The Current - U.S. braces for contentious vote count

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Donald Trump has been ramping up his unfounded claims of election fraud, fuelling fears that this week’s U.S. presidential election could be contested or even become violent. We look at the brewing battle over casting those votes — and counting them fairly.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. One more day after months of political drama south of the border, U.S. Election Day is just about upon us. You may already be having flashbacks to the messy fight over the vote count that took place after the 2020 election, culminating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Starting tomorrow, we could see another drawn-out battle over balloting. Donald Trump and his allies have continually sown doubts about integrity of the voting system since his loss to Joe Biden. And in recent weeks, Trump has been ramping up his claims of election fraud.

We're doing very well. I think we're leading by a lot. And if we can keep them, if we can keep that cheating down, because there are a bunch of cheats, if we can keep that cheating down, we're going to have a tremendous victory. I think it'll go down as one of the greatest victories of all time. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 or this election. As the votes are counted in a race that polls suggest is neck and neck, all eyes will be on swing states that will determine the outcome, and one of those swing states is Arizona. The focus there will be on

Maricopa County. In 2020, there was a fight over ballots in that region of the U.S. Southwest. Donald Trump falsely claimed to have won. His supporters, some of them armed, turned out outside of election offices in Maricopa for Stop the Steal rallies. Election officials who upheld the vote in favor of Joe Biden faced threats of violence. Penny Charron is a voting rights advocate in Maricopa County. She is the president of the Nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Arizona. Penny, good morning. Good morning.

And thank you for inviting the League to participate in your conversation. Glad to have you here. How are you feeling a day before the big vote? How are you feeling a day before the big vote? We are hopeful that every voter who is eligible to vote does cast their vote. We are hopeful that the voters will be able to cast their vote safely. Over 50% have already voted using our early voting systems. And we anticipate to have a heavy rush today because there is early voting today. And we also anticipate approximately maybe 300,000 people to vote on election day in Maricopa County. One of the reasons why I ask

you that is because of what happened in 2020. We just got back from that part of the country. We were down there just a couple of weeks ago talking with voters. How do you make sense of what happened in 2020 in Maricopa County? I think what happened in 2020 in Maricopa County was the direct manifestation of a lie that was never proven. And more importantly, a lie that continues to be repeated. In 2020, as that lie built up to a crescendo during the election, there were enough actors who had powerful positions who could amplify their lie through the bully pulpit of their own positions and utilize their political power to not just amplify the lie, but to rile up those that they had fed the lie to, and then subsequently use the systems to validate that lie, if you will, through, you know, not just claiming voter fraud in, you know, incorrect, but seizing election equipment, putting together a sham audit. So, unfortunately, in the United States, not only is the sly continuing to be fed, but its impacts on individuals

is being seen in ways that we did not anticipate in 2020, but we are prepared for in 2024. Well, given that, I mean, what are you most worried about in the next couple of days when it comes to people being able to cast their ballots? So our biggest worry in the mail. But we still have about 800,000 ballots that have not been returned. is that those ballots will not get turned in because people, A, don't want to stand in line, and B, aren't, you know, feel sort of fearful about showing up in lines in certain communities, in certain areas. I mean, the sheriff has said that there will be, you know, barriers and fences and designated protest spaces. But are people concerned that if they show up to vote, that they could face harassment waiting in line?

Well, people are fearful of that because one of the parties is calling out for that kind of behavior. However, we have not seen that in the early voting. It is also possible that that kind of behavior is being reserved for Election Day because all eyes are on Arizona and on this country on Election Day. And in most countries, early voting isn't really something that's the norm. voting isn't really something that's the norm. So, you know, people are, the news media is looking for stories, if you will, on election day. I mean, one of the other things, and again, we heard this when we were down in Arizona. One of the things that people are talking about is how long it will take for the result to come in. In Arizona, I mean, particularly in Maricopa County, people are warning that it could take a long time

to tabulate the votes. Why is it going to take so long? First, it's two pages of a ballot, not one page, okay? And there are numerous races. There are about 80 judges. There are about 15 ballot propositions. And then, of course, all the candidates. Tabulating two pages per voter will take longer. The amount of time it used to take to tabulate one page, just consider tabulating two pages. to take to tabulate one page, just consider tabulating two pages. That's one thing. Second is with a high voter turnout utilizing the mail ballot, the process is validating and verifying

the signatures of the people who turn in their ballot and then taking the two ballots, two pages, and tabulating them. So, you know, it's going to—so let's put it in perspective this way. It's going to take approximately, on an average, 15 minutes plus, maybe up to 30 minutes, depending on how prepared the voter is at the voting booth, to complete the ballot. That's a long time. Yes, it is a long time, which is why the people who have the mail-in ballots have time to research and, you know, be an informed voter. Second is we keep forgetting that, you know, the number of people voting is increasing.

