'If You Can Keep It': Trump’s Election Attacks

23:52I expect there actually will be a lawsuit over this at some point pretty soon. And as we've seen with the DOJ time and time again, you know, Justin is a former DOJ lawyer. I served for many years in the voting section of the Justice Department under three attorneys general, two of them Republican. It's remarkable to see a DOJ that's losing as many cases as it has. It's lost those 12 out of 12 of the voter data cases. It's lost cases on the executive of orders that have been attempted. And so if another case is brought, I would expect that the courts will once again stand up for the principle Justin mentioned, which is that the states get to run elections.

24:25Congress also has a say, but the executive, the president, does not get to do it with a swipe of a pen. And we got this message from one of you. James writes, every conspiracy theorist, election denier who believes undocumented immigrants are voting need to work at the polls. It should be a compulsory public service for all adults. Dozens of Republican attorneys general have a great opportunity to turbocharge their career by finding illegal voters, yet none of them can do it. Should tell you all you need to know. Justin, it's interesting, this threat about funding. Anytime we speak to secretaries of state on this program, they talk about the need to have more funding for their election.

25:04So if the administration is truly concerned about election security, why threaten funding cuts rather than increasing funding? Well, that's exactly right. I've been on this train for decades now. It's we should be paying for the elections that we deserve and desire, and we're not. If you compare particularly the amount of money that we spend on American elections to what other countries spend on their elections, it's a drop in the bucket. In the Biden administration, there was a proposal for$10 billion with a B across 10 years and$5 billion for the Postal Service, by the way, to support its work on elections.

25:41To go to state and local election officials to give them the reliable, sustainable, durable funding they need to make investments. Not just to run the elections. They need that, too. But to be able to invest. You know, nobody buys a house without being able to put down a down payment and knowing where the rest of the money is coming from. Election officials now are trying to invest in the process and giving us both service and systems that reliably function even better than the ones that we have now, which are quite good. And the single best step, as you say, to better security would be to actually give them the money they need to do that work.

26:19And Congress has repeatedly refused to do this. And here I'll say this is a joint problem. This isn't just the administration. The president did not follow through with that budget in suggesting that Congress give the money to election officials that they need. But Congress has really put the stiff arm out as well. Congress needs to step up here. And the shocking thing is that every single member of Congress got where they are over an elections bridge that is in risk if we don't fund its maintenance appropriately. I agree with David 100 percent that the coming elections are going to be smooth and there's no reason to think otherwise.

27:01But we ought to invest in the infrastructure of the election process, just like we invest in other bridges and tunnels and roads and Internet and other infrastructure. And we haven't. And that's a bipartisan problem. Well, hand in hand with the president's immigration crackdowns and rhetoric against undocumented people in this country is the idea that they're voting in droves and other Republicans have joined on as well. We talk about it again today as sort of the political backdrop of this latest letter to secretaries of state. And Peter writes this. It was stated earlier that there is little voting by non-citizens.

27:36That statement is not substantiated. No one really knows how many non-citizens are voting. I'm unaware of any nonpartisan objective analysis on this issue. David Becker, is he right? We do know, and we do know not from a nonpartisan objective, but from the Trump administration itself. because the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security reviewed over 60 million voter records from states that voluntarily shared that data with DHS. DHS admits that its citizenship data is incomplete, and yet it confirmed that 99.97 % of those records had documented citizenship in DHS's incomplete records.

28:16When we looked, and you talked about this at the top of the show, So when we look at some of that 0.03 % that has been reported out to some of the states, even then we're finding somewhere between perhaps a third and two-thirds of them are documented citizens. The numbers are incredibly small. And so the states are doing a really good job already. They have better data than the federal government does, thanks to their motor vehicles agencies and Real ID. And they're using that data to flag anyone who appears not to be a citizen before they can get registered. That's really good policy. They're doing a remarkably good job of it, but it's absolutely not true that we don't know how much there is.

28:53This administration has had 18 months to look for it, and all they found is information confirming that this is very rare. Justin? Yeah, and I'll add, I mean, it is true that election officials are doing a great job at screening out. It's also on the part of voters, voting when you're a noncitizen is the least perfect crime there is. You're going to be caught every single time. You're creating a paper trail in your own name of the fact that you voted when you weren't supposed to. And it's an absolutely standard record check to check, among other things, voter registration, voter history databases, whenever there's an appointment for a change in status, for a visa, for a legal permanent residency, for naturalization, which means that you're always going to get caught.

