previews tonight's vice presidential debate. a.m., j. alex halderman of the university of michigan on cyber security and voting machine security. ♪ host: here are live pictures from longwood university in farmville, virginia. that is where mike pence and tim kaine face-off in tonight's vice presidential debate. our coverage starts at 7:30 this evening. if you want more information about our coverage and tonight's event, go to our website, c-span.org. ronald reagan's son says if she were alive today, she would vote for hillary clinton. a former bush executive says that is his plan as well.

those are just some of the crossover votes being announced in recent days. we are interested in hearing from you if you are planning your own crossover vote. are you a republican voting for hillary clinton or it democrat voting for donald trump. here is how you can let us know, (202) 748-8000 if you are a republican supporting hillary clinton. if you are a democrat voting for donald trump this november, (202) 748-8001. if you want to post on twitter, you can do so at cspanwj. you can also post on facebook. the son of ronald reagan posted -- att on this topic of least whose mother -- his mother, nancy reagan, saying at

least his father would not support this kind of campaign and if this is what the republican party wants to leave us, leave us out. recent piece in politico, a former speechwriter for robert f kennedy also attached to john f. kennedy, he says that in the years of the so-called war on terror, only one potential american president has had the sanity to see that america cannot fight the entire world at once, who sees our allies in the fight must include advanced and civilized nations that are most experienced in their own wars, only one american candidate has pointed out how sensible it is to stop fighting russia and china. he goes on to say, that kind of it -- candidate is donald trump. he said he would quickly sit

down with vladimir putin and see possible collaboration in the fight against terror. he marks himself as a greatly superior to all competitors earlier in the primary and now in the general election. that was recently in political. -- politico. those are just two crossover votes already being announced. are you planning your own? tell us about it. if you are a republican who plans to vote for hillary clinton this fall, (202) 748-8000. if you are a democrat who ends to vote or donald trump, call us at (202) 748-8001. politico also had recent news about the former head of the department of homeland security under george w. bush saying that he is going to vote for hillary clinton, saying that he told bloomberg news that his decision to support clinton over donald

trump came down to a stronger stance on national security issues and an inability for donald trump to control impulses. he has had a history of conflict with the democrats dating back to the 1990's. he has said that donald trump poses threat to the americans. . we spent a huge amount of time in the 1990's on issues that were much less important than what was growing in terms of terrorism, but he added that often has good judgment. he was also part of the senate committee that investigated whitewater scandals against bill clinton and hillary clinton in the 1990's. the numbers will stay on the screen. rob is from new york. he is a republican planning to vote for the clinton. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you to c-span. host: how did you come to your decision? caller: i don't think donald

trump ultimately even wants in. he is constantly shooting himself in one place than the other foot. sanitizing -- sabotaging himself. he is a new york city city slicker of the worst kind. he is trying to fool everybody that he is something other than that. he is constantly -- he is smart. is already saying if he loses in a swing state, it is rigged. if he loses the election, it is rigged. at some point you have to say and ins wind is rigged the wrong way. he is not going to be successful. i don't think he wants it. i think the presidency will not be any fun for him. i think the chase is fun for him. if he could even get close to winning, it is not going to be fun for him. i don't even think he wants its

ultimately. host: you have voted for republicans in the past? caller: i have. host: who was the last one you voted for? caller: h.w. how do republicans respond to your decision? caller: there are a lot of upstate new york republicans who will not vote for trump. host: michael is up next sterling, virginia. another republican planning to vote for hillary clinton. caller: good morning to you. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: my decision is based on the characteristics and are sallies of the candidates involved. -- and personalities of the candidates involved. donald has no idea what it takes to run this country. hillary clinton has a long history of dealing with politicians, dealing with other statesmen, dealing with the issues facing america today. i'll chop has excuses for

everything that does not go his way. not representoes the republican party. he represents a very small group of radical conservatives who do not have any morals and values that represent this country at all. therefore i will gladly vote for hillary clinton. as a republican, i might even go out there and stump for her. host: susan is up next from delaware. good morning. go ahead. caller: i am going to vote for hillary on the grounds that donald trump has no morals. when he made fun of people disabilities, that upset me. that hit close to home. for him to not represent his taxes to the american public, is definitely hiding something. host: at any point were you interested in voting for donald

trump? caller: never. after i followed him and hillary, he has more scandal in his life that she does. or ever did. host: as far as the primary process, going back to that point, who was your favorite republican at the time? caller: i have been on the democratic side for the last eight years. host: are you a republican? caller: i am registered republican. but i am voting for hillary. i voted for obama as well. host: that is a sample of calls for people who are running a crossover vote this november. if you are a republican, (202) 748-8000. if you are planning on supporting hillary clinton. if you are a democrat planning

on supporting donald trump, (202) 748-8001. tonight's vice presidential race is the focus. that debate will take place at longwood university in virginia. it is about three hours from washington, d.c. about 65 miles west of richmond, virginia. tim pence of indiana and kaine of virginia for that contest. if you go to our c-span site, you can see a split screen. that means during the entire debate from it you will see both faces as they exchange ideas and thoughts tonight. you can watch each question answer session. you can also have the ability to clip your favorite moments and send it to your friends or post somewhere. you can see the spin room after the debate. all that and a lot more available at our website, c-span.org.

four republicans planning on supporting hillary clinton. (202) 748-8001 if you are a democrat running on -- planning on supporting donald trump. story saying that when it comes to tim kaine, the former governor, he is for a minimum wage increase that hillary clinton has advocated while mike pence is opposed, he would remove the affordable care act. proposal to build a wall on the mexican border and deport illegal immigrants. opposes both measures. up next, in minnesota. democrat voting for donald trump. good morning to you. caller: good morning. glad i could get on. very happy. host: what led to your decision?

caller: i was a democrat all my life. i am 85. thective voter ever since first vote in 1948. chair herey democrat for 20 years. was992, the turning point when i was elected to the democratic national convention ofnew york city, i was one 10 from minnesota who did not, would not vote for bill clinton's nomination. immediately, we were ordered to leave madison square garden under police escort. that is not democracy. that is sleazy politics.

that is all we will ever get out of a clinton. host: what makes you vote for donald trump? caller: simply because we do need some clean, new start. we need someone who is willing and has -- who will just plain give us some new thoughts. politics is nothing but rotten. totally wrong. we need a fresh man in there. host: let's hear from another democrat interested in voting for donald trump. this is phyllis from california. good morning. caller: good morning. host: tell us about your plans for november. caller: i plan on voting for donald trump. i am a lifelong democrat. never voted republican. i believe that he will be able

to help us. will take think she the united states down the tubes. host: when you say donald trump you believe will be able to help us, what do you mean? caller: get our jobs going again. get this country back on track. help with the crime and everything else we have been going through. host: what makes you think donald trump is capable of doing that? caller: what makes me feel he could do it? i do not trust hillary at all. he -- i have listened to a lot of his speeches. i watch every one of them on tv. i watched politics 24/7. i am up at 4:00 every morning watching your show.

that is phyllis in california. donald trump gave a speech about taxes and on the topic of ptsb when it comes to military veterans. this is the quote, when people come back from war and combat, they see a lot of things, people in this room have seen many times over, when you are strong but someandle it, cannot handle it. the trump campaign defended his comments on monday afternoon, accusing reporters of taking the words out of context. trumps words out of context to deceive voters and veterans, and appalling act showing that they are willing to go to any length to carry water for any candidate. returning home after serving their country, it was at another

event yesterday where donald trump to bond the topic of trade and trade policy. [video clip] usedrump: i have legally the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors, and my employees. brilliantly --e i have really really -- brilliantly used those laws. often i have said i have a responsibility to pay no more taxes that is legally required like anybody else. [applause] what another way, to pay as little tax as legally possible. i must tell you, i hate the way they spend our tax dollars. host: that was donald trump on taxes at an event yesterday. see more on our website

at c-span.org. let's go to anna in michigan, democrat supporting donald trump . caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. it is my first time switching party, and i feel bad about that. but i have no choice i guess. media -- it is obvious that hillary is correct. i would like it to be more fair in the election and all the news. host: what do you like about donald trump? caller: to be honest with you, there is no other choice. host: just because in your mind there is no other choice, that is why your supporting him? caller: not only that. andplan i agree more foreign policy. i agree in taxes and other issues also.

