What A Day - Protecting The Franchise: How Can We Secure Our Elections?

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Fear is mounting about the integrity of next year’s elections and all the tricks MAGA World might be able to pull. How valid are those concerns? What are the reasons for confidence? Jane Coaston convenes a discussion with some of the elected officials and experts who know best: Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, and Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. This episode was recorded at Crooked Con on November 7th. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's Wednesday, November 26. I'm Jane Coast, and this is Water Day. The show that's here to remind you that you can make delicious cranberry sauce by adding sugar to orange juice and then adding fresh cranberries. Cook them until the cranberries pop, which takes about 10 minutes. You can make that today and put it in the fridge for tomorrow. On today's show, CrookedCon! You might be knee-deep in. groceries and wondering if this is the year to deep fry turkey? Answer, no. But we wanted to go back

to our time in Washington, D.C. at CricketCon earlier this month. If you were there, once again, thank you. If you couldn't make it, here's something special just for you, a bonus episode of our panel on how to protect our elections. We recorded this on November 7th, just after Democrats won big in elections across the country. During protecting the franchise, I got to sit down with Democracy Docket founder Mark Elias, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, and Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar, to talk about the biggest challenges facing our elections next year and beyond.

Enjoy. Hello, everyone. I'm Jane. See, I like the call and response. Try that again. Hello, everyone. Oh, God, that's satisfying. I should have been a pastor.

Anyway, I'm Jane Koston, and we are live from CrookedCon. 2025, it's coming to a close, which means two things. If you're a normal person, it's a start of everyone's favorite winter holidays, the college football playoff season. See, you get it, you get it. And, you know, also the holidays, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. But also, if you're a political sicko, like me and you guys, let's be real here,

it means midterms, which I feel like we're all feeling like way better about than we were maybe like on Monday. Now we're feeling like jazzy and angry and optimistic. I was joking about how like all the most like live, laugh, love people I went to high school with are now like, we can't have ice. We've got to melt ice right now. And I'm like, okay then. So, 226 midterms are metaphorically right around the corner, but I think that for many people

in this audience, we are very worried about these elections, not our ability to participate in them, but in making these elections count. Just last Tuesday, we saw Trump and his MAGA allies resort to voter intimidation tactics, whether it was Trump screaming about how Jewish people who vote for Zeramam Dani aren't really Jewish, which we keep seeing that play made over and over again. or pushing laws to make it harder to vote and even threatening to cut off federal funding for candidates, if candidates they don't like win, and that's just an off-year election. I'm pretty worried about what could be happening next year.

So in order to answer those questions and talk about their own experiences with election intimidation and how we can best protect the franchise, I want to welcome Democracy Docket founder, Mark Elias. Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar. And North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Olsen Riggs. It may have taken her six months to be actually seated, but I'm going to say it again.

North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs. So I think that for many people, there is a growing sense of alarm about the state of elections in America for the giant reason that we have a political party that believes that any election they don't win is a sham. We have an orange-woodby dictator that thankfully can occasionally get distracted by doing interior design, but who wants to make it harder for people to vote? Using intimidation tactics, like deploying federal agents at polling places and pushing for strict voter ID laws, even though many of the examples we see of voter fraud are of Republicans. But I guess that's different for reasons.

At the same time, we are in the midst of a gerrymandering war, which is not ideal. Texas has redrawn its maps. California has voted to follow suit, and now other states are jumping in. We're going to get into all of that. But I think it's best to start with, Allison, you have experienced this process, this effort firsthand. And I'd like to speak to your personal experience of the struggle you had to get seated in an election you won. and what that told you about the state of election integrity in the United States. Well, thank you, Jane.

It's so great to be with you all today to appreciate the full sense of irony of what I went through in the first six months of this year. It's important that you know that I was a civil rights attorney before I joined the bench. And in fact, I focused on voting rights. I spent 15 years litigating with Mark and defending the right to vote against gerrymandering, against vote suppression, and I learned, I got a front row seat to the post-election manipulation that folks were trying. And so I won my race last year in November by 734 votes out of 5.5 million votes cast. And that wasn't the tightest state Supreme Court race in recent

history. We had one in 2020, decided by 401 votes. So this is what I signed up to do, and it wasn't scary to me the idea of suiting up, walking onto the field, being prepared to battle. Well, it wasn't okay. And, you know, tight election, we had recounts. Great. I am a fan of recounts. I am a fan of things that help instill faith in our democracy. But after that, my opponent, rather than conceding, said, I'm going to try and toss 68,000 ballots in heavily Democratic counties, and he targeted military and overseas voters to do that, because it's a special species of ballots. We have 100 counties in North Carolina. He went after four of the most blue. So there's a host of problems, and it's why it took six months and two days to get my election certified, and

and I was counting the days, too. But it was really intense. It was also the most encouraging, affirming experience, and I want you to think about that for a second. It cost me $2 million. My hair fell out from stress. And it was the most encouraging affirming experience because people worked together.

They listened when we talked. We controlled the narrative around this. We fought tooth-in-y-y-thew-thed. nail in a court, and we organized like hell to make sure if we had to chase and cure those 68,000 ballots, we would. We ended up winning in a court, but we could have one on the ground if we needed to, and that's what's so encouraging. It's not going to stop, and it's not okay that it's happening. But you all need to know that we've got leaders, we've got litigators, we've got election administrators who know what's right and know what's wrong, and are willing to fight

for what's right. And we just need that support. And we're getting it here. Thank you so much. Secretary of State Aguilar, what are you hearing from voters on the ground in Nevada? Are they afraid to show up to elections? Are they worried their vote won't count? Are they getting, I mean, a big concern for I'm sure a lot of people here is getting bullshit misinformation about elections and how they work. What are you hearing? Well, first of all, Nevada, please. Oh, no! Oh, no!