29:40And so there's a real reason why we don't see non-citizen voting to any significant extent. Not only are election officials really good at catching it when it happens, but it's just not happening because it's a really dumb way to commit a crime. We're discussing the administration's attempts to change the election process and what that means for the freedom and fairness of it. And we're hearing from you. Becky writes, my spouse and I have been working elections for the past five years. I work the absentee ballot counting. My husband works the polls. We are both in awe of the process, the integrity, working directly with folks from the other party.

30:16I think these threats from the federal government are in direct opposition to our democracy. It's a chilling time. We'll be right back with more after this break.

30:30On this season of Planet Money Summer School, we follow the money and not just the dollars. We're following the yuan, the naira, the corona and more. Every Wednesday this summer, we're taking you on a world tour to meet the people, try new solutions to old economic problems. Planet Money Summer School. Grab some friends, pack your bags, and don't forget the sunscreen. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to today's installment of our weekly politics series, If You Can Keep It, on the administration's efforts to change the way elections are conducted and how states are pushing back.

31:03We've been hearing from so many of you, including many of you who are poll workers, volunteers, people who work on America's democracy. John emails to say, I became an election clerk in Kentucky in 2020 when there was a shortage of poll workers. I'm a Republican who had faith in our election security, and I still do. Election security is a bipartisan operation and, as noted today, extremely secure. I encourage anyone who's interested or concerned to do their civic duty and become an election worker. John, thank you so much for reaching out. David Becker, the administration is pushing for labor-intensive changes that Jen and I have mentioned already, paper ballots that you've talked about, running audits that already exist.

31:47President Trump, meanwhile, fired the remaining members of the Election Assistance Administration in Washington, assists election administration across the country. Could that place an extra burden on cities and states trying to run an election? What's the real impact of firing those commissioners, do you think? Well, I think there are two things going on here. The first is the president continues to try to expand the constitutional powers of the presidency beyond that which the founders intended. And the Supreme Court seems to be going along with that to some degree, saying that he can replace leaders, commissioners, Senate-confirmed appointees of agencies that Congress intended to be independent, such as the Election Assistance Commission.

32:33And that is very troubling. But we can also look at what the impact on elections will be. The EAC has a very limited mandate. It's almost entirely voluntary. It doesn't have the power to dictate states do anything in particular, even with regard to voting machines and certification. That's all voluntary. States can choose not to use it. Some states have. For instance, California has certification that they have ensured is at least as good as what federal certification would be. So the impact on the election itself is going to be very, very minimal. People should not worry about that. But we should be concerned about continued efforts to sow disinformation about the security of our elections, that we already have paper ballots, that we already have audits, that our system is secure and has withstood every piece of scrutiny that has been thrown at it over the last several years.

33:21And we should expect that that might continue if the election doesn't go the way the president hopes it does. Well, we're still hearing from you. Tom asks, how many times in past elections has such a letter been sent to all 50 states? I was a poll worker in a red state. The level of security to protect the vote was very impressive. I'm an independent. And Tom is referring there to the letter the Justice Department sent to all 50 states threatening to criminally prosecute election officials if any non-citizens cast votes in elections. Justin, what can you tell us? Has this been done before? Not to my knowledge.

33:54Although you heard Secretary Simon at the top of the program say that it was really just a letter that repeated existing law, something that all 50 states' officials are very aware of. And that is also true. The letter appears to have been, again, an attempt at a little bit of marketing by the president, but didn't make any new law. And I don't think has any statewide official concern because, again, as you heard the secretary say, they all know full well what federal law requires and are all complying with that. I do want to focus on, you've now heard a couple of listeners write in to say that their own experience in working the polls has shown them that the process is bipartisan, is secure, is nonpartisan really, and is just designed to help the American people who are eligible to vote cast their votes and reveal their preferences.

34:44And I think that's right. One of the most powerful ways to combat misinformation and disinformation is to just take part in the process. And you've heard from your listeners. This is validated, by the way, when election skeptics who think that there are problems with the elections actually sign up to become poll workers, to become election officials, and see the belts and suspenders and suspenders and belts and belts with suspenders attached that are our resilient election system, they come away pretty impressed. And that's no news. That's no surprise to your listeners who've been doing this for decades.

35:18It's no news to your listeners who've been doing this for an election or two. But really, one of the best ways to see how secure the election system is, is exactly as your listeners have said, to get involved and across the board wherever they happen to be. I've heard the same story from poll workers who are Democrats and Republicans and independents and none of the above who come away saying, yeah, it's just a bunch of Americans helping other Americans use their First Amendment rights as was intended. Now, we did reach out to the DOJ and FEMA for this conversation. The DOJ shared this statement, quote, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division this week sent letters to election officials in all 50 states in the District of Columbia, reminding them of their obligations under federal law to maintain accurate voter rolls.