if he is going to follow his promise, i don't know that. you cannot expect that from any other politician anyway. that is why this time i decided to switch parties. host: david is from north carolina. republican voter for hillary clinton. go ahead. caller: hi. i am voting for hillary clinton this year. i voted democrat in the past, but we needed time for change in the u.s. we need hillary clinton in there because she would do a better job over donald trump. hoping --g -- i am and i am hoping to god and praying to god that hillary clinton gets in there as president because we need time for change in the u.s. caller: when you -- host: when you say hillary clinton will do better, how? caller: she is for the middle

class. she is for taxes and stuff like that. (202) 748-8000 if you are a republican planning on supporting hillary clinton this year. if you are a democrat supporting donald trump, (202) 748-8001. linda is next from missouri. go ahead. caller: my name is linda. i am calling in. i do not trust donald trump. i would never vote for him. i don't trust him. i think he is a bigot. his tax thing has really upset me. when you get a paycheck and they take half of your taxes, and this man is a billionaire who is not pay taxes in 18 years, that really gets you. host: what is it about hillary clinton that you like? caller: i really think she is

more qualified. i think he does not have the qualifications to be president. he does not have the temperament. he is a racist. henry does not appear to be that. -- hillary clinton does not appear to be that. i would trust her before donald trump. host: a recent advertisement from hillary clinton's campaign looks at donald trump through the words used by other republicans. here that is. [video clip] >> i approve this message. >> he is a race baiting, xena phobic, bigot. broad. -- ahony, a fraud. >> he is not a serious adult. >> i believe he has disqualified himself to be president. >> i cannot support donald trump. in the pages of the "new york times" looks at the issue

of taxes, specifically the information about donald trump's taxes. in the business section of the new york times, saying an exhaustive study released on tuesday shows the details of how fortune 500 companies have sheltered trillions of dollars of profits offshore. the companies have managed to hide many of their tax havens completely, reporting different numbers two different agencies to obfuscate exactly how they have avoided uncle sam. it is all legal. --fortune 500 country companies, if they were taxed properly should be a call to voters and lawmakers to finally fix the taxes of your if all the attention on donald trump's text bill does not inspire a rewrite

of the tax code, this new study may be. maryland,olumbia, democrat voting for donald trump. caller: yes, i am voting for donald trump because clinton, she is very corrupted. foundation is taking ,rom foreign arab countries taking money. not a kingmaker. another thing, the media will be on her side. that is the reason i like his policy. i like his foreign-policy and immigration policy. he like his country. that is the reason i am voting for him. host: what about his foreign-policy the like the most? -- we: we don't talk

don't put our tax money to pay protect north korea, south korea. and our military -- [indiscernible] host: that is solomon in columbia, maryland. we are talking about politics. if you plan to cross over in the presidential contest this november. longwood university in farmville, virginia, is the site of the vice presidential debate tonight. it starts at 7:30. not only will you find information about the debate on our website, you can watch past debates between vice presidential candidates over the years, find out more about them, and you can view all of that without commentary or interruption. that is available at c-span.org.

profilesington post" farmville, virginia. a small town that has issued -- wrestled with big issues. their conditions of all-black high school, they walked out to demand better education. it was 1951, and the resulting court case became one of the pillars of brown versus the board of education, the supreme court case that ended segregation. rather than letting whites and blacks attend together. much has changed. there is a statue of the woman who died in 1991 on the grounds of the state capital in richmond. her former high school is now a civil rights museum. on tuesday, they will host the only vice presidential debate of this season in part due to their

ties to that segregation fight. longwood university is where the debate will take place. we are showing you that as we talk about the presidential contest. if you plan a crossover vote. let's go to john, the republican voting for hillary clinton. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have switched from the democrats, i guess you could say, to the republicans in the primary. i got on the donald trump train. i thought i was in agreement with him. i was. a lot of americans in this country, we wanted to get rid of the establishment in washington. it wasn't long after that i found out that the people i was on there with had no intention of getting rid of the establishment in washington. they were just using that to get me to vote for donald trump.

as far as donald trump is concerned, i do not believe that you can have a leader of this country, especially a man or any man, who is unable to control your mouth, running the country of america. i believe at this point i'm going to be voting for hillary clinton. host: are you getting a lot of pushback from your republican friends for this decision? caller: i have never had republican friends because i have been a democrat all of my life. because of donald trump and wanting to get rid of the establishment in washington, i went ahead and voted for him in the primaries. host: democrat voting for donald trump. hello, dan. caller: good morning. i would like to make a statement that i am a democrat all my life. i decided tohy

vote for donald trump. one, hillary clinton distinctly displays an attitude that it is her turn. that through the powers that be, the closeness with the bush's and the clinton's together, it is her turn, and she is just as mouthy as trump as far as my concern. i also believe that she has kept solidody, really good democratic candidates, governors and u.s. senators that could have been in the american the very beginning, she squeezed every one of them off the list. that is how powerful the clintons and the bushes have been in washington for decades. host: jerry is up next. he is in new jersey. he is a democrat voting for donald trump.

caller: good morning. i am voting for donald trump. i think hillary clinton is corrupt. i think the whole immigrant party is to be honest with you. -- democrat party is to be honest with you. i'm going crazy with them. people keep talking about what hypocrites.com biz. i was in real estate for 28 years. i wrote everything off i could on my taxes. i know people do it. it is so hypocritical of evil. -- people. host: you typically vote for democrats? caller: i have alternated. i voted for obama the first time, but not the second time. i kind of go with the person more than the party. i have not always been a democrat, but i have supported democrats. mostly. host: as far as donald trump is

concerned, is there a particular policy of his that you like? caller: immigration. immigration is a big one. host: why? caller: probably the most important for me. because of the fact of the freebies. they keep talking about the american people who work so hard. it is the freebies that are given out that i cannot stand. host: betty in rosedale, maryland. hi there. go ahead. caller: good morning. good morning. host: go ahead. caller: ok. i am going to support donald trump this time. him,not all that fond of but over hillary clinton and bill clinton, i am. the clintons were in the white house once before. they desecrated it. he had sex with a young intern

under the same roof that his daughter, his young daughter lived in and his wife. deplorable. is host: you think those actions should become part of the campaign process? she does become issues? caller: i do. hillary keeps talking about our values but she forgets her own. host: that is betty from maryland. just a sample of people who plan crossover votes this november. if you are a republican voting for hillary clinton, (202) 748-8000. (202) 748-8001 if you are a democrat planning on supporting donald trump. continue with those calls. we will take just a few minutes to look at what is going on with congressional races, particularly as the house and senate come into play this november. the senate, only four seats need

to be overturned if hillary clinton wins the white house. 30 seats or so in the house. we will give you updates starting with the house. house speaker paul ryan and his plans this october. he plans to visit warty to cities and 17 states during october raising money for candidates. he will be in his home state of wisconsin where senator ron johnson is locked in a tough reelection race. it is where democrats have targeted a congressional seat being vacated by republican. he will raise money for military veteran jack herman who is running in michigan. on on bacon who is taking brad ashford in nebraska. that is the activities of paul ryan. we are taking a look at specific races across the united states in the house and senate. whether they see those seats going to democratic or

republican hands. they say that as they see it, six races are now shifting to benefit the democrats. arizona's first district, michigan's first, and new jersey's fifth, and new york's 19th. six seats are also shipping to the republicans when it comes to house races. they say arizona's second, florida's 13th, i was third, new leading toare now republican hands. that is roll call magazine. also talking about changes that are occurring in sat races. saying that in ohio, immigrants outside of ohio have all but defeated a second term for rob portman, turning that see from meaning public into republican favored. .arco rubio is in good shape

he has a distinctive advantage over the democratic candidate. democrats are still spending money in the sunshine state but are starting to ship some resources. we are changing this from tells republican to maine's republican. to leansrepublican republican. republican senator is considering the danger of underperforming donald trump in missouri and losing the state. when he goes to missouri and north carolina, a democratic kirkpatrickve ann without support and her race against gop senator john mccain, that is the arizona race. she probably is not strong enough to defeat the current senator. that seat is going from the

republican to favorite. ron johnson is moving from tells to lean democrat. the nevada poll that just came out. the folks at the las vegas review just looked at it. that race, they also talk about favorability ratings, saying that respondents to the poll, 3% 43% found him -- somewhat favorable. as far as those who did not now, 13%. 44% founder very favorable. somewhater unfavorable. ayotte in her debate against the governor.

