The heat of the partisan fight that was at that point to come, we did not lose the principles of free and fair elections. So were working every day to defend the right of every american to participate in an election that they can trust and find legitimate. Host and youre funded by individual donors, by larger groups . Guest were a 501c3 nonprofit and we dont talk about donors. They respect their privacy, as do groups on all sides of the political spectrum. Host as you look at the president ial race, where are we now and how many legal challenges across the country has the Trump Campaign put forth . Guest well, there are a number of legal challenges that have been filed by the Trump Campaign or related entities, particularly targeting a few key states based on the results and what i presume to be a calculation about how they can get to 270 in the he leble college. Those states would be pennsylvania, michigan, arizona, nevada and georgia. Those seem to be getting the most attention. Most of these lawsuits, at least so far, focus on process questions. That is to say, processes dealing with either the recreate or the counting and tallying of ballots and allegations of some sort of either misconduct or mismanagement of the election system in the runup to or on election day. S host all of these states have statemandated deadline for providing the results from the president ial election. Do you expect that any of these legal efforts will push those dead the counting of the results past those state deadlines . Guest i think that remains to be seen, and im not sure exactly what still remains in the pipeline in terms of additional litigation, but certainly were seeing lawsuits filed almost every day at this point. You are right that states have deadlines and state laws certify elections and those are sort of spread out between now and the next few weeks, and then, of course, theres the ultimate deadline, which is the safe deadline for participation in the electoral college. Thats in early december, a Lara Setrakian by statute by congress. States have to certify their results and produce a slaste electors before that in order to ensure that congress cant question the electors that they point to the electoral college. I think at this point it remains to be seen exactly how long the litigation will stretch on for. It could all stop today. I dont think thats likely. It could go on for another few weeks. I think thats certainly a distinct possibility. Host i guess the question i ask you is where do you think that the Trump Campaign has the best case . Guest i think right now most of the action is concentrated in pennsylvania. And i think that in terms of the state that seems most primed for a lengthy litigation, it would be pennsylvania. The reason being that not only are you seeing lawsuits filed there, not only are there some concerns emerging out of philadelphia in particular of what seems at the very least to be poor management of their election system, but you also already had a case teed up in the Supreme Court dealing with the States Election day deadline for the recreate of absentee ballots and a previous state Supreme Court decision to extend that by court order three additional days to essentially render the requirement that a ballot be at least even postmarked into more of a presumption that even if it doesnt have one, that the ballot is still a valid one. So i think that right now pennsylvania is probably the oddson favorite to see the most litigation, but you can also see i think potential medical challenges in michigan, probably also again in georgia, and georgia, of course, is also headed to a runoff now where the state Just Announced theyre going to do a manual hand recount of all ballots cast in the president ial race. Host are they mandated to have that done by a certain time . Guest im not sure if theres a particular deadline, but i know based upon the process that its going take some time, and i think the secretary of state described it as a pretty heavy lift, so i think some patience there would be a good idea. I do think the recount is a smart move and is a wise move, because youre talking about a momentous election, and right now the vote count between joe biden and donald trump is separated by only about 14,000 votes, if i recall the numbers correctly. Host right. Guest thats a pretty narrow margin, so i think that a hand recouldnt will help to bring certainty to that. It will also help to uproot any potential irregularities, as well as disprove any rumors that might be circulating that have no basis in fact. Host we are talking about the Trump Campaign legal challenges to the votes across several states, welcome your calls and comments. If you are a supporter of joe biden and kamala harris, the line to use is you 2027488000. Supporters of sandrump mike pence, President Trump and mike pence, 2027488001. For all others, 2027488002. Jason snead with the honest elections project. Let me ask you about the Supreme Court. Do you envision any role, potential role for the court in any of these cases . Guest i dont think that im seeing a role for the Supreme Court just yet. But as i was saying before, i dont know what additional litigation there might be in the pipeline. I do think if there