The Daily Signal - Hans von Spakovsky Explains Why Mail-in Voting Is a Bad Idea

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

Political figures on the left, ranging from former first lady Michelle Obama to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are calling for the presidential election on Nov. 3 to take place through mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, joins the podcast to explain why mail-in voting could lead to voter fraud.  Also on today's show: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says the 'worst is over' as NY deaths cross 10,000.  The Supreme Court has announced that it will hear 10 oral arguments by telephone in May.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say they won’t let the small business bill go through unless they get other funding demands granted.  South Dakota will be the first state to run a statewide clinical trial of a possible coronavirus treatment.  Enjoy the show! 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, April 14th. I'm Rachel Del Judith. And I'm Virginia Allen. Today we talk with Hans von Spakoski, a senior legal fellow in the Heritage Foundation's Edwin Meese, the Third Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, and a President Trump appointee to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Hans and I discussed the left's push for voting by mail amidst the coronavirus and how mail in voting leads to vote.

vote or fraud. 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 encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. The worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over for New York, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo. Here's what he had to say during his Monday briefing via MSNBC. What will happen is there will be points of resolution over time. What does that mean? There'll be points of resolution. There'll be points where we can say we've accomplished something, we should feel better, we should feel more calm, we should feel more relaxed, and it will be incremental.

We're controlling the spread. We are controlling the spread. You look at those numbers. You know what it says? We're controlling the spread. I was afraid that it was going to infect my family no matter what I did. We're past that. If you isolate, if you take the precautions, your family won't get infected.

We can control the spread. Feel good about that. Because by the way, we could have gotten to a point where we said we can't control this damn thing. We can't control it. It's in the air. It gets into your house. It doesn't matter. You close the door.

It comes under the door. You could have gotten there. We're not there. Those numbers say we can control the same. spread. Feel good about that. The worst is over. Yeah, if we continue to be smart going forward, because remember we have the hand on that valve, you turn that valve too fast, you'll see that number jump right back. The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear oral arguments over the phone this spring. The court has scheduled six days in May to hear arguments for 10

cases by phone. In a press release, the court said, the justices and counsel will all participate remotely. The court anticipates providing a live audio feed of these arguments to news media. Cases to be heard include arguments for the release of President Trump's financial records, cases involving religious liberty, and the Affordable Care Act's contraception requirement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say they won't let the coronavirus Irish relief bill go through for small businesses unless it includes their provisions such as 100 billion for hospitals, 150 billion for state and local government. We have real problems facing this country and it's time for the Republicans to quit the political posturing by

proposing bills they know will not pass either chamber and get serious and work with us towards a solution. Schumer and Pelosi said Monday in a joint statement. In a joint statement Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy indicated they weren't interested in agreeing with the Democrats on a more comprehensive bill. Senate Democrats blocked this funding because Republicans would not open a sweeping renegotiation of the Bipartisan Cares Act, McConnell and McCarthy said, referring to the failed Senate vote Thursday. Their unrelated demands include hundreds of billions of extra dollars for parts of the legislation

which are still coming online and have not yet spent a single dollar. They also said, Republicans rejects Democrats' reckless threat to continue blocking job-saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs, which are not in similar peril. South Dakota Republican Governor Kristy Noem announced Monday that South Dakota will be the first state to run a statewide clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine, a drug. most commonly used to treat malaria but believed to be a possible treatment for the coronavirus. From day one, I've said we're going to let the science, facts, and data drive our decision-making in South Dakota. Throughout last week, I communicated with White House officials to let them know

that South Dakota's medical community was ready to step up and lead the way on research efforts. Governor Noam said in a statement per Fox News. House Republicans, including Warren Davidson of Ohio, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, Ron Estes of Kansas, Matt Gates of Florida, and Mark Green of Tennessee, to name a few, are asking their colleagues in the Senate to confirm Russell Vote to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vote, who previously served as the former Vice President of Heritage Action for America, has served as the action director of the OMB since January 2019. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Hans von Bikovsky on mail-in voting and voter fraud.