It's a Harry Reid thing. We always have to do it. We have to make sure that when you do come to Nevada, everybody's excited to have you there. Well, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. You know, I think what I hear from voters, both urban, rural, you know, in our tribal communities is, are we going to have an election in 26 and mostly in 28? Absolutely, we're going to have an election in 26 because it's important to note. Thank you. Yes. Because in 22, we as Democrats won every battleground state where we ran against an election

denier. And the fact that you have strong secretaries of state standing on the front line to say we are going to fight to ensure we have elections. In Nevada, we know that elections are run at the state level and the local level. The president doesn't get to decide when he's going to interfere in the elections process. We know that Nevada elections are established by the legislature and the governor. And if he wants to change our elections process, he's going to have to spend time at the legislature and convince the governor it's in the best interest of not of all Nevadaans because we understand the importance of our state from a battleground perspective. And it's reassuring that, yes, in 26, we have 26 Secretary of State races across this country. Every

battleground state has a Secretary of State race, and we need to ensure that we're back there, backing the Secretary of States, who have stood up the last three and a half years to push back. You know, I used to say I ran a secretary of state's office, but these days, we are running law firms to ensure that we were prepared for any attack that comes against us. Mark, as the resident super litigator on this stage. She was a more super litigator than I was. I'd like you to speak to what are you hearing when you're, you've been in these fights, time and time. and time and time. And actually, if I say the word time as many times as you've been doing this, we'd be here all day. But what are you hearing from your experiences in court? What does that look

like? Because, you know, one of the challenges of lawfare is that it's not just about winning the lawsuit. It's about the time and effort it takes, time and effort it takes for people like Allison to fight for her right to sit in a seat that the people sent her to. So what's that challenge been like for you and what are you seeing? Yeah, so look, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. There's no question we're going to have elections in 2026. You're exactly right. The question is how free and fair they're going to be. You know, right now, my law firm, which, just to put this in perspective, has about 60 lawyers. We are litigating more than 65 cases right now, all involving elections. Now, that number has been going up a lot because of the number of redistricting lawsuits,

But people don't realize that while we're focused on, you know, what happened on Tuesday and we're focused on, you know, all the terrible things that Donald Trump is doing in our nation cities, there is a right-wing voter suppression war machine that just grinds on. You know, so probably you don't know there have been five lawsuits already filed and decided against the California ballot initiative, five. Republicans are over five. There's a six that's currently pending in federal court. There have been two lawsuits already filed against Virginia. I'm proud that my law firm helped defeat both of those. In state after state, in state after state after state, we are seeing more and more aggressive litigation tactics by the right wing, and that is dovetailing with an unprecedented power grab by this White House and by the Republican Party. You know, you right now could name a Republican.

in the administration who is anti-tariff. I can. You can name a person in the administration who has been pro-choice. We could start with the current head of HHS. You can't name a single person in the Trump administration who is not an election now here.

It is literally the only uncompromising position in this. I believe that's the interview process. Yeah, that is the interview. process. And so what we're seeing is the manifestations of that at all levels. And so Donald Trump has issued executive orders, or I'm sorry, has issued social media posts saying he's going to ban mail and voting. He's going to ban early voting. He's going to implement national ID. And he's going to take over from the states, the counting and the tabulation and the certifying of elections. So all of that is going to get litigated. All of it is some of it is already being litigated.

But Allison's exactly right. You know, you all have to stay in the fight, you know. Because ultimately, the lawyers, we're playing whack-a-mole, and the good news is, you know, my team and I, we won 64-65 cases for President Biden in 2020. And I'll end with this. My very first recount, I had done election contest for it, but my very first recount was for the then-junior senator from the state of Nevada, Harry Reid, in 1998. and I was happy to play a small role in Allison's most recent victory, although Allison, in between those, I did Al Franken's recount, which went until July. So he points out that he is still the record holder for the longest recount. So Donald Trump, mercifully, failed in his attempt to require proof of citizenship on federal voting registration forms.

A federal judge in Washington permanently blocked the order. Mark, do you think he's going to try again in the 2026 midterms? And if he does, could he actually succeed this time? Yeah, he absolutely is going to. So people need to understand this proof of citizenship is about disenfranchisement. It has almost nothing to do with a citizenship. Anyone in this audience who wants to prove citizenship has two pieces of paper they need to come up with. Number one is a valid U.S. passport. The other is an original certified birth certificate. If you don't have one of those two, you can't prove your citizen. By the way, if Donald Trump wins in the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship, you can take birth certificates

off the table. It would only be a passport. The reason why they are pushing proof of citizenship is because the populations that this would most impact are first-time registrants, which are mostly young voters. And it would impact transient voters. And it would impact women who get married and change their last names, because then the birth certificate doesn't match the name on their marriage. So that's what's going on. This started with a law that they tried to pass in Congress, and it failed. Every Republican in the House voted for it. Every Democrat in the House voted against it called the SAVE Act.

Donald Trump then issued an executive order to try to put it in place. My law firm sued. We won, and that's what you're referring to. There was a permanent injunction issued a couple of weeks ago preventing his executive order from going into effect. What we are seeing already, though, is that in a number of Republican states, they are passing state laws to essentially implement this. And, you know, we're suing those states that are doing that, you know, one at a time. But I don't think Donald Trump has done with this. I think we're going to get another executive order from him on this.