is a world in which the Supreme Court becomes involved, i dont think that were on that path just yet. In fact, i think just speaking as a factual matter, a lot of the cases that have thus far been filed are heading into some stiff legal head wind. I think it remains to be seen whats coming up. I think, again, depending on what that is, depending what the underlying ed is, theres a possibility the Supreme Court could become involved, and i think thats just something thats sort of hanging in the easter right now. Host the Trump Campaign signalled on monday they may be changing tack, legally, as opposed to just challenging individual batches of votes, challenging the entire state result as a whole. Do you think thats a wise strategy . Guest i think we need to be very careful the way that we are talking about this, and i would advise that anyone talking about that strategy allow the initial investigation to play out, because obviously underlying that would be allegations of either stem fraud or error, and i think it would be important to prove out that underlying assertion first. I think we should let that process play out. At the end of the day, any credible instance of fraud, any credible allegations, i should say, needs to be investigated, and voters deserve to be whether or not it is, in fact, true and if theres any basis to that claim. I think whether you are a supporter of trump or a supporter of biden, whether you believe that fraud is real and tainted this election or not, everyone should be supporting investigation into credible allegations. You either want to be able to state with certainty that fraud did happen and then find the people who are responsible, bring them to justice, and show voters that their system is being defended, or that it didnt happen, in which case you want to set the record straight once and for all and be able to show voters clearly that the facts say that voter fraud did not occur and did not taint the election. So i think that we should be letting this investigation play out first. Host your organization, the honest elections project, are you providing any guidance or any input to any of the Trump Campaign legal efforts . Guest no, not right now, and i dont think that we will be. Theres a possibility that my organization could be involved in future litigation. In fact, we were in the runup to the election, we supported a couple of lawsuits in michigan and in minnesota, which aimed to restore those States Electionday ballot recreate deadlines, because we wanted to make sure that we were defending both the constitution and the rule of law. And in those states, there was an effort to extend the ballot recreate process through courts , in minnesota in particular, through a Consent Decree where the secretary of state simple al greed to the demands put forward by a group that was suing. And we argued in court that the constitution is quite clear that state legislatures have the four regulate the manner of an election. In minnesota, as well as in michigan, the state legislature had set election day as the deadline for the recreate of ballots, and in minnesota we went up to the eighth circuit and we got an order to segregate ballots and also its a very strongly written opinion basically back our assertion that the constitution does, in fact, not allow an executive branch official to simply unilaterally rewrite state election law, even in the midst of a pandemic, because theres no pandemic exception to the constitution. Host the Trump Campaign making a similar case in pennsylvania with the rulings of the pennsylvania Supreme Court. What do you think of their legal arguments there . Guest i think theyre on solid ground there, just as we were in minnesota and in michigan. The constitutions language is fairly plain that, again, its legislatures that have the power to regulate the manner of an election. I think that we have to be very careful when were counting either executive Branch Officials stepping in on their own authority and countermanding established laws that are passed in accordance with the constitution or courts counting that same conduct. Theres sort of another shade to this, another wrinkle to this, and that is the lawsuits being brought to extend these ballots deadlines were being brought by some of the same lawyers that represent democratic party, super p. A. C. s and other liberal organizations. I think that its not a good look at the very least for our democracy when one side is suing in a state, and then executive official, the secretary of state or otherwise that theyre suing, are agreeing effectively rewrite the law and doing so behind closed doors at the demands of deeppocketed groups on one side of the political spectrum. So i think thats something that we also need to be very careful about. I do think that case in pennsylvania thats now pending before the Supreme Court is on some strong legal footing. Host let me ask you your reaction to the opinion of ben ginsburg, who was a lawyer involved obviously in the 2000 trump v. Gore count. He had an opinion piece in the Washington Post just before the election, but it was about allegations of fraud. He said a systematic attack made completely without evidence aimed at undermining a basic pillar of