referenced donald trump. that is getting a lot of play according to new hampshire union leader. saying the notes -- nights most tell ae moment, "i would child to be their best and aspire to be president, there are many wrote models we have i believe he can serve as residents. absolutely. " later on that evening, the press office issued a statement saying i misspoke tonight. childrenope all of our would aspire to be president, i would not hold up either candidates as role models for my kids. that is a look at some of the congressional action taking place. back to your calls. this is sharon in illinois. democrat voting for donald trump. caller: hi. the reason i am voting for

donald trump is because hillary looks like she just wants to be in the office as a woman as an excuse. she has really done nothing as secretary of state. i met donald trump 35 years ago. someone should be a ceo in office and not a politician and presidential office. he was very influential. he introduced me to his wife when they were divorced. she commented him even though they were divorced -- complemented and even though they were divorced. he was really interested in helping this government. he does not have to be president. he is only looking to do this because it is in his heart to change this country just like he changed the parts in new york. he is not the kind of guy to turn around and go out of his way to do this work. he wants to work for us.

it is a thing in his system where he wants to do this work. he has done everything us. now this is something you want to accomplish. everyone is taking him wrong. it really aggravates me. thank you. caller: beverly is -- host: beverly is next. republican voting for hillary comes in. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: ok. i was raised republican. ok. i don't know what happened to the republican party because what happened when donald trump first said that he was going to party wasepublican totally against it. they did not want him. they all said that he is not suddencan, and all of a they get on tv about donald

trump, now they are behind him. this man is not fit to be our president. he says he is a brilliant businessman. any businessperson that claims , and this six times new report of loss on personal taxes, almost $1 billion in one year, something is real wrong. he talks about welfare people, poor people, but he has sucked us dry. now he wants to be the president only because it is a notch and his belt. he cares nothing about this country. he talks very negative about it. hillary clinton has been in politics for 30 years. that is not true. hillary clinton ran percent. she was senator twice in new

york. she was not the president. she was the first lady. host: let's hear from steve and maryland. actually, jeannie. she is in maryland. she is voting for hillary clinton. go ahead. caller: hi. i am grateful for c-span. it is one of the few places left in this country where people have free voice. african by donald appalled byaul 5 -- donald trump, that he could be the president. this is a man who has been married three times and yet has attacked hillary clinton. donald trump has been married three times. he had affairs. this is a man who does not pay taxes and yet claims he is for

the little guy, the military, and wise spending. take a look. take a hard look. this is a man whose temperament is so intemperate. he is a bigot, a demagogue. countries have fallen because of people like donald trump. he has never done a thing in his life for anybody but himself. the people out there can't see that. it is astonishing. it tells you how far america has fallen that this is a man that anybody, anybody would vote for. it is appalling and frightening. we are not him. i am not him. i would not vote for him. i would not vote for him if there was no other choice. there is a choice. hillary clinton has been lied about. she has been demeaned. she has been, in part because of

the press, given a reputation that she does not deserve. the press cannot seem to distinguish between her e-mails, only a few of which were probably not supposed to have been sent versus a man who pays no taxes. twitter, adding this, "she is now voting for hillary. donald trump is a male sarah palin." longwood university in farmville, virginia, the vice presidential debate will take place tonight. there are some shots of the outside of the auditorium. 7:30, our coverage on c-span. there are a lot of ways to watch it. you can watch it on our network. you can go to our website, go to our radio app. all of those avenues if you want

to find out what happens tonight. there is the website for all that information is housed. yesterday,day before the debate that features tim kaine and mike pence, it was the republican national committee that took tim kaine as the topic of an advertisement that was put out. saying, "a new ad recalls the willie horton attack, the republican national committee is talking about to clients when he was a defense attorney." that is available online. here it is. [video clip] >> when you want to know somebody -- something about the character of somebody in public life, look to see if they have a passion long before they were in office and that they have consistently held throughout

their career. >> long before tim kaine was in office, he consistently protected the worst kinds of people. sodomized, and murder a woman after being a role for murdering -- paroled for murdering a 17-year-old girl. tim kaine defended him. kainee and execution, tim said something personal and me will die with him. murdered threely people. as governor, tim kaine committed -- commuted his sentence. stabbing them to death in their home. on his last day as governor, tim kaine tried to have the man sent to germany where a role would have been possible in just two years.

tim kaine has a passion for defending the wrong people. america deserves better. we are asking you if you are making a crossover vote this november. shirley from arkansas, democrat planning to vote for donald trump. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm going to vote for donald trump this time. host: why are you going to do that? caller: i think that he is the our thing that will help country. if we get hillary in there again, our country is going to be just like these countries we see on the television where there is nothing left and everybody is hungry. i really believe our country is in trouble. i believe donald trump is really sincere. he has gone all over the world and sees what happened. he is really going to try to help the people in the united

states. hillary thing, bill and did back in his presidency was those army all of tanks go into waco, texas, and all of those people burned up. nobody has ever mentioned that in this campaign. host: that is surely in arkansas, democrat planning to vote for donald trump. we will be talking to several people this morning, including our next guest will talk about today's vice presidential debate taking place tonight. joshua scacco of duke university will join us -- purdue university will take a look at that debate. we will talk about that with him next. alex halderman of the university of michigan has spent his life

studying voting machine technology and specifically how easy it is, at least to him, to hack into certain types of technology. we will talk about that and his concerns about security, voting machines, that will take place later in the program. throughout our program today, we will be joined by people from the campus of longwood university. a shot of the debate hall where that will take place. ryan stoker of longwood university is a communication studies assistant professor. good morning. guest: good morning. how are you doing today? host: i am fine. thank you. talk a little bit about what you have been teaching your skin is the debate and this year's election -- your students about the debate and this year's election. guest: i have been teaching a

class about how the candidates communicate. we have not talked about how they feel about the candidates or issues to specifically. we see a lot of character fields. candidates talking about personality qualities as opposed to policies. i have been able to talk about that in one class, and through all my other classes as well, i teach a lot of journalism. day,ding news story of the and coming to longwood, an exciting time to analyze the media's influence on politics. host: are your students going to be directly involved in tonight's events? guest: they are. it is very exciting. a lot of our students are working for cnn, fox, abc. we have some students who will

be in the trailer with them. i know we have students weapon shuttling people around -- students who have been shuttling people around. it is an unbelievable opportunity here with all the media on campus. host: would you talk about the significance of the university and the role it plays in hosting the base? -- debates? caller: we are one of the --host: we are one of the oldest institutions in the country. brown versus board of education got its start here. we have a lot of history here. being that type of campus and , the so politically active campus and the narrative itself have played a large role in attracting the debate and media attention here. we have been blessed to have three networks doing live broadcast, more than that even. i think that narrative and

history of connecting the civil rights and its civil war where we're going now, longwood has played a large role in attracting the vice presidential debate. host: i know you said specifically, you do not engage on their personal politics. have expressed more interest in voting this year? will they be first-time voters? what are you taking away from the students? i think i have 22 students in my class. i asked them on day one how many were registered to vote. 17 were. last week, i forced them to sit down and register in the computer lab. now all of 22 of them are. a lot of them are engaged. this is the first election they will get to vote in.

a lot of them are getting sick of the candidates. we have a different year this year and how much media coverage we are getting of both these candidates. they are engaged. their meanings are pretty strong to the left. there definitely engaged and excited for the election and to have the opportunity to vote. studies someone who political medication, talk a little bit about mike pence and tim kaine. what do you gather from their styles? what do you tell our audience as well? guest: this will be interesting. we saw last night -- last week at ostrow, we had a debate focused on character issues. tonight will be interesting. we look at a lot more policy information. when i am curious to see is what mike pence does.

will he go traditional republican party platform or will he break up some policies and expand on donald trump's policies we have not heard before? i'm not sure what he will be discussing. will the expand on donald trump or even release new policies from donald trump? i think the religious factor will come up tonight. tim kaine and mike pence, religion plays a large part in their governing, their previous political life. we will see a different debate tonight and we did last monday and in these coming weeks. it will be policy focused and religious focus. it will be interesting and unlike any other debate we will see this year. host: the assistant professor for communication studies, with an interest in politics and tonight's debate. thank you for your time. pedro.thank you so much,

host: joining us to talk about this debate, coverage starting at 730, joshua scacco of purdue university. good morning. guest: good morning. host: can you talk about what faces mike pence and tim kaine tonight as they face-off? guest: the first task tonight is introducing themselves to the voters. a recent public opinion poll publichat 47% of the does not know who these individuals are. indiana,f virginia and no one knows exactly who they are and how they contribute to the ticket. that will be their first big task. second, pump up the top of the ticket. for mike pence, a full throated defense of donald trump,

potentially defending the recent release of the all caps tax trump's taxonald returns. kaine, hillary clinton's e-mails and perceived trust issues. those will be the two things they will have to do tonight. host: with those two things, do you expect a sharp debate between these candidates? guest: in a lot of ways, the sharpness of the debate comes at the top of the ticket. at the bottom of the ticket, the whole purpose of these two individuals is defending their party's presidential nominees. there will be some contrast as we would expect. in a lot of ways, the sparks will be safe for the top of the ticket. about there talking debate, the role of the vice presidential candidates.