36:04These letters make clear that officials who knowingly allow ineligible non-citizens to remain registered or to cast ballots could face legal consequences. This is not about administrative errors. It's about knowing failures to act. The department is offering technical assistance and legal guidance to any state that wants help ensuring its voter lists are accurate. Protecting the integrity of every American's vote is a priority, and we want every voter, regardless of power, to be able to trust that elections are being run cleanly. And just to clarify, those letters went out last week, not this one.

36:34Justin, as someone who worked in the DOJ's civil rights division, what do you make of that statement? Well, I wish that they had the capacity to offer the assistance they're promising at this point. The Department of Justice, lamentably, has fallen off a cliff with respect to the credibility that they've earned in the courts and with respect to the expertise they have on staff. Both David and I had the privilege to serve there. And the nature of the DOJ as a fearsome litigator comes not from the name on the side of the building. It comes from the quality of the work inside. And unfortunately, in the last couple months, we have seen a dramatic drop in the quality of that work, which is part of why you've seen court after court after court reject what the Department of Justice has said, not just in the voting arena, but in a lot of different arenas, it's part of why you've seen the DOJ lose credibility with the public.

37:31And the Epstein files and the travesty that that has become show that that's also bipartisan, that the DOJ has lost credibility among Republicans just as much as Democrats, unfortunately. This is not the sort of letter that would have been sent out in previous administrations. And I don't think that the DOJ has the capacity to follow through on the implicit threat in the letter. I don't say that with pleasure. The damage that has been done to the Department of Justice will take decades to restore. The credibility of the department will take decades to restore. But I do think it does provide a little bit of solace for citizens who are frightened of what the DOJ might do.

38:13They simply don't have the power and don't have the person power to follow through on most of the threats they're making at this point. David, Stephen Simon of Minnesota, that letter that we've been talking about to 50 secretaries of state, called it performative. I get it. What about intimidation of officials? At some point, does this become an attempted intimidation? Or are they too sophisticated to fall for it, is my question. So I think those both might be true. I think there are efforts to create such a fire hose of garbage aimed at election officials to make their jobs harder and to create an impression of chaos around our election system in case, for instance, the elections don't go the way that the administration would like.

38:58But it's also true, as Justin said, no one's getting a letter from the DOJ now, given how hollowed out this DOJ has become, given their record of almost unbroken defeats. And no one is getting that letter and is shaking in their boots now. And that's not the way it used to be. I mean, if people got a letter from the DOJ when Justin and I are working there, it went through layers and layers of review from career and political staff to the point where the DOJ was pretty darn sure, almost to 100 percent, that it was going to win that case if it needed to bring it. That's not the case anymore. And so I think there is attempted intimidation here.

39:37I am concerned to the degree that election officials are being exhausted by it and they're having their networks of support disrupted to some degree. But they are shining through. They are doing such a remarkable job. We're over halfway through the primaries right now. We're seeing record high turnout in most places. during the last six years, from 2018 to now, we've seen record high turnout in most of our general elections. It is really remarkable what these public servants are doing, Republicans and Democrats and independents all over the country. And so they can keep trying, but it's not going to work.

40:10Just a couple of data points in Texas. More ballots were cast in the first seven days of early primary voting this year than any recent midterm or presidential election. In New York, that mayoral election last year. Overall, general election voter turnout was higher than any city election since 1968. So voters are turning out. We're still hearing from you. Rachel emails, I've worked twice as a poll worker in Arkansas. I was surprised at the level of seriousness for the training, the many checks and balances to ensure the integrity of the elections, and the bipartisan workers involved. It was an extremely secure process with multiple people being responsible and checking each other's processes.

40:45We also got this from Scott, who says, As I work as an election poll clerk here in the state of Georgia, we are so tired of all the people coming in to vote talking about how there are not paper ballots. There are. And about, quote, unquote, illegals voting. They don't. Working the polls here, we are sworn in before 6 in the morning, have an hour to set up complicated machines with redundant security seals and networked machines that talk to each other. And the county office, along with tons of signage going out across the street. That's a hustle. After 7 at night, we cross-check all the machines and ballot counts, not the votes, the ballots.