Here at the Daily Signal, we want to make sure you and your family are receiving the most accurate information about the coronavirus and how to prevent it. Here's an important message from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams to parents explaining how we can talk to our children about COVID-19. I'm a dad myself, and it's important that you talk to your kids about coronavirus because we know that sharing your feelings can help lower your fears. One of the things that I tell parents is to share age-appropriate information with your children because knowledge is power. It's also important that you reassure your children that they will be safe. And then finally, help your kids understand how they can be part of protecting their family and their community from coronavirus by washing their hands, covering their cough, and getting enough sleep. Rest is best. I am joined by Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow in the Heritage Foundation's Edwin Meese, the Third Center for Legal and Judicial Studies,

and a presidential Trump appointee to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Hans, thank you so much for joining me today. Sure, thanks for having me. Now, the coronavirus is affecting a lot of local and state elections. Many primaries we've already seen have been postponed. But, you know, the biggest topic of debate right now is really the presidential election in November. Some want to see mail-in voting be used during that election really solely as the way that people would vote. And, you know, that sounds kind of reasonable at first. You know, we are coming out of this global pandemic. And obviously, for some people, that's frightening. Even, you know, this fall to think about gathering in large groups, especially for those who are

older or might be immune compromised. So, you know, at first glance, it might be like, well, mail-on voting is not such a bad idea. But what do you think about mail-in-voting? It is something we should only go to if we were absolutely required. And I kind of doubt that the entire country is still going to be shut down on November 3rd, the date of the general election. Look, the problem with mail-in voting is basically this. In every, state you can vote by absentee ballot, you know, particularly if you're ill or disabled, and we obviously need that. But all male elections have all kinds of security problems. So the reason is very simple. These are the only kind of ballots that are being voted out of sight and out

from under the supervision of election officials. And that's why it is unfortunately easy to not just engage in fraud in those kind of elections, but it's all. also easy for voters to be intimidated. And that's a cause for concern. It should be a cause for concern for anyone interested in having an election process that is fair and has good security, too. Former First Lady Michelle Obama is really one of those strong voices that is advocating for mail-in voting. And she recently said, she said, quote, Americans should never have to choose between making their voices heard and keeping themselves and their families safe, expanding access to vote by mail, online voter registration, and early voting are critical steps

for this moment, and they're long overdue. What's your response to former first lady, Michelle Obama? Well, she doesn't seem to realize the contradiction of what she just said. She says you shouldn't have to, we should have all-male voting, because you shouldn't have to endanger your personal safety. Well, if that's the case, why does she want increased access to early voting? Early voting is something that about two-thirds of the states have where they open up polling places several weeks before election day.

Well, why would she want early voting increased if, in fact, she's worried about people catching the coronavirus by going, going to a polling place. That doesn't make sense. That makes it look like what she's talking about is basically a partisan objective to increase early voting sites around the country. Of course, the problem with that is early voting has been shown to actually hurt turnout. And second, it's, it has people voting weeks before election day, which often means they

can miss important news connected with their choice. of who they have voted for. Anybody who doubts that, just take a look at what happened in the Super Tuesday primary at the beginning of March, where you had major candidates, Senator Klobuchar, former mayor, Pete Buttigig, they dropped out two days and one day before the Super Tuesday primary, and yet hundreds of thousands of individuals had already cast ballots for them in early voting states. they couldn't call those ballots back. In essence, you had hundreds of thousands of people who wasted their vote on candidates who had dropped out.

But because of early voting, there was nothing they could do about that. Wow. Wow. So we see early voting really traditionally just complicates things even more. It does. And it leads to disenfranchisement of voters. She says also we need expanded access to mail-in ballot. I don't know what she's talking about when, like I said,

in every state, you can already vote by absentee ballot if you can't make it to the polls. And certainly, even in the states that require an excuse for absentee balloting, all election officials are going to consider this coronavirus threat to be a sufficient reason to use an absentee ballot. So let's say, you know, I'm a 75-year-old woman and like I'm completely capable of going up to the polls, I just don't feel comfortable, would current election law, you know, allow me to still vote absentee? Well, it probably would if election officials and health officials consider that the coronavirus is still a threat. Although, actually, in many states, folks who are over a certain age, often the age of 65, are automatically allowed to use absentee ballots anyway.

So again, it's not really a problem. Look, what she is really talking about, what she and other liberals are really talking about is there doesn't need to be an expanded access to absentee ballots and all-mail voting because you've already got access to it. What they're talking about is getting rid of the safety precautions that states have. And I can just give you a quick example of that. Lawsuits have already been filed in various states, places. like New Mexico, this was put into Pelosi's coronavirus bill to require states to automatically

mail out absentee ballots to all registered voters rather than having voters sent in a signed written request for an absentee ballot. That's extremely dangerous. Why? Because voter lists are in notoriously bad shape all over the country. They are filled with the names of voters who have moved away, voters who are registered more than once, voters who have died but are still on the list. Mailing out a ballot means that literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of ballots, will end up arriving at people's homes for folks who no longer live there or for people who are registered multiple times. They're going to get more than one ballot. well, how many of those are going to get voted?