that the number of people voting is increasing. And when you have that increase, of course, it's going to take a little longer to process all the ballots. Look, the league is very, very firm on this. Accurate ballot count is much more important than fast ballot count. Maybe the news media wants to have results immediately. What we want is results where every voter's vote counted.

Because when you don't, you're silencing people, and we will not stand for it as the league, and we will make sure that we take our place in society to fight and ensure that every vote is counted. Penny, you have a wild few days ahead of you. Buckle up and thank you for speaking with us. Thank you so much for inviting me. Penny Sheeran is the head of the League of Women Voters in Arizona. It's a non-partisan, non-profit organization.

She was in Scottsdale, Maricopa County. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is.

I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Arizona is one place that people are paying close attention to. Another place that will be under a lot of scrutiny is Pennsylvania, a critical swing state. Last week, Donald Trump made allegations involving voter registration applications in Lancaster and York counties in Pennsylvania. Officials in both places investigated batches of applications dropped off by a paid canvassing operation and said some were illegitimate. Officials and voting rights advocates say that's not proof of fraud. It's proof that safeguards are actually working. Here is Neil McKeaja. He is a Democratic commissioner in Montgomery County in Pennsylvania. He's been pushing back against Republican claims of election fraud. There is a coordinated strategy to sow doubt

in the election and to make people feel like the election is fraudulent so that they can justify attempting to subvert it again. If you look at the audits from 2020, we still have all the paper ballots and anyone can examine the voter role in terms of who voted and who didn't. And if there was actual fraud, you would be able to say, well, here's all these people who weren't supposed to vote who did, or here's people who say they voted and they're not on the rolls. None of those things have happened. And it has been years in which these cases have been litigated in 60 different courtrooms, and all And it has been years in which these cases have been litigated in 60 different courtrooms, and all of it has been dismissed because there's no real evidence.

The bigger problem is that anyone can say anything on the internet and have no repercussions and no consequences. Amy Gardner is a national reporter for The Washington Post. She covers voting issues. Amy, good morning. Good morning. How messy do you think things might get in the next few days? I think things could get very messy. Obviously, it depends on the outcome. I think if Trump loses again, there's little doubt that he will contest the results. He's said as much, and he has continued, as you have documented in these last few minutes so well, to claim fraud even before the vote count is in. He's claiming that fraud has infected this election. So he's preparing. He's preparing to contest the result. I would say that the effort

to overturn the result four years ago was chaotic and sort of sloppy and, of course, ultimately unsuccessful. But the Republicans around Trump, his allies and his operation, have been preparing to do it differently this time around with a more coordinated effort with hundreds of lawyers, thousands of observers at polling locations meant to gather up, quote unquote, evidence that can be used in post-election challenges. All of that's been unfolding all year long. But on the other side, the authorities, election officials in the states and in the counties, as well as Congress and federal authorities, have been preparing as well and have shored up the guardrails.

Laws have been passed to make it more difficult, for instance, for local election officials to not certify a result. Laws have been passed to make it a crime to intimidate voters where that was not already a crime. And so what one person told me, Jocelyn Benson, who's the Secretary of State in the state of Michigan, another important battleground this year, and the lead election officer there, is that she's anticipating a scenario that she likened to little fires everywhere. And that's not to say that these are easy little fires to contain necessarily. It's just that even with the guardrails, there is this risk that so many flare-ups will occur that it will become more difficult to contain. And that's particularly true, as your last guest said, about the misinformation for the last few weeks, I heard wild stories, people talking about a secret postal service run by Joe Biden that is dealing with mail-in ballots, that there were buildings that were built that were empty, that people were sending ballots to. doubts are? I mean, to the extreme or to the minor about the integrity of the electoral system? Look, this encapsulates where