(202) 748-8000 if you support donald trump. (202) 748-8001 if you support hillary clinton. if you are a third-party supporter, (202) 748-8002. undecided, (202) 748-8003. professor, what the vice presidential debate in context of history. what does history tell us about these debates, and is there anything from that we can watch for tonight? guest: the first thing from history is that vice presidential debates are not as well you as the presidential debates. in terms of recent public opinion polls, individuals, 60% say they are interested and/or will watch the debate. that is down from what we would expect from a presidential debate. i don't expect we will get north of 84 million individuals watching it as we did last week.

i think a good number of individuals will tune in tonight to see these individuals square off. quickly, --ead it the highest watched of these debates was joe biden at sarah palin. caller: in 2000 -- guest: in 2008, that was the most-watched the beat of a in history. on the democratic side, the historic nature of the contest in regards to barack obama. on the republican side, it was

guest: george h.w. bush and congressman ferraro stands out as the first and says where you have a man and a woman facing off in a vice presidential debate. in that contest, george h.w. bush was attacked for being patronizing towards congressman -- congresswoman ferrera. that is one of those places where we could shed light on the current contest. the other important debate to consider here is the 2004 debate between vice president dick cheney and senator john edwards. in that debate, there were

sparks for a number of region. one of the main ones being that john edwards invoked dick cheney's family and that debate. , he wasthe surprise able to shut down the conversation quickly. we might have similarly uncomfortable moments tonight, particularly if the vice presidential nominees are pushed on some of the controversies related to the nominees at the top of the ticket. host: we're talking about the vice presidential debate. (202) 748-8000 if you support hillary clinton. (202) 748-8002 if you are third-party. (202) 748-8001 if you support donald trump. if you are undecided, (202) 748-8003. our guest mentioned that matchup between dick cheney and john edwards. here is a portion of that debate. [video clip] >> this question, let me say

first that i think that the vice president and his wife love their daughter. i think they love her very much. you cannot have anything but respect for the fact that they are willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter and embrace her, that is a wonderful thing. there are millions of parents like that who love their children and want their children to be happy. i believe that marriage is between a man and woman, and so does john kerry. i believe there should be partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples in long-term, committed relationships. we should not use the constitution to divide this country. no state for the last 200 years has ever been used to recognize another state average. --state's merit. guest: -- host: if you want to watch those

debates in full, go to c-span.org. charles, you are on with our guest. caller: hello. i think donald trump should be our president. we need people -- and also donald trump i have been watching a lot of stuff he said. i agree with everything he says. i would like to see him become president. host: what do you think about mr. trumps vice presidential pick in mike pence? caller: i think it is a good idea. host: why? caller: i have been watching some things. i like the things he says. i agree with most of what he says. host: that is charles. has amike pence, he political record, including that of being the head of the state of indiana. how much of that comes in to play tonight? experience isve

very important here. in many ways in politics, mike pence has more experience than donald trump. he is also a former congressman. he has navigated the halls of capitol hill. in those ways, that is partly the reason why he was selected as the vice presidential nominee. the other key thing is that in many ways, mike pence balances the ticket out of both ,deologically as a conservative and also as a midwestern governor. mike pence is the execution of a strategy to win voters in the midwest, particularly ohio and michigan. host: peter from -- undecided voter. go ahead. caller: hi. host: go ahead. just -- may i

suggest -- [indiscernible] bidenine was a joe catholic. in terms of what is a jill biden catholic from how i understand the usage of the term whos an individual personally ascribes to the belief that life begins at conception or believes in pro-life principles but as a matter of policy supports reproductive rates for women and pro-choice positions. that is what i believe would be the colloquialism to the joe biden catholic. host: the new york times highlights the fact that mr. penn's is raised catholic and turns toward evangelical christianity. tim kaine went to joseph school and was a missionary. we might see debates over

religious issues. guest: i think that's a fair assessment. you will see both candidates talking about faith as a matter of policy. of how it applies to and inspires their policy. ran his campaign in indiana based on his evangelical faith. trailrly on the campaign tim kaine has talked about his catholicism as inspiration for his drive for social justice issues. not only in the u.s. senate but also as governor. howarde will hear from in west virginia. supporter of donald trump talking about tonight's vice presidential debate. good morning. guest: good morning. say that manyo people in america that i have spoken to and heard from others we need a non-politician in the

office. from all policies geared towards politicians. people around him that knows what's going on in the world. such as politicians. but we need someone in the office to represent us. the working class america. we are being left behind as a middle-class person. us ink trump will help that aspect. where i live it in a rural area, i see things. how we are being oppressed. that's my comment. host: anything you wanted to add? of the bigink one things americans all across the country realize at election time

is there are individuals who not only share their beliefs oftentimes in our neighborhood's blood on the social networking platforms we have. americansalso many who might subscribe to a different belief about the way the political process should work. i also hear from many individuals. a variety of perspectives. i think the caller makes a really important point that there are issues in appalachia and rural america in the united states that remain unaddressed and should be addressed. i think it's important that the candidates speak to those issues. not only tonight but also at the top of the ticket. also that individuals should take the time to seek out opinions that they might not

necessarily agree with. in that way it will be very important to come together after this election and where we are all coming from. louise is next in virginia. supporter of hillary clinton. yes i'm supporting hillary. i'm very frightened by the rhetoric coming from donald trump. he really appears to be someone who is unhinged. i think that could be dangerous. what he's doing with nato. furthermore the continuous lies. lying hillary, come on. every other word out of trumps mouth is notrump's true and people cut him slack. host: what do you think about tim kaine? caller: i love tim kaine. i supported him when he was ivernor and ran for senator

was very impressed with both him and his wife. he is a catholic who believes in the spirit. evangelicals get caught up in the do this don't do that. it's all negative. where's the charity with evangelicals when it comes to immigration and refugees? how do you turn your back on refugees and call yourself a christian? i think it's hypocritical. host: tim kaine himself having a political background and the record that could come up in this debate. talk about that. kaine has an established record in american politics in virginia as governor as well as u.s. senate. creates an occupational hazard in these circumstances. just as mike pence has a record in the state of indiana as well

as in the u.s. congress. both of those records will come up tonight. they appear toen contradict the positions at the top of the ticket. i use the example of mike pence on free trade. he has taken positions in the past as a member of congress on free trade that would appear to be in contradiction to the positions of donald trump. one of the things vice presidential nominees do is mold their positions to suit the sop up the ticket. you will see the moderator and the candidates try to call out each other for positions they have taken in the past that might contradict what their partners at the top of the ticket believe. host: does your experience tell you that people watch the vice presidential debate to see how this person would be if they had to become leader of the free world?

guest: that is a fair assessment. one of the big things that the vp is text is one of the criteria that the candidates use is thinking about can this person assumes the office of the presidency should something happen to the president. through that lens many americans will be looking for not only how they defend the top of the ticket but also how do these individuals come off in terms of character and personality. we have to remember these are intangibles that voters will pick up on. host: experience was the point made during the debate between dan quayle and lloyd bentsen on october 5 of 1988. here is part of that exchange. onlywill be prepared not because of my service in the congress but because of my ability to communicate and to

lead. it is not just age. it's accomplishments, experience. thane far more experience many others that sought the office of vice president in this country. in theas much experience congress as jack kennedy did when he sought the presidency. i will be prepared to deal with the people in the bush administration. >> senator benson. >> senator, i served with jack kennedy. i knew jack kennedy. jack kennedy was a friend of mine. senator, you're no jack kennedy. [applause]