our democracy, i know theres no evidence for systematic fraud because i spent the better part of every election for four decades working in full programs and election day operations. Jason snead, your thoughts. Guest well, i know for a fact that voter fraud happens. It happens in essentially every election cycle. When i was at my last job at the heritage foundation, we stood up an Election Fraud database, which zpracks proves that, in fact, there are always people who are ready to cheat and steal in order to win an election. They have their own personal agendas, often their personal ambitions are on the line. We know that there are people who have, shall we say, flexible senses of right and wrong and what the law says when it comes to an election. We know that fraud exists in basically every other aspect of life, so why should voting be any different . Host i guess the question would be, in what volume, what volume it has to be for the votes that the president would need to win the election. Guest well, thats right. As i was saying, we know that fraud exists, so now the question is to what degree does it exist and how impactful will it be . Frankly, the vote count being what it is, n a lot of these states, its going to be a very, very difficult hurdle for the campaign to overcome. Of course, if they actually do have credible evidence backing up these claims, and i would think that the American People would want to see it, because we all have a right to participate in free and honest elections, and so as i said before, if there is a credible allegation out there, it should be fully investigated so we can get to the bottom of what did or did not happen. Host President Trump this morning critical of the vote counting in North Carolina. His tweet moments ago saying it took long enough. What is taking North Carolina so long . Are they looking for more ballots to fix that one also . Now with a recount, we will win georgia also, pennsylvania and michigan. Wouldnt let our poll watchers and observers into counting rooms. Illegal. Lets go to calls and hear from peter in valley cottage, new york, a President Trump supporter. Go ahead. Caller everybody has a problem with saying valley cot only, i dont know why that is. [laughter] anyway, mr. Snead, my question is, i voted in person, so i dont have any idea exactly whats on a mailmany ballot. Once the ballot itself is separated from the envelope, how do they check the signature . In other words, one of the accusations that was being made was that the there were people who were voting who shouldnt vote. Can you explain to me, is there a signature on the ballot itself that can be verified afterwards . To certify that the ballot is legitimate . Nd also, is there a way to check these machines that are registering the ballots . One of the accusations that i heard was that the software of these counting machines was able to be flipped and votes could be sent to one candidate or the other. Is there any legitimacy to the fact that they could be hacked . Can you explain that, please . Thank you. Guest sure. In terms of the first question about what the absentee ballot actually looks like, there is not a place to sign the ballot itself. The reason is that most state laws, actually every state law where youre allowed to cast an absentee ballot, it also respects the privacy of the individual voter, and thats something that i think is obviously an important thing to protect. And so the way this process works is, when you are finished casting your ballots, youll put it in a privacy envelope, and then you will sign that outer envelope. That is the signature which is being vetted by Election Officials when they receive the ballot and theyre comparing it to the signature on file for the particular voter. And so the problem is once, of course, you separate the ballot from that envelope, its virtually impossible to actually be able to bring those two back together, so thats why that process at the outset is so important. Thats why it was so unfortunate that in several states, like pennsylvania, for instance, the signature matching process that was in place there was simply ended, and so now youve got a situation where lets assume that there is evidence of fraudulent ballots having been cast, the question is how do you actually deal with that problem . What is the appropriate remedy . Thats why its so important that we have these rules that provide the verifications at the outset and that we stick to them and not try to change those rules in the middle of an election. I think if for no other reason we want to show voters that they can have a sense of trust and credibility in the results of the election. As to the voting machines, it generally is considered to be a best practice that these machines not be tied directly to the internet so that their ability to be hacked is significantly limited. Im not aware of any credible concerns so far that any significant number of machines were in any way tampered with or the software was corrupted. Its certainly, i think, a possibility, but because these machines are air gapped, that would be a rather difficult thing to do. I think youd have to go machine to machine manually, plugging in a u. S. B. Device or Something Like that to