And I think we're going to, if you want to know where we're going, it is that you are going to see efforts among House and Senate Republican leadership to say that states that don't adopt this through their own legislative process, you know, are going to be contributing. results that may or may not be accurate for purposes of certification and seating. Secretary of State Aguilar, as someone who's, you know, you are literally running elections. What are you hearing from voters with regard to these concerns about proof of citizenship, especially because I'm sure that many of us have seen disinformation online about what's required that college students aren't allowed to vote the place where they're going to college. So you've got UNLV students, for example, who may have been told online, like, oh, you're not allowed to vote here because you'd be using an ID from out of state.

So what are you hearing from people when they're voting for the first time, when they are the people who the Trump administration doesn't want to vote? You know, that's a great question. And first of all, Nevada runs some of the safest, most secure, and accessible elections in the country, accessibility being a priority. Nevada and 24 had the second highest youth turnout in the country behind Michigan. Jocelyn and I had a friendly competition about who was going to win. now that she's running for governor and it's an open seat, Nevada's going to quickly fill

that role of number one of youth voters. I think the disinformation issue is figuring out how do we communicate with voters in Nevada. We implemented a text messaging program which allowed me to reach more young voters for the first time than ever to remind them it was Election Day. They still had an opportunity to vote. They also still had an opportunity to register to vote because we have same-day voter registration. But it's getting... Yes. it's getting out there and engaging with the population that is potentially being targeted to give them the accurate and most correct information it's me being in those environments to say hey your need to vote you have a right to vote here's how you do it in nevada this passed in 24

one of the counties that had the last polling location to close was was was wachow county which is the battlegirl county of a battleground state and the reason was at about 645 300 150 University of Nevada Reno students showed up to vote. We will keep polls open when that happens for sure. But it was a movement to say, hey, your vote matters. And in Nevada, where your margins are so slim, a population that has not participated in elections in the past, all of a sudden, participates, and you swing an election, us elected folks are going to look at them and say, you are our priority, what are your issues, and how do I address them? Because I want to win your vote again.

Allison, as our resident, Supreme Court Justice, I'm going to keep saying that. You had to wait, what, six months and two days? So I think I get six months and two days of referencing that if I, if I, if I read, you to go to restaurants and just be like, excuse me, Supreme Court Justice, Allison Riggs here. I'd like my order, but I wanted to ask you, can you walk us through what that process would look like if Trump were to go back to the court? and try once again to require proof of citizenship to vote. Yeah, I mean, it's going to look a little different in different states, and I'm not going to, I don't think any of that's likely to end up in my court, but I'm always careful to not talk about things that could.

What I can tell you is the Latinx community in North Carolina is not centralized. We have 100 counties, a big state, and folks are scared. And what happens in the courtroom, I leave to the hands in the hands of the litigators, but I can tell you as someone who's running for, who ran for office, who will run again, that it matters if people are scared to go vote, and it matters the way in which we communicate to them,

who's going to be fighting for them. And so folks need to understand that on the court, which our state courts can be the backstop against extremism, or they can be a tool in the hands of extremist. And I'm working night and day to make sure that our state courts are that backstop. But while those cases are being litigated, we have to remember that litigation is just one of our tools. We have incredible tools in organizing. All of you in this room are organizers.

I have a background in organizing. We should put more organizers in elected office. We also need to communicate. So we have to talk to folks who are scared, who not only are worried about, will I not be able to prove my citizenship and not be able to vote, but will I be snatched off the street and disappeared

if I have the temerity to go vote? That is how serious it is. And I'm committed to making sure that while the litigators are doing their job and the election administrators are doing their job, that I'm going to be speaking up for truth and justice on the bench and working as an elected official to make sure that folks

feel safe, feel protected, and we highlight situations where people are feeling attacked for exercising their fundamental right to vote. Absolutely. Mark, I want to go back to you because I think that there's a group of people that we do not spend nearly enough time thanking

and a group of people I'm personally very concerned about in 26 and 28, and those are poll workers. The volunteers, largely volunteers, who ensure that people get to vote. I like to tell the story of, in 2012, I was living in D.C. And I was living, I mean, this is D.C. So I can talk about neighborhoods. I lived in Trinidad.

And I remember watching a group of people who had come from a nursing home come vote. And there was a man who was very elderly and was pretty immobile. But it was so important for him to vote for President Barack Obama. And so a group of poll workers all work together to help get him out of a van and walk him to, I'm sorry, even thinking about this, walk him to the polling station. And it was just that important for him to vote. And this is D.C. Like, this is about, you know, this is as blue as it gets. This is a, you know, one of those places where I'm sure you've heard from people that, like, oh, I don't need to vote because it's D.C.