And in places that allow vote harvesting, and that, again, is something Pelosi wanted to mandate everywhere, party activists, candidates, political guns for hire, they will be going through neighborhoods trying to collect those absentee ballots to make sure they get voted. And that's why those kind of procedures are dangerous. Yeah. Let's talk for a second about what happened in Wisconsin last week. many voters reportedly, you know, they waited in very long lines. And while people were trying to maintain that social distance, it was a lot of people in one place all outside during the coronavirus pandemic together. Do you think that Wisconsin handled their election the correct way? Well, I think the problem in Wisconsin was federal courts and others trying to come in and tell them how to handle their election.

rather than local officials making their own decision on it. I would point out that Wisconsin is not one of the epic centers of the coronavirus. They've had very few cases of it. The vast majority of people there were not at risk. And the state did allow an extension of time for anybody who wanted to vote by absentee ballot, as long as it was postmarked by Election Day. They still had another week for it to get to. election officials either by mail or by folks personally delivering it. So I actually think they did

just fine in handling this election. Okay. That's really interesting to hear your perspective. Now, as you were talking about earlier, we're seeing that there's kind of, you know, increasing movement on the left to obviously push for just kind of more avenues of voting by mail and so forth. And Senator Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden have introduced a bill that would make it significantly easier to vote. The bill would allow anyone to vote by mail and would give people at least 20 days to vote in person before the election day. What are your kind of initial thoughts on this legislation? Well, there's no need for it because, as I said, states already allow absentee balloting. But her provision, the one with Senator White, has all these very

bad provisions in it that would risk the security election process. I mean, to give you an example, look, in states, they don't start counting absentee ballots and early votes until the end of election day. At the same time, they count other ballots. And the reason for that is common sense. You don't want to start counting ballots two weeks before the election, because if those results are leaked out, if they're leaked out to the public, it may deter people from going and voting if they hear that the candidate they were interested in is losing in the early tabulations. And if it's leaked out to candidates or political parties, it might cause them to give them inside information to change their strategy to see if they could change the outcome of the election. Yet Klobuchar and

Wyden's bill would force states to start processing and tabulating absentee ballots and early votes two weeks before election day. Now, why in the world would you put a provision like that? Also, she forces all states to allow early voting. Again, if your whole concern is the coronavirus, why are you forcing states that don't want early voting? Why are you forcing them to do that? I mean, that seems like it would just kind of be a lose-lose, whether you're, you know, conservative or liberal. Do you have a sense of kind of why? why we would see senators on the left really pushing for, like you said, that early tabulation and counting of votes. I think they believe that their political consultants will be able to take advantage of that and change strategy, change out there, get out the vote activities in races where they're losing in order to manipulate the election results.

And I think they don't have a very good political, I don't think. they have a very good objective there. Another thing, by the way, her bill does is they legalize boat harvesting at all states. So even in states that ban vote harvesting, they would now have to allow. Again, that's a bad idea. For folks who don't know what that means, look, in every state, you can either mail back your absentee ballot that you've completed or a member of your family can return it. But in states that allow vote harvesting, they say anybody can pick up your completed ballot at your home and deliver it to election officials. That means that candidates, political parties, campaign organizations can come by your house to pick up your absentee ballot and

deliver it. The problem with that, of course, is you're giving something very valuable, very valuable commodity, a ballot into the hands of individuals who have a stake in the outcome. And we have lots of cases involving absentee ballot fraud in our database at the Heritage Foundation. We have a great database. Now it has almost 1,300 proven cases of voter fraud. And we have cases in there where sometimes voters get intimidated in their homes by party activists and others in the voting particular way. And at other times, these party activists take the ballots and fill them out instead of the voter filling them out. And that's what happens if you allow vote harvesting, which Senator Klobuchar, as Senator

Biden, want to make legal everywhere. So how many states allow that voter harvesting right now? It's a little bit under 30 states. Other states ban it. A good example is North Carolina. North Carolina bans vote harvesting. And if folks are interested in why that's a good idea, all they have to do is, look at the 2018 congressional elections in North Carolina, the ninth congressional district.

