first of all, there were a lot of people who already know who they are voting for. I bet the caller already knows who he is voting for. There are voters who will want to see some debates or wait for other information. Every voter needs to make that choice by themselves. Whenever anyone of either party spreads allegations that we shouldnt trust election results, or that they cant trust Voting Technology or Election Officials or a process like early voting or mailin voting, honestly they are doing the work of our adversaries, who are diminishing our confidence in our elections. This is true across the political spectrum. To feelhat we all want confident in the election results. Voters should vote in the way that they choose. If they want to vote early, they should. If they want to vote by mail, they should vote by mail. If they want to wait and vote on election day, they should. The more that vote early, the smaller the crowds will be on election day. Host a Las Vegas Review journal headline, saying an election bill on a partyline vote, the president tweeting about that, not happy with it. Coup,illegal latenight nevadas clubhouse governor made it impossible for republicans to win the state. Post office could never handle the traffic of mail in voters mailin voting without preparation using covid to steal the state. See you in court. What is he talking about . Is the federal government challenging that decision . Guest i dont know if he means the federal government or the campaign. The democrats and republicans have armies of lawyers ready to litigate. The Trump Administration has litigation going on in several states. To takeies are going their relative positions in court, and we will see. I will say this. When there is partisan activity in and the legislature is trying to gain the system, i personally dont think that is good for voter confidence, and we have seen it on both sides. The Republican Legislature tried to restrict the ability of the republican secretary of state in iowa to offer more choices to voters. I dont recall the president saying anything bad about that. But we need to do is trust the election professionals. The election professionals, the secretaries of state, county Election Officials know what is best for their voters. That is going to be very important. Nevada is a state where they have handled a large volume of mail ballots in the past. They have experience in doing that. Other states, it is going to be much harder to handle the same volume. A state like arizona which is at 80 mail balloting already is going to be much more ready to handle ballots than a state like kentucky which has only ever had 5 . Different states will be in different positions, and we need to respect that. The main thing is we need to offer voter options and we need to be thinking of the voters first. If we are thinking about what outcome we want first, we are not going to be serving the voters. Host a couple quick questions. In georgia asks will ballots be rejected if dropped off with no postmark . Guest it depends on the state. If they are dropped off by the deadline, almost every state i closef, before the polls on election day, they will be counted. I dont know of any state where that is not the case. In states with large numbers of mail voting mistakes states oregon and washington, this might not be intuitive but the majority of ballots are physically dropped off, not returned by mail. It is a good way, if you prefer to vote in the comfort of your home, if you requested a mail ballot early enough, it is a good way to ensure your ballot is given to officials and will be counted. The secretary of state of michigan is highly encouraging theyve got a primary going on today, and she is encouraging voters to drop off ballots they received in the mail. Drop off ballots are a wonderful thing to do. Just make sure youve got it done by election day. Host larry is in missouri, democrats line. Does they question is, November Ballot have to be notarized in order to be received . Everyone to do mailin ballots. Thank you very much. Guest there are only a small handful of states that require a notary. A few other states require some sort of witness signature. Some states have waived that requirement. Alabama has a notary requirement. It is very rare. The message i would send to everyone out there is read the outside of the ballot envelope very carefully when you get it. Even before you request a ballot, confirm what the requirements are. It might be you are in a state where a notary is required and you may decide it is just as easy to go vote early in person, and that might be a good way for you to vote. You each have to make decisions based on your own circumstances, and what you feel comfortable with. But make those decisions early. Even if you decide not to vote early, but make the decision on how you are going to vote early, so you have a plan in place and you have a backup plan in place in case your ballot doesnt come or if Something Else changes. If the increase the number of early voting days and hours as texas just did, that might change your mind. Make a decision as early as possible. Host david becker with the center for election innovation and research. We look forward to hearing from continues. On journal host we are joined by dr. Arthur evans, ceo of the American Psychological association. Joining us to talk about that associations latest survey, on stress in the time of covid19. Dr. Evans, welcome to the program. Guest thank you, led to be here. Host this is glad to be here. Host tell us why you did this survey initially, and what you found different this time around. Guest we have done the stress 2017. Rica survey since we know that stress is related to a lot of our physical outcomes as well as Mental Health outcomes. We have been tracking on that, and since the pandemic, we have how doing surveys to see our stress levels are being affected by this pandemic. Host the survey is available at apa. Org. Into a numberlves of very current issues, including the aftermath of the killing of george floyd on may