I already know what will happen. This guy didn't give a shit. This guy came from a nursing home to vote, and he got the assistance from poll workers. who, you know, they don't know how he's going to vote. They can guess. But, like, they helped him. And I think about them when I think about the ways in which we keep seeing viral videos of during elections, poll workers being attacked,

poll workers being accused of crimes by people like Rudy Giuliani, who should not be accusing anyone of doing anything ever. And I hope he's enjoyed losing his apartment and his home. And it's, yeah, and there's rings and some cars. But, like, I want to talk to you about the challenges of a lot of, election integrity for poll workers, and what can we do to help, one, get more people to work as poll workers because it's so important, and two, ensure their safety, both literally physically and legally. Yeah, so look, I'm going to start with the last, which is that every one of you should get

trained to be a poll worker. I mean, part of the problem, part of the problem that we have is that too few people are willing to take the time to do that and to work, work election. and so we all know that our poll workers in this country tend to be older and you know I remember having this conversation for the first time in 2020 in because remember when COVID hit we're in the middle of we were in the middle of primary elections and you know people were saying like look I I really want democracy to function but my elderly cousin or aunt or parent I don't want them sitting behind a desk, you know, checking people in to polls. And that, as you say, has gotten more dangerous over time. I mean, one of the underreported stories of Tuesday were the number of

places where there were bomb threats called in. And remember, in 2024, we dealt with a whole host of bomb threats called in in critical battleground states across the country. And so if you're a poll worker, you're sitting there thinking, okay, so let me get this straight. I've got COVID and the flu are still out there. I've got the threats that Donald Trump and his, you know, his minions are lodging lies about. Now there are bomb threats being called in. So, look, what we all need to do is we need to, number one, encourage our friends and our families to become poll workers. And that's why I start with that. The second thing is, though, that we need to treat their safety and security as as important as any other aspect of the voting process. And, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about, like, what are we doing to prevent foreign threats, cyber threats? We need to talk about the physical threats. Right now, in at least two states, Republicans are suing. They're suing to be able to intimidate voters and election workers in and around the polling locations.

They believe that this is a First Amendment right. I won't ask the Justice to weigh in. I don't believe that it's a First Amendment right. but but we need to be we need to be thinking about the things we can do as organizers to help make them feel like they are they are being treated respectfully they are being put in a safe environment can i answer that question on behalf of nevada please absolutely as someone who's doing this firsthand so in 22 going through the campaign cycle and seeing how poll workers are being treated by voters was really disheartening because most of our poll workers are our moms our

our wives, our daughters, and when you see that happen, you just go, this is unreal. In 23, I introduced legislation to make it a felony to harass or intimidate election workers in Nevada. It passed the legislature. Thank you. It passed both houses of the legislature unanimously. One of the houses expedited it and having a Republican governor, he immediately signed that bill because everybody understood in Nevada our elections do. not work without poll workers. They are the unsung heroes of our democracy, because like you said, it gives somebody that opportunity to have a voice. Voting and exercising that fundamental right is one time in this country where all of us are equal with the same amount of power, and it's the

vote. And that's one of the states where Republicans sued. They did. Republican Party spent money to sue to block that law. Now they lost. We took care of that. But that is, but that's what's what that's what that's what we're up against everyone like you just you can't you can't look away from it that's what we're up against this is a republican party that wants to make it harder for you to vote and easier for them to cheat and going after hardworking poll workers is part of making it easier for them to cheat and i can say in 24 we did not have a situation where we had to invoke the law our poll workers were elevated to a position of being respected we just have to make sure we recruit them and retain them for future elections also imagine going to court to harass poll

workers. Like I would, I mean, I don't know how these people look at themselves anyway, but I just, that's neither here nor there. We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review and up a podcast, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What a day is brought to you by NutraFal. The holidays can get busy and overwhelming quickly. And thoughtful gifts that encourage slowing down and prioritizing self-care always stand out. Nutraful is a wonderful way to do just that. Nutriful is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand, trusted by over one and a half million people. You can see

thicker, stronger, faster-growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months. Give the gift of confidence this holiday season with Nutraful. Whether you're treating yourself or someone on your list you know really, really well, visibly healthier, thicker hair is a gift that keeps on giving. Right now, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription plus free shipping when you go to NutraFol.com and use promo code day 10. That's NutraFol.com, promo code day 10 for $10 off. Now back to my conversation with Democracy Docket founder Mark Elias, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, and Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar, to talk about the biggest challenges facing our elections

next year and beyond. During Tuesday's election, the Trump administration sent election monitors to New Jersey and California to, quote, ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law, because we all know that Donald Trump cares about nothing more than compliance with federal law. Absolutely. Obviously, these are intimidation tactics. And it's interesting because I think that occasionally when we talk about voter intimidation. people will say like what so many voters turned out so it didn't work one we don't really know if it worked because some people may have been turned away some people may have been scared to vote so i'm curious uh secretary of state aguilar mark alison what other tactics do you think that

the administration might try to pull out in advance of the midterms when it comes to intimidating voters affecting voter turnout because we've been talking a little bit about the lawsuits after an election. But it's important to also talk about the process of getting to the election, too. Mark, do you want to start? Yeah, sure. So I always say that to understand voter expression, you can't just look at it as preventing people from voting. You have to look at it at putting barriers in their way. You know, sometimes when I talk to very wealthy audiences, I ask them, you know, how many of you would wait 30 minutes in line to vote? I mean, I'd ask you how many of them, how many of you would wait the two hours in line to vote? Like, it's great

that election officials keep polls open late, but who the fuck wants to wait in line in the middle of the night to vote? Right. And so there are lots of things that the federal government can do to simply make it harder for you to vote. So people say, well, will there be military at the polls? Will there be ice at the polls? That isn't the question I ask. I'm like, how many streets will the military close? Right? Because you might not be dissuaded from voting because you see military at the polls, but if you can't get to the polls because the streets are closed, there's no place to park, then you won't vote, right? And so we have to keep in mind that when they do things like, say, we're going to ban drop boxes. What are they saying about banning drop boxes?

