The Daily Signal - Hans von Spakovsky Explains Election Litigation in 5 States

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Even though former vice President Joe Biden has claimed victory in the presidential election, the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits contesting the results with current litigation in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. In Pennsylvania alone, there are at least 21,000 dead people on the voter rolls. Is there a possibility that some of these ballots that went to dead people were used fraudulently? We’ve also heard a lot of people talk about how we largely know the results of all the House and Senate races but still don’t have all the ballots counted for the presidential race. Why is this the case?  Hans von Spakovsky, manager of The Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and and a senior legal fellow at the think tank's Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss. We also cover these stories: Former Vice President Joe Biden is saying that the 2020 race for the White House is finished and that people need to be wearing masks.  President Trump fired defense secretary Mark Esper. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced that its coronavirus vaccine is 90% effective. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, November 10th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Rachel Del Judis. So while former Vice President Joe Biden has claimed victory in the presidential election, the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits contesting the results with current litigation pending in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. Hans von Spakowski, manager of the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow at the Mease Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, joins me on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, and please encourage others to subscribe. Now, on to our top news. Former Vice President Joe Biden is saying that the 2020 race for the White House is finished and that people need to be wearing masks. Here's what Biden had to say via the Hill.

My advisory council also includes experts on global health security so that we can restore U.S. global leadership to fight this pandemic. This is a crisis that affects everyone. As I've said throughout this campaign, I will be a president for every American. This election is over. It's time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric that designed to demonize one another. It's time to end the politicization of. basic, responsible public health steps like mask wearing and social distancing.

We have to come together to heal the soul of this country so that we can effectively address this crisis as one country where hardworking Americans have each other's backs. And we're united in our shared goal, defeating this virus. President Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper Monday announcing that in Esper's replacement on Twitter. Trump wrote, pleased to announce that Christopher C. Miller, the highly respected director of the National Counterterrorism Center, unanimously confirmed by the Senate, will be acting Secretary of Defense effective immediately.

Chris will do a great job. Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced Monday that its coronavirus vaccine is 90% effective. In a statement posted Monday on its website in concert with biotech, the company announced, positive efficacy results for our phase three late stage study of our potential COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants. Pfizer said it's important to note that we cannot apply for FDA emergency use authorization based on these efficacy results alone. More data on safety is also needed and we are continuing to accumulate that safety data as part of our ongoing clinical study. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, has coronavirus, according to his office.

He is in good spirits and feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics, which aid and markedly speed his recovery. Coulter Baker, Carson's deputy chief of staff, said in a statement per USA Today. Meanwhile, Carson is far from alone. According to Johns Hopkins University's database, the U.S. now has had over 10 million cases of COVID-19. and over 230,000 deaths. Worldwide, including the U.S., there have been 50 million cases and 1.2 million deaths. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Hans von Spakovsky on the current election litigation pending in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on.

position conservatives are taking and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Hans von Spakovsky. He's the manager of the Heritage Foundation's election law reform initiative and senior fellow at the Mease Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Hans, it's always great to have you with us on the Daily Signal podcast.

Sure. Thanks for having me on. Well, before we go into the litigation that's happening right now, post-election, I just want to ask you top line overall, do you think it's reasonable to believe that voting irregularities or voter fraud occurred in this election? Well, look, we know it already happened in elections going on this summer. So, yeah, it's certainly common sense to believe that happened. And what we don't know is how big it was, how extensive it was, was it widespread? Was it just an isolated instances?

And we just don't know the answer to that. So while former Vice President Joe Biden has claimed victory in this presidential election, the Trump campaign is filing lawsuits, and there are currently lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. So I want to walk through all the litigation going on to each of those states, starting with Pennsylvania. Can you tell us what's going on there? Yeah, in Pennsylvania, they're contesting the fact that the state Supreme Court extended the deadline for absentee ballots passed the deadline set by the state legislature. And the state legislature, you know, under their deadline, you've got to get your absentee

ballot turned in by the end of election day. But the state Supreme Court put another three days on that. And what the Trump campaign is contesting is that the state Supreme Court doesn't have the constitutional power to do that. The state legislature does. They're the ones that are tasked with and given the authority to set deadlines and the rules governing federal elections in their state. So if the state legislature wanted to extend the deadline, I mean, they could do that. But here, the court stepped in and did it. And what they're contesting is the counting and inclusion of any absolute.