Folks may recall, that was the only contested congressional race in the country in 2018. The race was overturned by the state election board because one of the candidates hired a notorious local political consultant with a very bad reputation who engaged in illegal vote harvesting and the evidence showed that they forged voters. signatures, they filled out ballots, they changed votes when they went and collected those absentee ballots from voters in their homes. Wow. Now, as you've mentioned, Heritage has a wonderful resource of the voter fraud database, which you helped to run. So when you look at past cases of voter fraud, what percentage of those take place through mail-in voting? I don't have those numbers in front of me,

but I will tell you that a very large percentage of the cases involve absentee ballot fraud. And, you know, is this really more of a state issue? I mean, can the federal government really tell states how they can and can't hold elections? They shouldn't. No. Look, we have a very decentralized election system. It's the most decentralized of all the Western democracies. That was intentional by the framers and founders. because they said they didn't think it was a good idea for the federal government, Congress,

and the White House to be able to run federal elections because then they might change the rules to make sure that they stayed in office. So elections are administered almost entirely by the states, and that's the way it should stay. We should not have the federal government coming in and telling the states, here are the rules, for example, for absentee ballots, or you have to have all-male elections from now. That's a decision states should make on their own. So let's say that, you know, five or ten states decide come November, we feel more comfortable holding the election through mail and, you know, the other 45 or 40 states decide, no, we're going to have a traditional election and have people go to pulling places and vote. Do you think that would potentially be a good compromise?

How would that kind of affect the election? Well, I do think every state ought to make their own decision about it. But if states decide to have all-male elections, I hope they will put in the right kind of rules to minimize the opportunity to engage in fraud rather than putting in rules that will make it easy to commit. And there are certain ways to do it and certain ways that it should not be done. So what is really the best formula for a fair election? I mean, what is needed to ensure that those who vote? are voting only once and, you know, that they're living and that they're legitimate votes voting in the correct states.

Well, there's a whole series of recommendations that the Heritage Foundation is made on that. One of the most basic ones is you should have to show a government-issued photo ID when you vote both in person and or through the absentee balloting process. States should require proof of citizenship when you register to. to vote because there's plenty of cases that we have shown of non-citizens registering and illegally voting in the country. And states need to be maintaining the accuracy of their voter rolls, regularly checking to make sure people who are dead have been taken off, and regularly checking with other

states to find individuals who are registered in more than one state to ensure, again, that you don't have double voting like one of the cases we just added to our database of a student at the University of New Hampshire, who was found guilty of voter fraud for voting in both New Hampshire, where he was going to school and in his home state of Massachusetts. You know, how big do you really see this debate becoming of mail-in voting over the next few months. I mean, do you think that those on the left, like Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats, do you think that they'll kind of start to back off of this, or is this really going to be a fight and a debate until the end? No, I think it's going to be a big fight and a big

debate until the end, because when you look at the provisions, for example, that were in her bill, they weren't intended to just affect this election. They were intended for this and all future election. So they are seeing this as an opportunity to put in all these, what I consider to be dangerous and bad changes in election rules in place. And if they're not successful in the legislature, I'm afraid they are then going to go to the courts, as has already started happening to get the courts, to force through changes that they can't get through the democratic process, which in itself is very anti-democratic doing it that way. Let's switch gears just for a moment.

This past weekend, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed a law legislation that repeals Virginia's voter ID law, among other things. And you mentioned voter ID and how important that is. But what would you say in response to those who, you know, say voter ID really limits those who can vote in elections and disproportionately hurts low-income Americans? We know that's not true. And the reason we know that's not true is that the first laws requiring a government-issued photo ID to vote went in place back in 2008 in Georgia and Indiana. And then a number of other states passed.

So, in fact, we have 10 years worth of data, turnout data, on a number of different states that we can look at. And all of that data shows that voter ID requirements do not keep. people out of the polls. In particular, they do not keep, for example, minority voters out of the poll, which is a claim that's constantly made. And part of the reason for that, of course, is that Americans overwhelmingly already have an ID. Plus, every state that has put in a requirement like this has also put in a provision saying, if you don't already have an ID, we will provide one to you for free. So we've got all the data we need to show it does. It does. does not keep people out of the polls.

Yeah. We really encourage our listeners to check out some of that data and check out some of the resources that we have on the Heritage Foundation website, such as the voter fraud database. And Hans, we just really appreciate your time today and your insight on this subject. Sure, thanks for having me.

And I hope the folks that are still in states without, who haven't held the primaries yet, either get out and vote or request an absentee ballot and get it in. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Hans. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode.

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