They are making it harder to vote. When they say we will not put postage, will not prepay postage, what are they saying? They're saying that we're going to make it harder to vote. There are a thousand ways that election officials who want to make it harder to vote can do so. There are very few Ciscoes out there who are finding innovative ways to make it easier. And we have an administration in Washington, D.C. that is leading a movement of right-wing activists and Republican state election and local election officials who are every day figuring out how to make it more inconvenient and thereby suppressed voting. So that's before you get to the disinformation and the misinformation and the threats and the bomb. scares and all of that. The small incremental changes matter a whole lot.

I'm going to just give you one statistic and leave it here. My law firm and I, we sued Georgia in 2020 over their ban on food and water for people waiting in line. Many of you will remember this. I also, by the way, I also, by the way, sued New York. And I won, and I beat New York. And then I made them pay the lawyer's fees. because shame on the Democrats of New York for having that law and not doing away with it.

But in any of it, back to Georgia. As part of that litigation, we looked at the question of wait times to vote. And you can tell a lot about wait times now because you can check cell phone ping data. And if you lived in the six metro counties of Atlanta during the primary elections, and you were in a precinct

that was 90% or more registered voters that were black, you waited in line an average of 51 minutes. if you were in a precinct that was in the same six counties, so it's not a resource allocation thing. Literally elections run by the same people, and it was a precinct that was 90% or more white, your average wait time was six minutes. 51 versus six.

By the way, that's true in almost every place in America, the racial disparity in wait times. So now you understand why they ban food and water in line. They ban food and water in line because it is a way to inconvenience people who are already being inconvenienced because they're waiting in a fucking line. okay and so when we talk about when I say they're going to make it harder to vote it isn't doesn't

have to be the helicopter black helicopters people repelling down you know it can be a lot of smaller acts that will prevent it and the last thing I'll say to your to your point to your point you might wait in line once for two hours but are you going to come back and vote the next time if we're learning anything it's don't fuck with mark Elias So something that's interesting to me, and by interesting, I always have to clarify, when I say interesting, I don't mean good. I'm just like, oh, that is of interest. So Donald Trump, well-known election denier. He wouldn't shut up about the 2016 election being rigged despite the fact that he won it. And then I believe if you lived in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, 2021, you might have remembered that there was, you know,

marshals, members of the Marine Corps and gunboats on the Anacostia and things were very difficult and everything. If you lived in like the area right around the Capitol, it smelled like pizza because the good people at we, the pizza, fed all of the Marines who were stationed there because there was an attempted coup. I think the people really underplay the fact that the attempted coup part. They're like, it didn't work. I'm like, I'm sorry. It's still attempted murder. That's a charge. But I'm curious. to Mark and to Secretary of State Aguilar, do you see a future in which Trump starts denying the elections

of other candidates who aren't him? Absolutely. I think this is his playbook, but unfortunately, as we proved in 22, that playbook doesn't work. We have rejected every election denier who's run for statewide offices. And if that's going to be the playbook in 26, it's going to make my job as chair of Das,

the Democratic Association of Secretary of State, to win 26 races across this country, much easier. I think the public, both Republicans and Democrats, have rejected the fact that we don't run fair and secure elections. But if continues down that playbook, he also, too, tries to implement his power as president into elections. But that's, again, as I said earlier, it's not how it works. Elections are run at the local and state level.

Our elections in 2020 were fair and secure. And you look at Nevada, we have 17 counties, Two of our largest counties appoint their register to manage elections. Fifteen of the 17 are elected by their local communities. 13 of that 15 are Republican. One is a Democrat and one's an independent. They all run fair elections, secure elections, and they make sure the vote count, pushing back on the narrative that there is, I guess, fraud within the elections.

We have proved it over and over again in Nevada through litigation, through transparency. One thing I say about the Secretary of State's office in Nevada is we are modernizing. We're being innovative about the process. But more importantly, we're being transparent about every single process. So we can show the public that our elections work as they are intended to work. I want to ask you, Mark, because I think that both Justice Riggs and Secretary of State Aguilar, I understand, I'm about to be mildly controversial here.

I understand that both of you have positions in which your job is to defend the franchise and to defend the people. But there's this joke that goes around online about how Democrats will be like, but dogs can't play basketball. And meanwhile, Republican air bud is dunking all over the place. I think that we've seen time and time again that, you know, we could say, like, elections are fair and free. And Donald Trump will say, I don't care. Mark, what are you doing about that? Because I think that your work, you don't need to say this election, you know, but we've proven that these elections are fair and free because we know that,

but Donald Trump doesn't care about that. And neither do the people who basically argue that if a black person has a job, it's secretly a sign of fraud. So I want to ask you, Mark, what are you doing and what are folks fighting for to do in court to ensure that even if Donald Trump starts saying that every election that a Republican doesn't win is fraud, he doesn't win. Yeah, look, that's my life's work. I mean, I do this by litigating in court and I do this. I found a democracy docket to be really a media outlet to try to make this point. I mean, I think that there is sometimes a failure of imagination, frankly, on the left, that doesn't exist on the right. And I think it's one of the things that I bring to the table is I

sometimes can share their imagination. The fact, you know, we tend to, you know, the number of of Democrats and probably people in this room who say to me, you know, we are on the, if XYZ happens, we are on the cusp of a constitutional crisis. Hey, you know, constitutional crisis, rearview mirror. Like, we're there. And so if you think Donald Trump won't do something, it is only because you were refusing to acknowledge that he's already saying he will do it. On December 16th, 2020, 2020, he called a meeting in the Oval Office to potentially sign an executive order to seize the voting equipment and the ballots in the state of Georgia. And to appoint Sidney Powell, who is a lunatic now disbarred