ballots that were received after Election Day. Well, before we move on to other states, in Pennsylvania, I believe there are about at least 21,000 dead people on the voter rolls there. Do you think that there is a potential possibility that some of those ballots that obviously may have gone to dead people and could have been used fraudulently? Do you think that's something that may have happened? Yes, that's a distinct possibility because, in fact, we know that. that records from past elections indicate

that individuals who are dead but remain on the voter rolls mistakenly are credited with having voted in elections. In fact, we've got cases in our election fraud database at heritage of individuals who were convicted of casting a ballot for someone who was deceased. How many times and how many votes that may have happened with in this election, I mean, we just don't have those records yet,

so we don't know. Well, one more Pennsylvania question before we move on to Nevada. Rudy Giuliani, who's the former mayor of New York City and the personal attorney to President Trump has spoken very positively of litigation in Pennsylvania. So I'm curious what you think. Do you think there's a solid case that can be made for the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania? Well, I think they're on solid constitutional grounds when they dispute the changes made by the state Supreme Court. And in fact, the state legislature agrees with that. The state legislature also appealed the decision of the state Supreme Court. So I think there are a solid constitutional ground there.

The question is, will the Supreme Court take the issue up and make a decision on that? So we've talked a lot about Pennsylvania, Hans. Can you now walk us through with legal challenges going on in Nevada right now? Well, in Nevada, there's a lawsuit claiming a again, problems with the voter registration list and that individuals who are not residents of the state, but in fact not only residents of neighboring states like California, but actually voted, for example, in California and in Nevada. So again, there's a dispute over the fact that there may have been illegal and invalid votes cast in that election. You know,

people need to understand. It's not necessarily illegal to be registered. in more than one state. That often happens through no fault of a voter when they simply move from one state to another. But if you take advantage of that and you cast a vote in two different states in the same election, that, in fact, is a criminal violation of the law and in most places actually is a felony. Well, now let's look at Michigan. There's litigation happening there to what's going on in Michigan. Well, in Michigan, it's everything from disputing. and challenging the fact that, for example, in Detroit, Trump and GOP campaign observers were not allowed. They were barred from being in the downtown center in Detroit where they were counting ballots.

That is a violation of state law. State law allowed them to be there. And that brings up issues of, you know, why would local officials violate state law keep out observers? What were they doing there? There's also been issues apparently about a glitch in the software used there that apparently switched votes between candidates. And in fact, there was one particular race there in which the Democratic challenger was declared the winner. And then the Republican incumbent was told not too long later that, in fact, he had won the election. And so there's concerns that that particular glitch in that software, which is widely used, may have caused other problems.

Let's move on to Georgia and Arizona. What's going on there? And can you just walk us through the different scenarios that we're seeing unfold in Georgia and Arizona? Part of the problem in Georgia is the Trump campaign produced witnesses say that, for example, in one of the counties that, election officials were accepting, processing, and counting absentee ballots that were received past the state deadline. The deadline of Georgia is the closing of polls on election day, and their witnesses saying that in fact they continued to accept absentee ballots after that time. There are also claims being made that, again, individuals who aren't actually living in the state

anymore are registered to vote and may have cast ballots. And, you know, the margin there of difference between the two candidates is only about 11,000 votes, which is a tiny amount out of all of the ballots that were cast. And by the way, is within the percentage that allows for a recount to be requested by a candidate. And I actually have no doubt the Trump campaign will probably ask for a recount. So we've gone over what's happening in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. Hans, how likely do you think it is that this election could be decided by the Supreme Court? Well, let me tell you the problem that the Trump campaign faces.