>> that was really uncalled for, senator. [applause] >> you're the one that was making the comparison, senator. and i'm one who knew him well. and frankly i think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that i did not think the comparison was well taken. to jake in go fairfax virginia. undecided voter. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. i just wanted to make a comment when i see votes -- both vice presidential candidates, commenting they have is they are both raised question -- christian. i feel one wants to impose his views and beliefs on the rest of

society and the other one would like when itack comes to abortion. butkaine is against it holds those views as his own. pretty much goes by the law of the land. i find that to be interesting that both candidates having similar backgrounds would take that aspect. just a comment. this is very important in terms of understanding where the candidates stand. one of the interesting things about this election is the extent to which individuals are voting along demographic lines. you can see this playing out not only on matters of faith in terms of looking at various but also atoup

income level across gender. you are seeing these lines along demographics in terms of who plans to support which particular presidential and vice presidential ticket. have twonstance you individuals who deeply hold their faith and ascribe to it in different ways in the public sphere. they both talk about it. policyinfluences their and the implementation of policy is very different when you compare the candidates. host: supporter of donald trump from south carolina. caller: yes sir. i fully support donald trump. i'm going to watch the vice presidential debate tonight. host: what are you interested in learning most from tonight's debate? caller: i'm interested in

learning what their views are about different things. to know whaty like their views are on trade. do you think a lot of time will be spent learning about their individual views of the candidates rather than defending their running mate? guest: i think both candidates tonight will talk about their relationship with the top of the ticket. one of the things that is very important for the vice president to do is to show that there is cohesion between the president and the vice president. have seen that with the evolution of the modern vice presidential office. role that alt the gore took in bill clinton's administration versus the role that dick cheney took in george w. bush's administration versus the role joe biden has taken in

barack obama's administration. what is highlighted is the old-time divisions that existed between the president and vice presidential nominees can no longer be afforded in the television age. particularly when the president has to be everywhere. when the president has to speak everywhere. oftentimes the vice president has to have a consistent agenda that is in concert with the president of the united states. watching how these individuals talk of the top of the ticket, are they talking about them in positive ways in terms of of howlity, in terms well they have gotten to know them on the campaign trail will be very telling. theerms of an indicator of type of relationship that each of these presidential nominees has to their vice presidential nominee. the lineston texas on for those who are undecided.

here is bill. caller: good morning. houston onelive in of my sons goes to longwood. he is a business student over there. collegeod to see the getting some exposure. i'm calling on the undecided line because the people at the top of the ticket when they talk they don't say anything. the vice presidential candidates i have listened to them and they actually seem to say something when they talk. i'm hoping to get some information tonight. host: what are you interested in learning? i would like to know what the main difference is between them. what are they going to do to create jobs in this country because jobs is the answer to everything. if people have a job than they feel worthwhile and they can live a good life.

aboutre we going to do ringing jobs back to the country. this is a really tough question for the candidates tonight to answer. related to jobs growth in the united states. there is a concern among the american public about the nature of the economy and whether or not the gains that have been made since the gate -- great recession have been evenly distributed across the united states and sectors of the economy. in many ways that has not happened. manufacturing in the united states still faces stiff foreign competition. tonight mikees pence and tim kaine have ascribed to fair trade principles in the past. talking about foreign trade will be a very interesting subject

as some of them other callers have talked about as well. this will be one of those issues where it will be difficult for the candidates to dance around the public opinion on this. opinion in the republican party has moved away from free trade positions toward donald trump positions during the course of this election. what that means for the vice andident candidates eventually the president will be very important. is a professor at purdue university. assistant professor of media theory and politics. joshua scacco. talk about who benefits most from tonight's event. formatin terms of the tonight i would argue that both of these are very experienced debaters. mike pence has been through this in terms of his time in the governor's mansion in indianapolis.

not only during his statewide political campaign but also during his congressional runs as well as the numerous press conferences he has done and gaggles with the press he has done during his time in indianapolis. tim kaine as well. he has been through this as governor of virginia as well as u.s. senator. all high-profile races. race wasnor's particularly competitive for tim kaine. both of these gentlemen have a lot of experience with this particular format and a lot of experience with political debate in general. host: the format tonight is? it will be the moderator 60ing and something like

second and 92nd questions. -- 90 second questions. i believe in these formats that if they invoke the other candidate that particular candidate can respond to an attack or contrast just as the presidential debate. these types of formats and the ways the moderators engage in to theate right down size of the podium and how cool are all negotiated by the presidential campaigns ahead of time. host: florida, supporter of donald trump. good morning. caller: good morning. i believe mike pence would make a good vice president. if anything happened to trump

during his first term. because he has a good moral background. he's pretty smart. he did a real good job in indiana. say one moreto thing. has anyone picked up in the news this morning that all the refugees overseas now the states have to accept -- the court several do that they have to thept refugees in all of states. that is an imperial presidency in my mind. we don't have any say now. host: joanna. third-party supporter. good morning. i have something to say about mike pence. i've been here in indiana for most of my life and i have yet go to thes state

right to work state which allows our unions to go by the wayside without any kind of input whatsoever to help our employees get a better package for their employment. that went down. mr. pence has also torn down our by utilizing the vouchers in such a way that if you are a special kid and you have the that can fill out the application properly and get you into a different school they will give you 20,000 of my tax dollars to put you in that private school. that to me is against the public schools trying to milk them out of federal government or out of state government hands. schoolse believe public

is very essential especially to those who are lacking in money. host: thanks caller. go ahead. guest: the caller brings up an important point with regard to the use of these men and their home states. has wone in virginia elections to be governor and u.s. senator. -- relatively popular in the commonwealth of virginia. regard to mike pence, mike pence generated national controversy and statewide controversy over the term of his governorship with the passage of the religious freedom restoration act as well as his particular actions with regard to the relocation of syrian refugees. what you see is that the republican nominee for governor

in the state of indiana has actually backed away from those positions that mike pence has held particularly with regard to syrian refugees. indianaa split in between more evangelical republicans and the business community of republicans who were turned off to mike pence's policies with regard to the religious freedom restoration act. brings up an important point. voters should look at how the voters in each of these states view their u.s. senator as well as their governor to get another perspective on how these men might govern as vice president. host: a story about governor pence's legislation to block syrian refugees to go to indiana.

that was blocked by a federal court. beverly in michigan. third-party supporter. i'm a little nervous. i'm trying not to be. i'm calling because i'm going to vote for jill stein. for not bailing out wall street with quantitative easing. she is against the fact that -- the top 1% own 90% of the wealth . our economy is not working for the vast majority of us. there's austerity policies. harsh on you but easy for establishment.

the 90% tax on bonuses for isled out bankers un-american. that's pretty much what i wanted to say. host: we will let our guest respond. guest: the influence of the third party in this election is something we will all want to watch. we will see lack of evidence tonight because the third party vice presidential nominees will be kept off the stage. veryis something that is important for individuals who might be considering voting for a third party candidate. what i will say is that the commission on presidential debates sets particular standards with regard to the level of support that a candidate needs to get on the stage. that threshold is 15% in public opinion polls. the caller who plans to support jill stein i would be interested in knowing whether or not other third already individuals would

be watching the debate tonight when their preferred party's vice presidential candidate is not going to be on the stage. 1992, vicetober of admiral james stockdale was ross perot's running mate. he was asked to give an opening statement. do you recall that time when admiral stockdale made those comments? guest: the comments were very interesting. i believe it was something like who am i? he asked rhetorical questions of and other vice presidential debaters in the room. one of those moments to illustrate that no one knew who admiral stockdale was. at the same time what it did was highlight in some ways the way that third-party candidates are often portrayed which is on the fringe. that is not to say the policies

they advocate are on the fringe. way we learnf the about politics in the united states we are socialized to think in terms of democrats and republicans. we are not socialized to think of green and constitution party and libertarian party candidates. while tryingdale to tell individuals who he was at the same time fed into those notions of third-party candidate eating on the fringe of american politics. host: here's admiral stockdale from october of 1992. >> who am i? why am i here? [laughter] [applause] i'm not a politician. everyone knows that. so don't expect me to use the language of the washington insider. navy and onlye

one of them in washington. now i'm an academic. host: let's go to florida. supporter of donald trump. caller: good morning. i said i was a supporter of the conservative candidate. regarding the vice presidential the debate team that set this up at purdue. i wondered a little bit more about how that works. i harken back on how just a few months ago we were watching people all over the united states in politics give graduation speeches at certainly in colleges. thatld like to know if plays in the role of who gets to debate where and how those things happen in terms of the connection between political figures like the obamas and the