election in I, who I kicked her ass in court several times, appoint her to the Department of Justice as a special counsel. The only reason that didn't happen is because the White House counsel's office said that they would resign. And because the Department of Justice senior lawyers said they'd resign. Doesn't they only think Stephen Miller is going to say he was resigned? Stephen Miller is leading the meetings right now with J.D. Vance to his left, and Pam Bondi, yes woman, to his right, saying, how do we steal them in 2026? So, like, we need to be prepared for them to do anything. And I mean anything in order to stay in power. And if that means refusing to certify winners, they'll do that. In 2022, I had to sue Cochise County, Arizona, because they refused to

certify Democrats to winner. I had to sue counties in Pennsylvania because they refused to certify Democrats the winner. We're going to see the most extreme forms of voter suppression and election subversion that we've ever seen. And if we don't come to realize that that is what's going to happen, and instead we live in this fairy tale in which we say, well, Donald Trump's on the ballot, or we live in an alternative reality in which we say, well, as long as we win every race by 20 points, it doesn't matter. Well, who the fuck has to win every election by 20 points? Like, that's not a democracy, but that's one of the messages you here. So what am I doing? I'm fighting in court, and more importantly

that, I'm doing the thing that everyone in this room can do. Right now, take out your phone and post on social media, text your friends, your families, your co-workers, your crazy uncle, who's a Trumper, and tell them that what Donald Trump is doing is not okay. And you're not going to sit by and let

him steal the next election and subvert democracy in this country. So that's what I'm doing. I just want to give folks a little glimpse, too, of the ways in which our electives are meeting the moment, too. So in North Carolina and across the state, conservatives have changed how we elect judges. And I'm sure they've done that for just amazing reasons. Amazing reasons.

For years and years, Democrats were losing because they were running under the old rules, the way they wish the rules were. And last year, we broke an 18 statewide judicial rating. losing streak because we ran on our values. I talked about what it's like to be the youngest woman on the state Supreme Court. I talked about what it means to be the only woman of child bearing age on a state Supreme Court after Dobbs. Let's put directly affected people at the table to make decisions. And so when it comes to protecting the franchise, when it comes to leading the effort to defend the franchise, we are doing work to meet the moment and to recognize if we have

to put a basketball jersey on and be a flying dog? You know, the line I drew in the sand was, I'm not going to seek to disenfranchise my opponent's voters, and that's a line in the sand I felt really good about. But I suited up, I gloved up, we were ready to fight. And that's what people need to know, is that whether it's in the Secretary of State's office, in the courts, or in the courtroom, the litigators,

there are people willing to fight, and we will win. won't be easy. It won't be linear, but we will win. I think that that's such an important point because I think all too often, I think that Democrats are treated as if, especially in the media, and I know I'm a part of the media, it's fine, don't worry about it, but like basically treated as like, you have to be the adults and Republicans can post AI videos of dropping poop from planes. And I think it's important to say that when Republicans and people on the far right say things, and they're like, no, no, no, it's, I'm joking, I'm trolling you.

I'm like, that's a joke and it's a troll until the second you do it in which you say it's an amazing idea for Trump to run for a third term. It's an amazing idea to just make it illegal for Democrats to vote. It's an amazing idea to just do all of this. So I think it's, one, a good person to follow on Blue Sky, Popat, Ken White, he has something called the Rule of Goats. And the rule of goats is that even if you're fucking a goat ironically, you're still fucking a goat. So even if you're doing something as a troll, even if it's like a joke, you're still saying it and you keep saying it

and you keep getting all these people to say it and you keep posting about Donald Trump wearing a crown or something like that, which is so funny until the second it becomes very clear that you mean it. But I want to talk quickly, actually, about gerrymandering, which is very hot right now. Everybody's doing it. So it looks like New York is about to join the national gerrymandering arms race. Four New Yorkers have filed a lawsuit arguing with the lines for the 11th

congressional district unfairly disenfranchised black and Latino voters. After what happened in California, where Proposition 50 passed by, you know, I thought it was indicative of how things were going that I got to, I don't know how this happened, but I got a text on Tuesday night from the California Republican Party saying, like, don't vote for Prop 50. And I was like, if this is your plan? Like, the California Republican Party is at this point just kind of like, you know, it's an institution that you could look at in a museum and be like, ah, yes, I remember them. But, you know, it did really well. And you're seeing in Virginia that because of a sweep up and down the ballot to flip, what, 11 seats to the House of Delegates, they will be moving forward

with shifting boundaries in the state. So, Thank you. For some reason, the word just failed me. Some of the word redistricting, I'm like, we've got to come up with like a hotter name for it. Like, fairness off. We're going to have a fairness off. So because Virginia will be able to redistrict. So I'm curious, Secretary of State Aguilar, after what happened in California, how do you see this playing out in New York? And do you think more states are going to jump in on redistricting at this point? terrible word. You know, to be honest with you, that question is really outside the purview of a Secretary of State.

I understand. But I can tell you why a Secretary of State is important in that process. Great. It is the responsibility of a Secretary of State to call balls and strikes when it comes to issues. And it's our responsibility to ensure that the voter has access to the ballot box. And this is an instance where the voters in California had an opportunity to have a voice and have access to that ballot box. And I'm going to say this again, if secretaries are on the front line of these issues, we need to ensure to protect that access, especially when this guy across the street is trying to tell us that we don't have the right. I know that doesn't answer your question. I'm redistricting, but I have to be out there promoting the job of Secretary of States and the access to ballot box because every issue we care about, including this one, runs through the ballot box. Yeah, oh, absolutely, Mark.