install the malware or corrupted software. So certainly these machines are auditable. You can do checks of the software. But im not aware yet of any credible allegations that the machines themselves were tampered with. Host next is halifax, pennsylvania. Diana, good morning, on our biden line. Caller good morning. Ll due respect to mr. Snead, hes being paid for this, and he said that the private donors could not be divulged. I cannot find that anyone would not know that this election was so different from other elections that weve had in the past. I vote absentee for health reasons, and how many millions of people chose not to go out into a public arena to vote this year . Its mindboggling that this is continuing and continuing. We are in a terrible situation in this country. Everybody, individuals, need to take a good look at whats going on and choose for themselves whether to stand up for an election that took place, and we cannot take four more years of the divisiveness of this country. Thank you, sir. Host jason snead . Guest well, the caller is absolutely right to point out that the election was conducted very differently from how it normally would proceed. There were lots of states that made fairly significant changes to their voting process. We saw a huge surge in absentee balloting. Thats not inherently a problem in and of itself, but the problem really comes in when you are doing a few different things. One is, when you are rushing those sweeping changes into place, and if youre doing that in a state that doesnt custom airline deal with large numbers of absentee ballots, youre talking about new processes, new procedures, new training requirements for elections officials, potential confusion on the part of voters, all of which is to say there are a lot of things that could go wrong. We saw that in the primary, and any post mortem analysis of the election will show that there were problems and certainly hot spots in the general election as well. The other thing that we need to keep in mind is that a lot of the rules changes were essentially imposed on states in the course of litigation, and these lawsuits, which often were brought by politicized groups, were aiming to undermine a lot of the key safeguards and verifications that protect absentee ballots. We were talking a second ago about signature matching a. Lot of the lawsuits targeted signature matching a. Lot of them targeted witness requirements. These are voter identification requirements that help to prove that an absentee ballot is, in fact, a legitimate one that was cast by a lawful voter. We also saw efforts to legalize ballot harvesting. This is a practice that puts organized thirdparty individuals, sometimes campaigns or candidates themselves, in direct possession of other peoples ballots. I think that that process is demonstrably open to abuse and fraud. So this is why, again, its so important that we have processes in place and rules in place that we respect through the election and that makes sure however people cast their ballots, whether its in person or absentee, that those ballots are secure and that the system is credible. Host well hear next from maxine in michigan. Caller good morning, gentlemen. I dont have a question for your guest. I only have a statement. Rahm tement is i remember emanuel telling the democrats not to let an emergency go to waste. So what youre seeing in this election is Rahm Emanuels words coming back. Now, im a firstgeneration ghetto child from detroit. And detroit has been corrupt since back in the 1950s. You only have to look at the kwame prison to look at kilpatrick, who was the mayor who had a machine in detroit. His cohorts are still operating there. To think that detroit had a legal, lawful election, youre fooling yourself. There is no way, no how. And ask me to accept this president clinton, never, not in this lifetime. To accept this president elect, never, not in this lifetime. You cannot expect notice cooperate with you when i know that youre not lawfully elected. Host jason snead, what is the Trump Campaign trying to do in michigan in particular . Hats their effort like there . Guest well, there are a couple of lawsuits, including one filed yesterday. The lawsuit includes a potpourri of allegations of either misconduct or even fraud. That i think its worth looking into to see exactly to what extent these allegations, these concerns are valid. I think that while most of the conversation right now is focused on fraud, we also have to be talking about the potential for straightup bureaucratic inexcess ens and mismfplgt i think one of the Silver Linings from all of this that could come out of it, at least if were smart about it, is that the American People are seeing firsthand exactly how many things can go wrong with an election system and how badly some state will need some serious reforms. I think particularly pennsylvania, but also michigan would be a prime example where, when we go in and we look after the election is completed, at what works and what didnt, im fairly confident that were going to see that theres a lot of aspects of the voting process that could stand to use some legal reforms, and i would hope that lawmakers would step up and take a look at that. I think that we could do that. I think that florida did that after 2000, and 20 years later, theyre now a model for other states how to conduct an election and produce timely, accurate and complete vote counts. Host here are the vote counts so far. All the Election Results are there, the map of the u. S. , the Associated Press vote counting. As of this morning, joe biden with 50. 