Michigan is being featured in a new documentary on the PBS program Firing Line. The special “Counting the Vote” explores how Michigan and other states made changes to the election counting process to make it more efficient and inclusive.
WKAR’s Melorie Begay spoke with the show’s host Margaret Hoover to learn more.
A shorter version of this conversation aired Sept. 11.
Full Transcription:
Melorie Begay: The special focuses on the 2000, 2020 elections some of the most contested presidential races in American history. What lessons do you think these races have to tell us when it comes to the upcoming election?
Margaret Hoover: Well, thank you so much for having me. And you know what I learned by going to eight states, six battleground states, Florida, the state where it all started, right? Where like, legitimately, the closest election in modern history was held in Florida in 2000.
Florida then went, sort of buckled down and really fixed it. They fixed all the troubles that they had. And one of the things I learned about 2020 by starting with Florida and then ending in Florida, is that we have the freest, fairest, most secure and most transparent elections in the world and in the history of this country.
And anybody who has any doubt about that, I encourage to go to your local election center and get a tour, talk to the election commissioner and watch how you count the votes in your jurisdiction.
Because we don’t have a national election for president. There is not one vote for the president. We have 50 state elections for electors. We have 10,000 jurisdictions across the country and because the Constitution requires that states administer elections, every state does them differently, and every state has different election laws.
What I’ve also been reminded of is just how polarized our country is right now, and it’s that polarization, and then the messaging around that polarization, the conspiracy theories and, frankly, actors who want to cast doubt on the integrity of our elections in order to achieve their own political ends, which really does erode the confidence in our democracy, a confidence in our system, and makes us, perilously, less strong as a country and as a beacon for freedom around the world.
Begay: Delays in the counting process in the 2020 election fueled a lot of conspiracies and misinformation. With Michigan having implemented reforms aimed at addressing this under its Democratic leadership, do you think that’s enough to placate any doubts?
Hoover: Michigan did a great thing by buckling down and tightening up the election laws and the election administration. Because you’re exactly right. It was the fact that there was a pandemic. There were an unprecedented number of absentee ballots that were sent in, and many states had not changed their election administration laws to accommodate the massive influx.
And so, the amount of time it took to count all of those absentee ballots was exploited by actors who wanted to cast doubt on the integrity of the elections. Now, since then, I hope you know in Michigan, audits have been conducted, several audits have been conducted, and we have a very high degree of confidence exactly what the numbers were in Michigan.
But it was smart, and it was great that that you went back and now you have early voting as an option for citizens in Michigan, you can vote early. When those votes are cast early, they are processed early. And you also have no excuse absentee voting, which all three of these things will make the elections in Michigan go better in 2024 than they went in 2020.
Another thing that you did in Michigan was that you clarified the role of canvassing boards, right? Because there are these local canvassing boards in Michigan, and we have them in many states across the country, and they serve a ministerial function, which is to certify what the count was. It’s not to question the count. It’s not to send the count back to be recounted, it is to just certify what the election officials have said the outcome of the election was in that jurisdiction.
And in Michigan, you’ve streamlined a process for compelling that ministerial function through the courts in a way that will also expedite the ultimate result being certified. And so, Michigan, honestly, for all the states that I went to, Michigan, has done the best job since 2020 to help prevent a circumstance where bad actors can exploit a long tabulating or a long processing or a long counting period for their own political ends.
Begay: I’m kind of curious, was there anything that surprised you when looking at these various states’ election counting processes?
Hoover: I mean, thanks for asking the question. I mean, I there’s a lot that surprised me. For first of all, I mean, there’s a sentiment is particularly amongst Republicans that mail in voting maybe isn’t secure. And so I looked at four states that do 100% mail in voting. There is Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Utah.
I went to Utah because Utah is a Republican state. I mean, it is an overwhelmingly Republican state. Democrats don’t get elected statewide in Utah, like it just doesn’t happen. 100% of Utahans mail in their ballot. So I wanted to go to a Republican state to hear how they administer a free, fair, transparent and secure election with 100% mail in ballots. And so you can see how they do it. And I bring the cameras into the processing centers, and I talked to Amelia Powers Gardner, who is the county clerk in one of the areas that has vouched for how secure their elections are.