Because we filed the lawsuit in New York and there was actually hearing on it this morning. So look, here's the deal. when they did Texas, I went on TV and several podcasts and said Democrats should gerrymander 30 Republicans out of their seats. Then California said five. I said, no, no, no, you should do nine. Now, they did five. It's fine. I think that the only way this arms race is going to end is for Republicans to realize

they can't win it. Like, if we are just matching their five for our five, they're two for our two, like, they're just always one step ahead, right? So I'm a big believer that we need every Democratic state right now, and that includes Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, everyone should be looking at what they can do. And the fact is that what Gavin Newsom did in California, nobody thought, I mean, who the fuck thought, well, I know what I'll do.

I'll put a map on the ballot, like, right? But it was like, it was ingenious. And what they're doing in Virginia is, like, really ingenious. So, you know, where does this go from here? look, Florida is going to redistrict. That's going to be three or four seats. The question is, like, what happens in Virginia? I've already come out and said it should be a 10-1 map.

It's currently a 6-5 map. I saw Politico say that Democrats could gain two seats. If I live in Virginia, if they only go for two seats, I'm going to literally just, I don't know. I mean, I'd be fine. If you told me that you wanted 11-0, I could live. 10-1 seems good enough. But, you know, you're good. But they're going to do Indiana, I think.

they may very well back away from Kansas. They are not going to do New Hampshire. But then what we're going to get is a ruling from the Supreme Court on the Louisiana Voting Rights Act case. And this is a case, you know, is very close near and dear to me and my law firm. We were involved in the original case in Alabama and Louisiana that gained black opportunity districts. And if the Supreme Court strikes down or severely limited section to the Voting Rights Act,

we're going to see all kinds of redistricting in the Deep South. by Republican legislatures. I mean, North Carolina is already, you know, Republicans have already redistricted or Don Davis' district, North Carolina, one. We're suing and challenging that in court. We're also suing the Texas map in court. But

that deep south, if you listen to what Fair Fight says, that's 19 seats. If you listen to what the New York Times says, it's 12 seats. I mean, like, that's a pretty serious situation that we could be facing, which why I think Democrats need to keep moving forward.

So I'm aware that something that's really important for us to remember is that I think that occasionally Democrats have what I would call a, despite our being known for dumerism, I think that there is a sense where people are like, well, it can't get worse. Yes, it can. Things can always get worse than they are. But I hate dumerism. I think that dumerism doesn't do what people think it does. I think that, like, you know, if people feel really, really, really bad, then they'll do more.

And I'm like, when has that ever worked? Have people ever been like, I feel so bad about myself that I am going to go do good things for myself? That never works. Clearly, you've never read women's magazines. That's not how that works. So, Justice Riggs, you've been actually offering a real voice of hope and support for electeds who are in this fight. can you offer me and everyone in this room who clearly care so much some hope and why should we still have confidence that our electoral system is going to be okay and what can we do to

ensure that it's going to be okay because it's going to take all of us to do so so I think we are in a moment now where we more largely recognize that we have a moral obligation to win elections to protect people. That is what is on the line, and I didn't win my seat, 734 votes by myself. There were thousands and thousands of North Carolinians running for office,

doing election protection work, millions voting, and people who stuck with me afterwards. So we chased and cured a thousand ballots after the election. I won by 730. We made a plan to chase and cure 68,000 ballots. That is unprecedented.

It's never happened. Y'all, we found a voter who was on the challenge list, who was a military member stationed at a base in Antarctica, and we made a plan for him to have his ballot cured if we needed to. Y'all, if North Carolinians can find voters in the South Pole, We can defend the franchise. And so I agree 100%. I cannot live in doomsday.

I have to think about what is the plan. I am working on the three-cycle plan to win back our North Carolina State Supreme Court. We did the first step. We have to re-elect Justice Anita Earls in 2026. And then in 2028, three Republicans on the North Carolina Supreme Court, their terms are up. These are three Republicans who voted to overturn my lawful election, and we will hold them accountable. That's where I think we should feel hope, is that we are planning ahead, we are holding and focusing on what we need to do.

We understand the assignment. We cannot live election cycle to election cycle anymore. We have to plan. We have to identify the new generation of leaders, talk to the voters where they are. We have to throw out all the old playbooks. And we are building a new playbook. And we played from that book in my election in 2024. We got stronger.

They fought us like hell, and we got stronger. So we are working those muscles. are getting better every time at what we do, we know it's not going to get easy. No one expects that, but we will meet that moment every single time. And it all... And I think North Carolinians will appreciate

that all of that will probably be cheaper than keeping Bill Belichick hired at UNC. And his girlfriend. We'll come better dress to the game, too. Exactly, exactly. I feel way better about your offensive play calling. Secretary of State, Aguilar. She's highlighting her long affiliation with Durham, most recently.

Yes. And as a Duke exists, that's all I'll say. Anyway, it's a place, and people go there. Anyway, Secretary of State Aguilar, you've been, I'm aware, you can't talk much about redistricting, but I want you to talk a little bit about you are working with all, other secretaries of state across the country to ensure that we all continue to enjoy our right to vote.

Can you talk a little bit about what you're hearing and what gives you hope in this fight when I know that in every election, you and other secretaries of state are under incredible pressure? What gives me hope is a fact, one, we have strong secretary of states across this country who understand the responsibility and duty to ensure that every eligible voter has a right to a voice. What gives me hope is the fact that we are working collectively together to say we are going to stand up, not as one, but as a team, to push back and say what you're doing over there at the White House is bullshit. And we can only do that if we stay strategic.