8 of the vote, 77 million, over 77 million vote. Donald trump, 72 million votes, and a. P. Declaring the winner there, joe biden, 290 electoral votes. Donald trump with 217. Jason snead, just the sheer volume of votes, did that exacerbate some of the counting problem . Guest well, i think that what we are seeing in terms of the counting problem being exacerbated is more the type of ballots than volume of ballots. Its the fact that we rushed into absentee voting with very little planning or preparation to do that. Obviously there were special circumstances with the pandemic. But we have to keep in mind while every state allows for some degree of absentee voting, and while a majority of states even before the pandemic allowed for no excuse absentee voting, it was not the norm in most states. In fact, in 2018, only about one in four americans cast an absentee ballot. And so when youre talking about changing from a predominantly inperson system to a predominantly remote system, or even a significantly remote system, there are different processes, theres different infrastructure in place, and that means that you have to retrain your poll workers and your polling staff, you have to explain and educate the new process to voters, in other words, murphys law applies here, and there is a lot that can go wrong when youre trying to do this on the fly, particularly in the circumstances that we all find ourselves in with the pandemic. So i think that a lot of these vote count delays that were seeing have a lot more to do with the fact that were just seeing an unprecedented number of absentee ballots. It also, of course, has to do with the fact that in some states like North Carolina, the recreate deadline for those ballots was extended, and so you then have to wait, and fths a close race like it was in North Carolina, you cant in good conscience call it until you know for sure what the vote count is actually going to be. So i think that those factors are a part of the reason why were seeing some of the delays and some of the problems with the counting and tallying of ballots. Host lets go back to the cspan vote map for a second and focus on arizona. Joe biden declared the winner there. 99 of the vote is counted there. 1. 6 million votes, 49. 4 of the vote, donald trump 1. 65 million votes with 49. 07 of the vote. Notably, libertarian candidate garnered 51,000 votes in that state, 1. 5 of the vote total. President trump tweeting about arizona this morning, saying that from 200,000 votes to less than 10,000 votes, if we can audit the total votes cast, we will easily win in arizona also. Whats going on in arizona in terms of any legal push by the Trump Campaign . Guest it seems that arizona is probably headed towards a recount. Well have to see how much the recount changes the vote tallies. Ill note that historically recounts dont usually change vote counts more than a few hundred or maybe a few thousand votes, depending on the total number of votes cast. I know there are a couple of other lawsuits, and there may be some more headed down the pike in arizona. I cant really speak to that. But it does seem that arizona, we really saw something incredible there in terms of the president clawing his way back from the early Election Night calls, where it seemed absolutely certain in the eyes of some in the media that it was going to be a biden win, but now it seems like its inside the margin for a recount, and well have to see what the impact of that recount actually is on the vote totals. Host well flare maryland next on the biden line. Caller how you doing . Good morning, gentlemen. I wanted to say let the process play itself out. I agree with the fact that trump has the right to do what hes doing, trying to legitimize this thing. But i think what baffles me more than anything is that all these issues that come up, its always in counties or cities where theres people of color. And then youre talking about fraud. Can you tell me how many people have been locked up for voting fraud in the last 20 or 30 years . And people locked up for that. Voter fraud, if its happening like you people say, so you have many people with fines that locked up, im talking about in the hundreds of thousands of people, if all of these things are really happening. Why is it always that its in the counties and cities of africanAmerican People or hispanics or people of color when we got these problems . These problems happen all the time, everywhere. Of vote season, we always have issues with those things. I mean, im just trying to pick out why its always when were counting black votes or hispanic votes, we got issues. I mean, can you answer the question . How many people been locked up for voter fraud . Host thanks. Jason snead . Guest again, i know for a fact that voter fraud happens. When i was at the heritage foundation, we were tracking cases of proven instances of vote