canes and some of the other candidates. actually pick these venues and as we know money is involved in setting up these things at colleges. some of theain politics and the media behind all that? host: go ahead. guest: i'm not sure of all the logistics that go into the selection of the site. do know is that universities put in bids to the commission on presidential debates. just to clarify what the commission does, it is an independent bipartisan group that works with the campaigns to set the standard for political debates. was -- first began operation

in the late 1980's and early 1990's. began experimenting with different formats. for the presidential debate we saw the town hall format for the first time. the whole purpose of the commission is to work with the to cite where these debates will take place as well as the standard you will see tonight. that the viewers who are watching right now and will watch tonight's debate will see. the length of time for questions. how responses are handled. whether or not there is a buzzer if a candidate runs out of time. of the podiums or how far apart they are. all of these are handled the tween the commission and the presidential campaigns. .ost: massachusetts undecided voter. caller: thank you for taking my

call. obviously people have computers in their hands and they don't look at the history of america. to this day for 400 years the minorities of this planet have been dominated by international corporate white 1% or's who are siphoning the richest of the middle class and the poor and basically white flagging into europe. that's why you've got ireland. of thens are getting out bricks because you have other countries wanting to dominate over their countries. host: ok. about the vice presidential debate tonight. them areeither one of worth anything because they are funded by the corporate 1%. let's go to market in chester, connecticut. good morning. was a littleer

more vociferous. i want all the people to understand if they think a billionaire that dodges taxes and is so self-centered is going to change their plight that's wrong. back to thelook debates to select the president. anyway. donald trumpime said go ahead, punch him in the face. i will pay your legal fees. that to arapolate larger degree you are going to see things like can't state. he is going to do things his way. if there's a demonstration he's just going to put the muscle on everybody. it's a very concerning thing.

in simple to keep it terms. he's not going to help the plight of the middle class at all. he's going to be a danger just host: past.is fences night mr. will be spent defending his boss record and policies. would be shocked if mike pence was not asked about donald trump's taxes. if for no other reason then mike pence has released his taxes. you see a contradiction in terms between the president and the vice president in terms of their actions on the democratic side. you have hillary clinton who has released over 30 years of her tax returns. tim kaine has released his tax returns. the only candidate who has not is donald trump. i should point out to the callers who are watching that the new york times article

related to donald trump's taxes 1995 that his tax loss in for his loss on his taxes in possiblehave made it that he did not pay taxes. no one knows whether or not donald trump has paid his taxes because he has not released his tax returns. that is something mike pence is going to have to address tonight just as tim kaine will probably get asked about hillary clinton's e-mails. in the firsthat debate hillary clinton got asked about her use of a private e-mail server. i'm guessing tonight tim kaine will probably get asked about that as well. in the presidential debate eventually people look for someone who won and someone who lost. is it that easy and how do you determine it?

never that easy. we get socialized to think about who won them or lost based on thatnstant punditry happens on the cable networks and in the newspapers. a couple of things are very important. first both campaigns are going to claim they won the debate. sidesll see tonight both claiming they won the debate. that's what you saw last week. the second thing is individuals will use their partisanship as a lens for who won the debate. and sayans will tune in that mike pence won the debate. democrats will tune in and probably believe that tim kaine did better than mike pence. difficultgs make it to determine who is the winner and who is the loser.

i would say keep track of how the candidates answer each individual question. in last week's debate donald trump had a very good first 15 to 20 minutes. remaining part of the debate hillary clinton did very well. that was the part that stuck in the minds of individuals. important we not just fall into the horse race of who is up and who is down. at how theecifically candidates perform with each of the individual questions asked. joshua scacco at purdue university. assistant professor of media theory and politics. thanks for your time. c-span.org is the place to go for more information about coverage of that debate. our coverage starts at 7:30 this evening.

find out more at c-span.org. next we will talk about voting machine technology and how secure that technology is. alex halderman of the university of michigan who has studied voting machines and their security will join us next for that conversation. especially as we lead up to election day. longwood university. the site of the debate tonight. we have shown you pictures of the outside of the hall where the debate will take place as well as the inside where the candidates will meet. chance toso had a talk with people on the campus and involved in this debate tonight. of those people covering the media side, holly parker. the editor in chief of the rotunda. good morning. guest: good morning. host: tell us about the rotunda. we are longwood

university's student run newspaper. we circulate about 500 papers a week. we are weekly paper and we print every monday. host: what are your coverage plans for tonight's debate? we had a plan to have four people in the media filing center. we all got credentials. three of us got tickets to go into the debate hall. we will all be able to have a pretty amazing experience. one of us will be left alone in the media center to cover the debate as it's going on. how has your publication been covering this and have you had a chance to talk to the candidates? guest: we have not.

leading up to the debate we've done a lot of security coverage. that is been a major concern on campus. inform about trying to the campus about the different candidates such as features on the vice presidential candidates and hillary clinton and donald trump. we are trying to make sure our campus is informed on the politics. host: what has been the mood on campus? guest: that is a tricky subject. probably half of the campus has been very vocal about their complaints toward the disruption of classes and things like that with the security perimeter. people are really excited about the opportunity. the majority of us are very happy the debate is here. we have beenties provided, my media credentials. it's a really great opportunity

for all of us and we really like nice. what is the security around the event and what were the concerns? people have been worried ever since there have been a few bombings in other areas. we just get a little nervous. have been talking about the amount of public safety officials who have been coming to campus and the coalition between farmville police and their efforts to keep us safe. and about the volunteering a lot of police officers are doing from other agents these. that was a really interesting aspect i got to cover last week. what are some of the stories you are planning stemming from the debate tonight? i'm writing an editorial

column about the student perspective. we have a special edition vice presidential debate reflective experience type piece coming out on thursday we are trying to put together. outside of that we will talk about the protests happening on campus. to hofstra went university for the first presidential debate. saw a lot of opportunities for coverage here that we hope repeated itself and that we are allowed to look at along with campus. host: have we already seen protests happen? there was a gary johnson supporter protest yesterday i believe. that was pretty exciting. holly parker. editor in chief of the rotunda at longwood university. there's the website.

part of the coverage plans. time. for your and thank you for spending time with us this morning outside about c-span bus. guest: thank you so much. host: longwood university. some shots of the outside of the stadium where the debate will take place tonight. between mike pence and tim kaine. coverage ther topic for this segment taking a look at voting machines security. we will talk with alex halderman of the university of michigan. a computer science and engineering professor joining us from ann arbor, michigan. can we start about your career in voting machines security. part of spent a good your career looking at how machine's work and how easily

they can be manipulated. guest: for more than 10 years i have an examining the security of computer voting machines used in the u.s. and other countries around the world as well as internet voting systems. i have takenses voting machines used in practice in elections in the u.s., or up them into the laboratory and tried to figure out how someone who might want to try to manipulate the vote could do that. by exploring ways of introducing malicious software and otherwise tampering with the machines. it?: how easy is guest: i'm afraid it's easier than it should be. someone who wanted to tamper with america's elections could have a couple of ways to do that. the scary possibility is that someone might want to actually

try to change the outcome of the election to manipulate who one that. in some of america's voting machines the only record of the vote is contained in the machines computer memory. talking about things like touchscreen voting machines. because the only record of the vote is in computer memory if the software in those voting machines is manipulated someone could actually change the results that are reported. a possibility that someone could try to hack into state election offices in order to disrupt the outcome of an election to cast doubt on the results and make it look like there was cheating and cause a big investigation. that would be even easier to do than manipulating the machines themselves. line is there's a lot

of work we have to do in this country to make sure that the critical infrastructure behind our voting technology is adequately to convince everyone that the election outcome was right. host: do you have a sense of the number of states that till use touchscreen technology versus some type of paper record? like 26t is something states have touchscreens in some form. often the technology varies by county instead of by state. that is one of the wonderful things about our federal system. it's about 75% of american voters are going to be fairly well protected because they will have some kind of physical record of their vote outside of the control of a computer. almost all cases they are going to have some form of paper ballot or printout that comes

thatf a voting machine will also be retained so there's something to audit after the election. about 25% of voters including the majority of likely tosome fairly be important states in this election like pennsylvania and georgia are not going to have any kind of physical record after the election. those are the votes i am most concerned about. the ones entirely under the control of computers. our guest is alex halderman of the university of michigan. if you want to ask him questions about this topic, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. republicans (202) 748-8001. andpendents (202) 748-8002 .ll others (202) 748-8003

not long ago on this program we were joined by thomas hicks with the election assistance commission. he was asked about his thoughts on the safety of the security systems across the united states. here's what he had to say. >> no system certified by the eac is hooked up to the internet. as long as states do not use wi-fi and do not look up their machines to the internet there is no way to hack in those machines using the internet. lots of cars come with different features. these voting machines also come with a number of features. as long as they are turned off there will be no hacking of the system by anyone. election officials have thought about this and they have prepared for this long before we had heard about the foreign nationals attacking the dnc or the other aspects of our voting systems. what did you think of his

statement? it were that simple. unfortunately even though voting machines themselves are not connect to the internet the voting machines have to receive the data about the ballot design and about the software that's running on them from somewhere. they get that data from central systems in the counties or states. these are called election management systems. after the election you take a memory card out of the voting machine and put it into these central systems and that is how we add up the votes from the machines. because the voting machines are receiving data and sending back data to these central systems and doesn't go over the internet but it goes over memory cards like the memory card in your digital camera. there is a way for data and malicious software to get in and out of those machines.