You know, we get these letters from the DOJ. I like to say they're the weekly love letters demanding this information, that information. And again, it's like, fuck you. We know what we need to do. They send this because it's a form of intimidation of the Secretary of State. And we know that if they can win by intimidating us, they can intimidate the voters. But we're not going to let them get to our voters because we're going to stand up, push back, and be strategic about how we respond.

Yes, we have some very animated Secretary of States across this country. It's because their heart is pure. But if we stand up together and say, let's not be reactive. act the way they're acting, but we come together and say, what is the strategy, how we're going to execute that strategy, and we all have to be in it together, and we have to stand together, whether it's an issue in Maine with Shenabellos, or it's an issue in Arizona, or it's an issue in Nevada, we all stand together as Democratic Secretary as a state, and we are going to tell these individuals, and this White House, fuck you.

But we can do it politely. Yes. Yes. Mark, I know that something that you've been really focused on is ensuring that people pay attention all the time. Democrats have become, you know, since 2016, it's been interesting because since 2016, obviously, for many people,

that's when they, like, really dove into politics. And I really wish you guys had all been here in 2014, low-key, the midterms that doomed us all. But that's neither here nor there. But I want to talk, you know, when you're thinking, like, this is a group of people who care. This is a group of people who are locked in, more so than most people are locked into pretty much anything. This, you know, you made the really important point that we are, you know, a constitutional crisis was like 10 exits back. What should this group of people do now, do right now?

You know, it's not, you know, obviously texting everyone we know about what Trump is doing. But what are actions that people can take? Because, you know, dumerism doesn't work. It doesn't get people to do things. But what does? Yeah. So, you know, I'm reminded that Robert Gibbs' good friend texted me in 2008 when Obama was running and asked me how I thought the campaign was going.

And I said, I think you're going to win. But for the record, I don't do hope and I don't do change. I live in static despair. But in all seriousness, look, I said the thing that I said because everyone can do something, right? So for some of you, you can volunteer for a campaign. And I think that, you know, we sometimes look past that because people want to say that they're working for a movement. The most important movement you can be working for right now is to help a Democrat win an election. I mean, as wonderful as it is to organize around issues,

and I understand the importance of that, what you just heard her say is what's really going to make a difference. I mean, what's really going to make a difference is if a majority of the state Supreme Court in North Carolina are Democrats, not because I know how they're going to vote on a case, not because they won't vote against,

they won't rule against sometimes the parties I represent, but because putting Democrats in those positions mean we will get better government. And that is true in the U.S. Senate. It's true in the U.S. House. It's true for secretaries of state. It's true for governors. It's true for AGs. So, like, I want to start with a really simple thing, which is support Democratic candidates. You know, support them with your time, support them with your energy, support them with your money if you,

if you have money to donate to campaigns. That's number one. Number two is we live in a really bad media environment. And part of the reason why I'm here, part of the reason why I'm here, part of reason why I think so many of you are here is because we want to support crooked media because honestly, honestly, they are doing the work that, frankly, I wish the multi-billionaires. You're not a multi-billionaire, are you? No. Okay. I wish the multi-billionaires at own media companies were doing the work that they're doing, but they're not. And the fact is, the legacy media is failing us. And so support crooked media, support other pro-democracy. in independent media sources, you know, and give them your time and give them your attention

because that's going to be part of the way in which we are able to get the messages out. You know, when Allison needed to get her message out, you know, the Pod Save America and that family of podcasts was, I'm sure, critically important. And so that's the second thing. And then the third thing is what I said before, I just want to reemphasize, which is that every one of you has a town square. Now, you know, the folks are crooked have a really big town square, like lots of people listen. Allison's got a town square where everyone stands up when she enters the room, so that's pretty cool.

You know, but we all have some group of people who will listen to us. And the mistake you make is thinking that just because you can't get millions of people listening to you, that the hundreds who will listen to you won't make a difference. And so I really, if I could say one thing, it's what I said before, which is take out your phones and your friends and your families and your clients and your customers and on social media, and every day think about what they could be doing to help protect democracy, you know, and because this is not something we can put on the back shelf and then roll out three days before the election, because he needs your support now.

It's not something we can wait to roll out, you know, the night, like the Republican Party of California, the night of the election. And so, you know, this is- Well, the California Republican Party can do that. They can totally do that. That's totally fine with me. So I would just ask you to engage on issues about democracy in your daily lives. Secretary of State Aguilar, Mark, Supreme Court Justice out in the rights.

Thank you so much for joining me, and thank you all for coming. Please, let's protect our franchise so that we can vote, and let's vote for people who don't suck. Thank you. And sign out to be a poll worker. That was my panel discussion from CrookedCon, protecting the franchise with Democracy Docket founder Mark Elias, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, and Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar. And if you want to join us next year, sign up at CrookedCon.com for all the details on our next

CricketCon, coming to you in 2026, just in time for midterms. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Remember that now is not the time to try a recipe you've never tried cooking or eating and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how yes, I know, you saw that pumpkin souffle recipe on Instagram, and it sounds very doable. But it's Wednesday, the day before the big day. Let's just stay. Stick to what we know so we don't destroy our entire kitchen and end up crying into a pan of macaroni and cheese. Like me, Whataday is also a nightly newsletter.

Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and on behalf of all of us at Whataday, have a great holiday. We can at least be grateful for Democratic victories and Republican infighting. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Four and Chris Allport. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case.

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