our country is right now, where half the country loves Donald Trump and half the country hates him. And the half that love him believe what he tells them, and they believe what his allies tell them. And also, don't forget that one of his most powerful allies owns one of the largest social media networks on the planet. Elon Musk. completely dismantled the mechanisms that X used to have to block and police false information on the platform. And so it's an uphill battle for election officials to fight the misinformation when their tweets get 100,000 views and Elon Musk's tweets get however many million views that they get. And so it's real and people are believing it. And the officials are really perplexed that that's the case. It's just the reality of our country's divisions right now. You've written a couple of really interesting pieces on the work that election workers will be doing in the next couple of days, saying that in some ways it's an impossible task because of the attacks on

those who are meant to ensure that the process is robust and has integrity. And one of the things that you'd written about is that throughout the country, local officials, these are your words, are taking elaborate measures to fortify election-related sites, including plans for snipers on a rooftop to protect key voting headquarters, panic buttons for election workers, and surveillance drones buzzing overhead. Tell me a little bit more about what is going to be in place to protect those who were involved in the electoral system tomorrow. Yeah, I sort of hate that description in a way because it sounds like some dystopian movie in the future, right? But that's where we are, unfortunately, right now. But the truth is that election officials and federal officials are feeling pretty good about physical security, physical safety, because they've taken

these steps. A lot of them are precautionary. We've learned from the Department of Homeland Security that threats are up, and not just domestic threats, but foreign threats. A lot of this misinformation that we just spoke about is actually coming from Russia, and we've learned that from our cybersecurity infrastructure folks in Washington. But we also know that the state and federal officials who run our elections are readier than they've ever been. So, I mean, that's a sort of a heartening fact, too, that folks are ready for this. And we've seen isolated instances of violence and unrest in early voting locations. In Texas, for instance, a voter was told to take his MAGA hat off, which is law, I believe, in every state. You're not allowed to wear election slogans into polling locations.

And the voter slugged the guy who told him to take his hat off. And so tempers are going to flare. And that's definitely a worry. But there's also been a ton of conversations between local election officials and law enforcement. That's a double-edged sword in our country, especially in southern states with a history of racial discrimination and, you know, tense relationships between black communities and law enforcement. officials don't want armed cops at polling locations necessarily, but they do want systems in place where they can call in an emergency and where they can also ward off, like, say, a swatting instance. Let's say some bot farm in Russia tries to make swatting calls to election locations around the country or to 911 centers around the country. And, you know, the cavalry comes in and disrupts voting.

Well, some states have actually planned for that by distributing phone numbers of every single polling location, chief polling worker, so that the 911 centers can confirm that there's an emergency before they disrupt voting. That's the kind of stuff that's been happening everywhere. Let me just ask you, we just have a couple of minutes left. Quickly, one of the things, and you've hinted at this, is that Donald Trump's team has filed hundreds of lawsuits in advance of voting.

What are they trying to accomplish with that? It's a good question because their lawsuits are failing. They're losing their lawsuits right now. They claim that they're going to continue to be able to challenge results through the courts after the election. Election officials who say it's all bunk don't think those lawsuits are going to do any better after the election than before. But what is happening is that he's continuing to sow doubt in the public consciousness about the security of our elections. And that's a problem. I will say just really quickly as a counterpoint, about the security of our elections. And that's a problem. I will say just really quickly as a counterpoint, I happen to believe after having covered voting for almost seven years now in this country as an institution, you know, elections as a pillar of our democracy, I don't,

I have come to believe that faith in elections is one of those pillars of our election security. It's sort of like the axiom that our institutions are only as strong as the people who run them. Our elections are only as strong and safe as everyone thinks they are, right? And what we're seeing this year is historic, epic turnout. Almost 80 million Americans have already cast their votes, and it's not even election day yet. That's more than half the total that voted in 2020 total. And in some states, it's 80% of the 2020 total. In a couple of the swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, that's huge. And that tells me that Americans do have faith in the systems, are comfortable going to their polling locations, do believe that their vote will be counted. And I'm hanging on to that right now.

I have to let you go. But I mean, will we know the result, do you think, at the end of this week? We might know it at the end of this week. I doubt we'll know it tomorrow night. We'll be watching. Amy, it's great to talk to you. And perhaps given what happens over the next couple of days, we'll talk again. Thank you very much for this. Yeah, take it easy. Amy Gardner is a national reporter with The Washington Post. She covers voting issues. Of course, full coverage of what happens over the next several days here on CBC and on The Current as well. We will tell you more about that as the process unfolds.

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