fraud, including cases where people have gone to jail. No one has a complete count, and even if there was a total count of how many people have gone to jail over the time span that the caller is talking about, it wouldnt actually reflect the total universe of fraud, because these investigations are difficult, theyre timeconsuming, and they often arent actually followed up on, especially after an election is over, because prosecutors are much more interested in other crimes, and they have resource problems, which i completely understand. Theyre talking about priorities there. I would say that in order to have significant amount of voter fraud, you dont need to have hundreds of thousands or millions of people who are involved and all thely going to jail to do it. Sometimes you only need one or two people to be involved. And thats because they can, for instance, one person can go around and harvest hundreds of ballots and sway a congressional race. Thats essentially what happened in North Carolina. Just the other day, texas filed criminal charges against a social worker who attempted to get her hands on 67 ballots in a special care facility that she was apparently working at, and the people she was targeting were mentally incapacitated or intellectually disabled individuals, and she was trying to get her hands on their votes for her own personal reasons. So i think that theres a focus i think sometimes on how many people have been actually arrested, how many people have actually gone to jail, but i think that misses the point. Sometimes the significant amount of voter fraud only affects a small number of people. And as to the allegations regarding the racial component here, there are plenty of areas of this country, like parts of kentucky and appear latch i cant, where the populations are majority white, but you wind up with systematic fraud that is part of the bakedin, local corruption, and its one of the bestkept secrets of locals in those areas. So this is not about looking at people based on the color of their skin. That would be absolutely wrong and objectionable if it was. This is about ensuring that every Single Person has their lawful vote counted, and that everyone can trust the results of the election. And that means that no one should be left to be a victim of these sorts of crimes, no matter whether they live in a particular city or whether they live out in a rural area. It doesnt matter. Were all americans. We have a right to vote. We should protect that right. Host were seeing an update on the pennsylvania vote. This tweet from the National Security correspondent for cnn. New, bidens lead in pennsylvania has surpassed 50,000 votes. Bidens margin is 52,244, with democraticheavy areas left to count. Again, the map at cspan. Org showing pennsylvania and that vote tally, that number has been added in there. And again, significant enough, the votes garnered by the libertarian candidate in pennsylvania, 78,083, certainly more than the difference right now between joe biden and donald trump. Morgantown, west virginia, we hear from a trump supporter. Go ahead. Caller yes. I wanted to tell you about last time when i went to vote. I voted for donald trump. And it came up on my machine that i had voted for not hillary, but for the other woman. So i told the poll worker there, her name was gertrude. She told me to go ahead and vote again. So i went ahead and voted again. And it came up again, that i voted for this woman again. And i told her again. She said just go ahead and vote again. So i went ahead and did it again, and the third time i got donald trump. So, you know, you cant tell me that theres no fraud going around on here, ok . Now, the second thing i wanted to say was, and then this is all i have to say, i have no respect for joe bidens wife, for her to let her husband go out there and be humiliated and look like zerks my husband died of dementia, and thats exactly what hes got, and she is degrading him every time she lets him go on tv. I feel sorry for the man. I respect him, but i have no respect for his wife, for her putting him through what shes putting him through. Host her experience at the polls and the multiple misvotes there . Anecdotal ed there. Guest well, ive heard stories like that before, and i think probably the most likely outcome, or the most likely explanation is that the, if it was a touch screen voting device, that the touch screen was probably misaligned and needed to be recalibrated so that when you were touching the screen over donald trump in this case, that it was registering the input as donald trump. Theres also going to be, no matter whether youre talking about a touch screen device or one of the scan devices, or even if youre doing a manual one with chads back in the day, theres always the prospect that the device in some way malfunctions or theres a misread, and there are procedures in place for dealing with that. If youre dealing with a paper ballot, you can spoil the ballot and vote a second time to make sure the vote is properly counted. And if youre using one of these Electronic Devices with a touch screen, then you can simply back out and start again. There are procedures for dealing with that, and i think that it was probably a technical error more than anything else that accounted for her experience. Noip oregon, sharon on our biden line. Hi there. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I have just a couple of questions that i would like your guest to answer. You asked him earlier in the program how many lawsuits the Trump Campaign has filed so far. And how many have not gone through. So i guess thats my first question. How many lawsuits have been filed on this election, and how many have they won. Host do you have another question before we let you go . Caller i want to take them one at a time, because if you give him several, then the questions dont get answered. So if you would just let me have this, let him answer, and then ill ask. Host ill keep out line, go ahead. Jason snead . Guest i dont have an exact number of he total lawsuits that have been filed. That are lawsuits filed by the campaign, by the r. N. C. , by other groups, allied groups as well. There have been a couple of wins that the trump folks can notch, including a win on the poll watcher issue, where the claim was essentially that the poll watchers were not being allowed to observe the process close enough, either depending on how you want to view that, either because of covid restrictions or an attempt to prevent them from viewing the process. They won a lawsuit there ensuring that the republican poll watchers could, in fact, get close enough to view the process and ensure that it was all above board. So there have been a couple of victories. There have been a lot of cases that have been thrown out, and there are a lot of cases that are still pending, including the one that was just filed yesterday from michigan, alleging misconduct there. Guest host do you have another question . Caller i know you might not be able to give me a ballpark, but youre a researcher. About how many, two your knowledge, have been rejected by the courts . Guest well, again, i dont know an exact number of cases that have been rejected. I think that im aware of about 10 or 12 that have been rejected so far or are basically on appeal. This is not a cut and dry issue, because there are appeals ongoing in some of these cases, and so thats why theres a little bit of, i guess, wiggle room there. Host heres john in california, whos a trump supporter. Good morning. Caller good morning, good morning, mr. Snead. I would like to offer my opinion on the election and maybe you could offer your comment on that. What i think is that the voter rolls claw lot of people that in a normal election theres a certain percentage that do not vote, they do not come out of their houses, they do not go to the polls. And then when we had the universal ballots mailed out to everyone who is on the voter rolls, even those that might not have voted, that left some votes that could be harvested, that could be coerced, you know, heres a cell phone or whatever, and just people voting because they hate trump. Nd so theres you know, the republicans gained seats in the house. They held the senate. They beat the polls by 10 . There was a big surgery, yet they lost the president ial election, because as sydney powell puts it, there were with just the name of joe biden under it, no under voting, no down ballot voting. Host where did that snap where were those votes, . There were those 450,000 votes . What state . Caller im just voting a respected lawyer who i think is fantastic. Host ok, let you go there and flare jason snead. Guest well, i skernl share the concern when youre talking about sending unsolicited absentee ballots to every registered voter, because we do know that voter rolls with r riddled with inaccuracies. A few years ago, our researchers concluded that one in eight Voter Registrations nationwide was either inaccurate, out of date, or duplicative. So when youre sending out ballots to every Voter Registration you know that youre going to send it to people who have moved away or who have died. You saw this in the primaries, in clark county, nevada, as well as new jersey, where ballots were simply dumped on sidewalks, apartment lobbies, because, of course, the people they were addressed to no longer resided at those addresses. You saw it in michigan when michigan decided to send ballot applications to all of its registered voters. About 500,000 of those applications were returned to the secretary of state as undeliverable. By some estimates, another 300,000 were delivered, but delivered to the people who currently live at that address, not the intended resilient. So we know that voter rolls are inaccurate. I certainly share the concern that if you were going to be sending ballots unsolicited to every Voter Registration without going through and cleaning up your lists first, then you are creating opportunities for certainly abuse and fraud in a system, not to mention the fact that youre wasting tax dollars, knowing where between 8 and 10 are going nowhere. And this opportunity for abuse and fraud is only going to be exacerbated if you take away things like signature matching, witness requirements, those basic verifications that helped to ensure that absentee ballots are being cast by lawful voters, and we see that absentee voting is more vulnerable than inperson voting. We saw that with patterson, new