Look, no matter what the merit of the claims they are being made, they're under two problems, or they're faced with two problems. One, a time crunch. it is enormously difficult to gather enough evidence to show that an election outcome was compromised in the short amount of time you have after a national election like this. Keep in mind that the states have to certify the outcomes in time for the electors and the electoral college to meet at the beginning of December. So it is just, it's just very difficult to do that. Second, they face the problem that courts and judges, even when they are presented with substantial

evidence of misconduct or mistakes or other issues that compromise the outcome of the election, courts are very reluctant to overturn elections. So that makes all of this, frankly, an uphill battle for the Trump campaign to produce enough evidence in time to show that the results of of the elections in a number of states were compromised. We've heard a lot of people talk, and I've had conversations seen this on social media as well as in person. And the question I keep hearing, Hans, is that, you know, people are talking about how we have most of the results, if not all the results, for so many of these House and Senate

races, but we still don't have all the ballots counted for the presidential race. Why is this the case? Well, I frankly don't understand that myself. And I was shocked at the way certain jurisdictions, including Fulton County, Georgia. Fulton County is the Atlanta metropolitan area. It's the largest county of the state, how they simply stopped counting in the evening of Election Day. And I really don't understand that.

And the reason I don't is because I actually, 20 years ago, was on the board of elections in Fulton County, Georgia when I still live down there. And we never stopped counting the ballots. We kept going. We had reserve teams in place to take over when people got tired so that we could get the results of the election in as soon as possible. And part of the delays, apparently are these, what I think are unexplained and unwise decisions by election jurisdictions to not continually keep the count going.

Well, let's talk a little bit about voting irregularities. On Friday, I had spoken with an election lawyer who had volunteered as representative of President Donald Trump's re-election campaign in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, who was working on an Election Day hotline. And he had told me on the podcast about multiple instances of voting irregularities that he witnessed, including eyewitness testimony from a county worker who said that there was tampering with the machine in Allegheny County before the day of the election. and also multiple issues with poll watchers not being able to observe the ballot counting process. Hans, I'm curious, what have you heard when it comes to voting irregularities in this election? Oh, I've had people contact me with those kind of incidents and many more. And all of those are very concerning. You know, with electronic voting machines and the computer scanners that are used,

the poll watchers are supposed to be there so that they can have. and see that the counters are set to zero when the polls open. And if, in fact, poll observers saw those machines being manipulated, so they already had votes on them before the polls even open, that's clearly fraud that needs to be investigated. Putting folks so far back, putting the observers so far back, they can't see what's going on is also dangerous, because in fact, it allows election officials.

Remember, there was a very large number of absentee ballots sent in much larger than normal. What election officials are supposed to do is when they open up the outer envelope that has an inner envelope in it with an absentee ballot. Is there supposed to check all the information the voter has provided? Make sure that the ballot aside. Make sure that the registration information supplied by the voter is correct. You have to do all of those things before you can consider whether the absentee ballot is a valid. ballot that should be counted. And I'm concerned that are places where they barred observers or put them so far back that they couldn't see that I wonder, did election officials just

basically decide to waive all those state law requirements and simply count every absentee ballot coming in without checking to make sure it was a valid ballot? And that's the kind of thing that could compromise the outcome of the election. Well, Hans, let's talk about about harvesting for a minute. Do you think that played a role in this election? Yeah, I have no doubt it did because of the extensions of time, for example, for ballots to be received in Pennsylvania after election day. Vote harvesting, for people to understand it.

Some states, unfortunately, have legalized vote harvesting, which means that they allow any stranger to show up at your day. door and offer to return your ballot, and that's legal. And the problem with that is it means that candidates and political consultants, party activists, campaign staffers, you're putting something valuable, a ballot into their hands, and you're hoping that maybe they'll deliver it without altering it or changing it, or if they know that you consistently vote for the opposite party, that they'll actually deliver it and not just throw it out. And I'm very concerned that the ability of folks to engage in vote harvesting and trying to collect ballots after election day from voters so that they

can make sure those ballots get voted to change or whatever the preliminary results showed is just, again, a very unwise and dangerous policy. Well, across the board right now, there are many voters who are concerned about fraud and how ballots are still being counted. Do you have concerns about this election results being illegitimate? Well, I have concerns so that, you know, look, I can't say that the election results are illegitimate. But what I can say is that there have been enough serious questions and serious concerns raised about the behavior of election officials in particular parts of the country, particularly mission, and Philadelphia and even in Georgia, that I think that has to be investigated to see whether or not

there was misbehavior or fraud or mistakes made by election officials that throw the outcome of the election in those particular areas in doubt. Well, Hans, thank you so much for making time to walk us through these different instances of litigation. It's great to have you with us on the Daily Signal Podcast. Rachel, thanks for having me on. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast.

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