41:16I am quite worried both for our personal safety and for the integrity of the remains of our democracy. And we got this from Chris who says, I'm a non-MAGA Republican and I work part-time as an interpreter for government agencies. Although I don't discount that the number of non-citizen voters is low, I was appalled recently when interpreting for what was almost certainly an illegal immigrant applying for social benefits. And the very first question asked by the state employee was whether she wanted to register to vote. Fortunately, the applicant quickly said that she was a non-citizen. But you have to wonder how many would have responded by answering yes.

41:55Although asking for photo ID to register to vote does not eliminate the possibility of voting as a non-citizen. Why do Democrats remain so opposed to this? Again, I'm a non-MAGA Republican. David Becker? So first of all, photo ID would do nothing with regard to citizenship. Most photo IDs don't include citizenship information. But what we do have in this country, and we've had it since 2002, is we have a requirement that everyone gives their driver's license number or social security number or ID, almost always driver's license number, when they register to vote. States use that driver's license number, and they don't just look at the card.

42:30They're looking at the voter's record, the citizen's record in the motor vehicles file. Because think about when you went to the motor vehicles agency. You came in to prove your legal presence in the United States, and most do that with a U.S. birth certificate or a passport. Motor vehicles agencies have that. We've had that since 2002. This is why the numbers are so low, and states regularly check that against the driver's license data, against Social Security data when they need to. We have multiple checks and balances to make sure that this is – and we've proven it's incredibly rare. So Donald Trump's repeated claim that you need an ID in the grocery store to buy milk or cereal but not to vote, that's false.

43:09I mean, I can't tell you. I mean, look, I don't get asked for ID when I go buy beer anymore. That's probably because I'm of a certain advanced age. But it is – we can talk about whether you need ID to fly on a plane. Fact is you don't. Justin can talk about that a little bit as well. Whether you need ID to buy alcohol or cigarettes, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. None of those are fundamental constitutional rights. But that said, every single registered voter shows ID when they registered a vote in the United States for the last quarter of a century. That's a whole other show, whether you have to have ID to get on a flight.

43:50But I want to make sure we get to this from Stephen because we only have about a minute and a half left. My concern is not the legality or truthfulness of the rhetoric, but that the rhetoric is deliberately in earshot of the general public with the intent to cast doubt. We already have a participation problem, and I just want to point out that if half the electorate casts a vote and the threshold for a candidate or issue is 50 percent, then roughly only one quarter of the electorate is making the decisions. Voter turnout is sometimes even less. Now, we noted that we are seeing increased voter turnout of late.

44:22But, I mean, Justin, when we talk about the stakes here, regardless of the court challenges and whether the Trump administration is successful when they actually put these cases before a judge, we're talking about Americans' trust in our electoral system and how that affects their willingness to engage in our civic processes. What are the stakes here? I think the stakes are our democracy. And the good news is I think we're up to it. I mean, this show is titled If You Can Keep It. That's an admonition from Ben Franklin to the rest of the country about what it would take to sustain the democracy that they gave us, the democratic republic that they gave us.

45:01It wasn't dependent on officials. It wasn't dependent on media. It was dependent on us. And we are the best defense against this sort of mis - and disinformation that seeks to foster mistrust in the system. We are also the only engine we need for the increased participation I would love to see. I would love to see every eligible American come out. As David said, we're hoping to get 50%, which is not a high bar. And we have the capacity to really pump that up. The single best way to do it is for us to talk to real people, for us to talk to friends and neighbors and family and encourage people to exercise the privilege of the franchise, to exercise the rights that the Constitution gives them.

45:46In showing up at the polls, you've heard from all your listeners about how secure and how nonpartisan that process is. It's going to be pretty straightforward in November. So I think the real message here is go vote, go convince others to vote. And that's exactly how we reestablish trust in the process. Well, we'll leave the conversation there for now, but we'll continue to engage with you leading up to the midterms and beyond. That was Justin Levitt. He's a constitutional law scholar and professor at Loyola Marymount Law School. Also with us, David Becker, the executive director and founder of the Nonpartisan Nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research.

46:21Thanks to you all. Today's producer was Haley Blassingame. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Jen White. And I'm Todd Zwilling. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk more soon. This is 1A.

46:54So you've decided you want to be more active. Exercise scientist Keith Diaz says, put away the smartwatch. Start by noticing your body's natural cues. For us to build a habit to check back in with our bodies, that behavior is much more likely to stick. Tracking what the body needs. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you want to understand war, geopolitics, and our changing world? Listen to Sources and Methods from NPR, one of the top-rated national security shows on Apple. I'm Mary Louise Kelly with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5.

47:32We are one of the best for a reason. Correspondence around the world, trusted analysis, and on-the-ground reporting. Find Sources and Methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.