jersey, with the voter fraud scandaled that forced a redo a municipal election. We saw it in 2018 when ballot harvesters were able to get their hands on hundreds of absentee ballots and effectively disenfranchised those voters and forced the redo of a congressional race in North Carolina. Thats why these sorts of verifications are so critical, they cannot be undermined. Im glad your caller raised that particular point. Host which states mailed out absentee ballots unsolicited . Guest before the pandemic, there were five states that were there are vote by mail states, so they would automatically send out ballots. A few other states followed in their footsteps, including new jersey this year. All in all, there were about nine states that ultimately made the decision to mail in or excuse me, automatically mail out absentee blts. Theres a big push in litigation to force other states to do this, including places like ohio, michigan, other battleground states. But fortunately, those lawsuits were beaten back, again, balls the key issue here is that when you are mailing ballots to every Voter Registration on file, and youre not going through and cleaning those voter files up first, then you are undoubtedly sending ballots to people who should not be receiving them, who moved away, who have died. If you happen to be be someone who is willing to cheat and you see ballots piling up, then its a fair guess that no one is going to come and challenge those votes, particular physical theres no verification in place. Thats why its so important we do absentee balloting right and keep the verifications in place. Host lets hear from carl in nashville. Caller im wondering, hes a director, right . Im wondering why in the world he he seems to me he telling lies. He have no proof on anything he has said so far. Everybody, we know that we have machines that mess this up, but the thing about it is, this technology right now, hey, we dont have to have we are smarter than that. We are not stupid. You are on there talking about something, and you are a director and you have no proof of anything you saying. I tell you the trufmente i love this station. But i dont like a liar. You just like the outgoing president , nothing but a liar. Thank you. Host carl, ill let you go there. Jason snead, would you like to respond . Guest well, i will respond to the extent that i havent made any claims here. All ive said is that where there is credible allegation of fraud or mismanagement in our election systems, that it should be investigated so that we can get to the truth and the facts of the matter. We shouldnt sweep this under the rug, pretend that there are never any problems with our election system. There threerl are. So i dont think that eve made any claims that is not supportable, and i dont think weve done anything but say we should be able to see exactly what did and did not work with this election. By way of a simple analogy, if you are sitting at home and you smell smoke, you dont just assume there cant possibly be a fire. You get up and investigate it. Thats the right thing to do, because youd rather investigate and find nothing there than do nothing and have the house burn down. So die think we toe to everyone, when there is a credible allegation of fraud or mismanagement to get to the bottom so that we can either bring the people responsible to justice and ensure that the system works smoothly or we can tell voters with a clear conscience that nothing happened. But i dont think we can simply make assumptions one way or the other, and at the end of the day, were talking about defending a system so that it will deliver a complete, fair, and accurate count that we can all rely on. Host jason snead, executive director of the honest elections project, thanks so much for she spends washington journal , we are taking up because life, on the air. We are discussing policy issues that impact you. Coming up friday morning, we l have the center for rebeccachallenges with greene. The law professor and codirector. Marcy spends washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern on friday morning. Be sure to join the discussion with your phone call, facebook, comments, Text Messages and tweets. Coming up, live, on friday, jim holds a Conference Ahead of the spacex resilience through launch. The Homeland Security secretary, they talk about president ial and also talk about the peaceful transfer of power. Sunday night on q a, the university of texas, austin so saudi. Professor, Sarah Ransome talks about the use of big data by law enforcement. They were collecting their own data and information. Is thatis happening now the police are increasingly putting information on all these books that have no direct from injustice contacts. Part of that has to do with this variety component of data that they are increasingly purchasing information from privately collected companies. They are using tools like automatic license plate readers. That kind of information is also being used. Sarah, she will be on cspan q a. 14 years. Congressman, former congressman Dick Gephardt joining us this morning, now a member of the National Council on election integrity. Nine days after the election yal election, thanks for being with us this morning. Guest