for an attacker like a foreign government that kind of connection even though it's not a direct internet connection it's called an air gap connection. it's still something that foreign states are known to exploit in attacking critical computer systems. of the most famous instances of this was called stuxnet. was an attack that the u.s. government and the israeli government conducted against the iranian nuclear enrichment program. it was the same thing. managed to affect computers that were not plugged into the internet because it traveled over usb stacks that were used to load data into the system. able to successfully disrupt the iranian nuclear

enrichment program for years by exploiting that kind of disconnected system. when you are talking about an advanced attacker like a merelytate unfortunately disconnecting the voting machines themselves from the internet isn't enough to stop them. let's hear from gary. democrat line. caller: good morning. why was this first brought the american public five weeks before the election? why was this just brought five weeks before the election. there have been people in the security research community talking about problems with electronic voting machines for close to 15 years now. the problem is that the elections aren't a terribly sexy topic when you are talking about the mechanics of the voting.

in between elections we don't all that much attention to these mechanics and technology issues. i'm afraid there has been lots of time to prepare and many states have made significant improvements over the last four years. they have introduced sensible backup mechanisms and sensible forms of paper trails. unfortunately that has taken place in all states. new jersey is one of the worst when it comes to election technology. you guys have princeton university where some of the best work in analyzing election security has been going on. that's where i did my graduate work. still the state has not changed election technology to be up to current modern security standards. ronald on the republican line. you are next. caller: good morning.

we used to have totally reliable paper ballot all over the country. wasted on much money unreliable computer voting computer voting machines without any paper trail? . it's stupid. -- what's the point? it's stupid. guest: it's a keen observation that a lot of money was wasted in deploying to peter system that did not provide adequate protection. unfortunately not every american states had reliable paper ballots. the problem in 2000 famously with hanging chads came from an unreliable form of paper ballots used in florida. these punchcard ballots that couldn't make a reliable record

of people's votes. simple.chnology is it is not terribly sexy. if it is done right it provides a nice combination of reliable record and security. the form of paper ballot that is preferred for elections now is to have a piece of paper that the voter fills out by filling in ovals with a pencil that gets scanned into a computer system right in front of the voter and put into a ballot docs. count opticalinct scan ballot. it's really nice because it thatdes a computer record is available and gives a result right away and a ballot box full of paper that we can go back and check after the election if there's any reason for doubt. by having both a physical record and a computer record that we can compare and make sure agree, an attacker would now have to

tamper with these records in a way that was absolutely the same in order to get away with fraud. that's the best technology we have today. it doesn't seem super modern but it is simple and it works. host: this is carol in michigan on the democrat line. caller: good morning. is why aren't all the states mandated to have a states secure voting system? if it's a matter of money why doesn't the federal government help out in this regard? we do have the federal system. a lot of the authority to conduct elections and figure out how the left can ask are going to work is delegated to the states. 75% of american voters have some ism of physical record

better than if none of them did. or if there was a central computer system in washington someone could hack into. of ourtributed nature election system provides some advantages. the lack of uniform security standards and regulations that are effective as create problems for us. the problem with just allocating more money to the state is the last time we did that after the 2000 election problems in florida a lot of that money was and used to buy computer systems that didn't have anywhere close to adequate curative. we need is some combination of effective security regulations or national elections cup and with enough funding for states to take the necessary steps to implement optical scan paper ballot based elections.

that doesn't have to be very expensive. it's not very high tech. it's reliable and it works. having paper in the elections might seem low-tech but we want paper for voting for the same reason you want the breaks in your car to still work even if the computer in your car goes haywire. it's a basic physical backup mechanism and it's one of the best kind of protection we can have. the secretary of the department of homeland security weighed in on this issue saying the department of homeland security dan's ready to provide for security assist those to states that choose to request it. assistance does not mean federal regulation. upon requeste is and voluntary. what do you think about this offer from dhs and are there concerns about it? concernsthink the

states have are basically about their autonomy. they don't want the federal government to be intruding in their territory. probably do have adequate cyber security protection or at least as strong as dhs could help them provide. to me if i were a state i would want all the help i could get. i think a lot of states may be underestimating the scale of the threat. if you are being threatened by foreign nation states we are talking about some of the most powerful adversaries on the internet. most certainly would want all the help i could get if i were trying to defend against these kinds of attackers. twitter you are on russians got the into arizona and illinois state data. could you talk about those

and overall election security? was referring to is over the summer it was detected that some internet attackers that have in linked by federal investigators to russia managed to break into the voter registration systems used in illinois and arizona. they camewe can tell in over the internet and exploited some flaws in the security to read out the voter registration databases through something called a sequel injection attack. this isn't terribly damaging in and of itself. it reveals that some foreign attackers are looking around for weaknesses. they are interested in the machinery used for elections in the states. to me it looks like someone is casing the joint.

they are looking for weaknesses. if you wanted to do an attack on election day and you are one of these attackers you would be preparing now. that's what it feels like to me. somebody is roving around for weaknesses ahead of time to figure out where they might attack. a realistic attack on the election is probably going to be honing in on whichever state ends up having the closest margin. whichever swing states and the most important. that is probably not going to end up being arizona and illinois but we don't know. probably attackers are looking at all of the states now and trying to be prepared to go in whenever the narrowest margins are. that's what i would be afraid of. host: las vegas. chris on the independent line. caller: good morning and thank you for your deep knowledge on this topic.

naturey the very available security and secrecy attached to anonymous, how can we truly know the origination location and who the attackers are really are that threaten our security? difficultis extremely to do what's called attribution. to name the parties who are responsible for a cyber attack. in cases like these illinois and arizona attacks that were just the way that we have tried to do that is by looking that cameaddresses from the internet addresses the attacks came from and associating them with previous activity where we had a pretty good idea who was behind it. it's pretty easy to give a false appearance that an attack came from a particular country.

it's difficult to respond to cyber attacks when we can't say with absolute confidence who is behind them. where i n the building vote and every time they ask me, going to vote ou democrat or republican, and i, you know, say democrat. then the last time, which voting me the governor, they asked and i told them and then the man, he asked me again and i that i was voting democrat. me so he told the men to put on the number machine, which is the same machine that i voted on

for the last four times and then he asked me again before i got vote. he said, you are voting democrat, right? i said, yes. said, okay. i just wondered, do i need to be concerned about the fact they keep putting me on the same questioning me about how i'm going to vote? that was for a primary election, there may be depending on ots, your party. so for an election like that, where the ballots are different, yeah, they probably have different machines that have different ballot designs loaded in. but for the general election, if it is the same ballot for regardless of party, they be asking you who you are partyto vote for or which you are going to vote for before they determine which machine you would use. be potential security problem if they are doing that in a case where everyone's

the same. host: are the machines put under lock and key away from elections are put out into or once they are being prepared o put into use, are they constantly under watch by security? well, you hope that they would be, but unfortunately that the time the practice that is used. in some places, voting machines before the ght election either in the homes of poll workers or they are already delivered to the polling site, which might be, it might be a a ool or a church, semi-public building. real re are some legitimate concerns about the physical security of machines, well. in work about 10 years ago, i most how some of the widely used computer voting machines could have software replaced with malicious vote-stealing software, with just a few seconds of physical