We look at drop boxes. I mean, drop boxes are actually, you know, if you’re worried about the chain of custody of a ballot. A Dropbox means you have your ballot, you put it in a box, and then the election center gets your ballot.
I mean, for people who are concerned about the mail, use a Dropbox. But the truth is, the mail works. So far, you know, we don’t have massive evidence, or any evidence, of voter fraud through the mail.
And so that’s one of the, you know, the dispelling of the conspiracy theories was, was really helpful. And it was just, you know, you go shine a light on the places that are doing it differently. You know, they sort of elucidate how this works. And it works. It’s, you know, shockingly, we have 10,000 different jurisdictions where different kinds of voting systems and counting the votes occur, and you know, it’s actually, frankly, incredibly heartening.
I’ll tell you one other thing, more than 95% of our ballots are on paper in this country. So for the conspiracy theories that say, but we just don’t know, for example, you know what the such and such voting systems algorithm is and so how can we actually know that they tabulated the votes correctly?
Well, let me tell you how we can know, it’s on paper. We go back and count the paper trail. We have redundancies. So that actually makes us far more secure too, because you can’t have a foreign actor come in and hack the voting machines. I mean, if you do, you have a backup. You just go to the paper trail.
So you know, what I learned is that despite all of the sort of the shadow that was cast on 2020 when you go state by state, what you realize is we do an incredible job at a local level, in 10,000 municipalities and localities across the country of counting our votes, administering our votes, and taking the vote seriously. And I was, frankly, very inspired.
Begay: Something that I found interesting when I watched the documentary, is the importance of local election officials. As you mentioned, they seem to step up in key moments to certify the results in the 2020 election, despite pressure not to, sometimes coming directly from President Trump.
What does that say about the overall certification process and how results will be handled in future elections?
Hoover: I’m glad you brought that up, because I want to really point out and shout out a couple of key, really courageous Republican election administrators who oversaw elections that were incredibly close and were were singled out, as you said, by President Trump, and looked at the vote, counted the vote and certified the vote, even though it wasn’t what President Trump wanted.
And even though the outcome wasn’t even maybe what they wanted. But what they actually wanted was a free, fair, secure and transparent election, not one political actor to win.
And by the way, we can’t have a democracy, we can’t have a representative government if that’s not what we have. And so I have so much respect and confidence, and frankly, we should all be really inspired by the folks who are working to administer our elections.
I want to say there’s one Seth Bluestein, who is the Commissioner of Elections in Philadelphia, the only Republican who was targeted by President Trump, who was doxed by President Trump. His wife and new baby’s address were revealed online. And you know what he did? He went back and ran again, and he’s going to be doing it again in 2024. He just refused to be bullied.
So there are particularly courageous Republicans that sometimes we leave out of the story, and they really deserve credit for for standing up to these sort of larger conspiracy theories and forces and political pressure, because our system wouldn’t work if it weren’t for them.
Begay: As we head into the November election, what do you think it will take to restore confidence for people who may still have doubts in the election process?
Hoover: That’s why I wanted to create this documentary, because I want to shine a light on just how easy it is to see for yourself that our elections are free and fair and transparent and secure.
You can go to your local election center and ask for a tour, and they’ll give you one. You can watch my documentary and see we took cameras into all of these election centers to see how the processing happens. See what pre-processing means in different states and different jurisdictions, and to see how it’s done.
I mean, we have to shine a light. I genuinely believe, you know, sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we shine a light on how we operate, then that dispels the ability for conspiracy theories to take root.
That’s what I what I hope that this documentary will do, and what I hope people in their local communities will do. Because I think that will dispel any concerns or hesitancies.
By the way, you don’t if you can’t go there in person. Oftentimes, you can look online. You can watch and and observe the counting of the ballots in your jurisdiction, often by the internet, because they have cameras streaming how election workers are sitting there fastidiously counting ballots and separating, you know, ballots from secrecy envelopes and verifying signatures.
And then, you know, being in touch with individuals whose perhaps ballot came in questionable and they’re trying to cure it to make sure that their vote counts. I mean, there’s a really long and important process that happens in all 50 states that that, frankly, is really uplifting, if you want to know the story.
Begay: Margaret Hoover is the host of PBS’ Firing Line. Thank you for joining me. Margaret.
Hoover: Melorie, thanks so much for having me.
This transcript was edited for clarity
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Publish date : 2024-09-11 06:15:00
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