access. yeah, unlike say a paper allot box or an old-fashioned mechanical voting machine, a computer voting machine has to entire guarded for its lifetime, from the moment it's manufactured, until the end of election that uses it and even after that because it may still have records of a vote. complicated and logistically expensive to secure physically electronic voting machines than previous forms of voting technology. we should have asked early on, ever been evidence where an election was tampering use of voting machines? guest: well, fortunately, we solid evidence that has happened in the united tates, but there are instances abroad where attacks on technology oting have at least come very close to changing the outcome of elections. most famously in 1994, in south africa, when mandela was standing for

office. votes ere counting centrally using network of omputers and somebody hacked the computers and tried to hange the vote in way to disadvantage mandella. this was caught by election watching the ely results and they backed everything out and started counting again. results of delay the the election. the nteresting thing to me election officials swore they didn'tsecrecy, want to undermine the credibility of the election. some of those election officials, started to break that promise, started to publicly about what happened. wrote about it in their so on, but y and that is one of the things that i would worry about is that if

a credible attack, either the attack is successful nd leaves very little or no evidence or the attack is caught, but we never hear about it because we also have an making sure people trust our voting machines. d.c., beverly, washington, you're on with alex halderman of the university of michigan. aller: oh, yeah, hi, how are ya? yes, i'm calling in reference very easy to e make the vote whereby you put a saying, democrats on this side, and republicans on that side. hat way the voters would be very easy to count because you know you have it right there. also, i was hoping that someone would do something about old judges downtown, senile judges who block landlords from getting their they have been scammed. host: okay, beverly, we'll leave topic at hand. professor, go ahead. guest: well, so in any voting

ystem, we need to be very careful to make sure we're not only getting accurate count, but the privacy and secrecy of voter choices. where ou mean something democrats and republicans would would neup separately or go to separate machines or ooths or something like that, that is a problem. anyone can just observe where you go and know how you voted. who may be ple coerced or intimidated into oting a certain way, they need the secret ballot as a form of protection. that protects not only them, but rest of us. it is that need for a secret as ot at the same time really accurate count that makes elections such a difficult as uter security problem, well. if all we needed to do was get accurate account at the end of the day, well, we already olved that in things like electronic banking and electronic commerce, but to do

a t and simultaneously get strong privacy guarantee, which is the fundamental security well, thatelections, interesting and challenging and why we need to go to such great lengths to mechanisms. security host: viewers if you about to others, dia, there are but in ballot pedia's case, ufind a map and that map highlights areas of the united states, the type of voting systems they use, whether they paper-only or without paper or combination of things. pedia website features hat for tou look at. gary on the independent line. caller: yeah, hi. for the , thank you last answer to that person. i never heard of anybody having what party they're voting for before they vote, so that is good. questions.uple of ne is, a list of the states

that run this way, if the -- here are specific counties in the state that do that or statewide? any relation between that and the states which have out of their way to change the voter id laws? host: professor. guest: that is a really good question. more about u find this. you just heard about ballot is verified r voting, an organization that tracks election technology state state. if you go to verified voting's website, you can get a map of country and find out for each county, exactly what technology is in use. the interesting things about that, how complicated and election e set of technology is in this country, that often individual counties made their own choices system to machines or

use. while that is useful in some provides diversity against an attacker, no central place to attack, it would affect the security of the whole country. it is also a challenge. just isn't enough security expertise to go around to make county has the maximum level of security and is making decisions.hasing now voter id is another yes, esting question and authenticating voters to make sure they are who they say they is another security issue that we need to think carefully about. there is some tensions, of course, between making sure are who they claim to be on one hand, making sure voters form of ot have any government issued id are still llowed to exercise their right to vote, so that is an example of a security tension or a

ecurity trade-off that differing states have come down about.fering conclusions host: virginia, democrats line, ben, hello. caller: yes, i would like to exactly how much voter fraud has taken place in the 2012, i tates and in understand that the republicans the vote on ip obama, but obama flipped it back rove, the election went -- bama host: so in terms of how much fraud takes place, that is difficult to is get sound numbers about because small a lot of fraud is scale, is local, maybe not so flipping actually say making certain

voters feel uncomfortable about showing up on election day. but i will say that in this country, we have had a long history of documented voter fraud that goes back as far as we've been, as long as we've been conducting elections. often technology is introduced to try to counter that fraud. in fact, the very system of with we use now often paper ballots for instance, incorporates a lot of anti-fraud mechanisms learned by hard, istorical experience, the very notion you're going to be voting by filling out a piece of paper a box, for it in instance, that is a mechanism of protecting against certain kinds of fraud that took place in the 19th century. so we've again and again tried to apply new technology to combat fraud. we don't have a system that is perfect and in fact a system introduced the possibility for entirely new categories of fraud, by voting cyber hacking and attacks. but it is a security problem. it's a security challenge to construct a voting system that

adequate protection against all the diverse kind of place.hat might take so that is a large part of what work k is about, what the of many other people who are doing research in this area are concerned with. host: professor, do you see a time where our system of voting do it on ere we can the internet and bypass machines altogether? wouldn't that be conve convenient to vote on phonesor laptops? the conversation this year about cyber attacks against our xisting voting infrastructure goes to show why that is so difficult. so today we might say we get though it is even not perfect by making sure aren't plugged in to the internet directly. to be online, you have plugged into the internet, almost as if you are painting on it. it is attractive to cyber criminals, to foreign states,

you.have so voting online turns out to be ne of the most difficult problems in all of computer security. we have to protect election against sophisticated cyber attackers like foreign voter computers against everyday security malware, and e problems with passwords and phishing. is going to be a long time before we're able to provide anywhere near the level ballots ty that paper provide to voters who cast votes online. going to be a decade or more before technology that point. we'll have to solve really fundamental security problems. teaches computer science and engineering at he is ity of michigan,

alex halderman, talking about voting machine security. diane in maryland, republican line, hello. caller: yeah, hi. i'm calling because i've manipulating -- manipulating the main concern for months and i've been talking to people about it, i have an in virginia who owns a software company, told me two things. one is that george sorros' companies have been making many or most of the voting companies country todaythis nd she said that if -- they would be he's to hack into if you had passwords. a couple do it in hours or a few hours. the other point she made and have you mentioned this, i don't know, i came in late, i might have missed something sorros, too. said that one of the you could he knew prevent manipulation of the vote

would be to, through machines, would be if -- if hines would make you would vote and the machines would make a paper printout and read and make sure the machine recorded the vote you actually made and then would submit, then you would submit your vote once you have printout the paper that it is a vote that you wanted to make. thank you., guest: well, i think your friend's point about the paper nce of having a record of your vote that you can see and that we can double-check is r the election, that absolutely right, that is the best defense that we have today malicious software in voting machines. but i think, you know, asking voting machines, that is kind of the right question. it shouldn't matter who made the machines, because we shouldn't be trusting the

machines themselves to do the count. we should be trusting whoever appoint, for s to instance, representatives from heir party or group, to observe, as those physical pieces of paper are being counted. developing, if you're going to vote on one of the touchscreen machine as a security person, the way i think imagine that t to machine was made by someone i i can't see ecause the software that is running it and can't verify that is correct. be skeptical of the correct operation of that machine and i want to demand election officials and from the design of the overall voting verifying means of that the machines answers, correct.re the way we do that with paper is we have ballot boxes full of after the election. if there is any dispute, states

people, ck and have humans count those pieces of paper it make sure the totals machine were the correct. and as a voter, presumably, you ability to have some representatives who are watching that process, maybe party members of the press. that kind of answer to kepticism is what we should demand out of any voting system. the voting system has to lost, it has tor convince the supporters of the losing candidate they really did lose. no one who won an election ever needs convincing that they won, other to settle any dispute, has to convince veryone that the outcome was right. host: if a person is concerned they voting, could participate in early vote figure they have a paper that way? guest: that might be a good idea if that helps you feel more secure in your vote. when you have a paper option, way to get a er record of your vote personally.

unfortunately, the xh outcome o depend on n will everyone's vote being counted accurately and in a way that strong evidence, so i continuing is going to be 100% paper o get records in this election. ahead to four years from now, i hope we're going to technology in the used for that last quarter of american voters so everyone can some form of physical record of their vote. that is going to be the thing protect us from cyber attacks four years from now. carney on the republican line. caller: hello. hat i wanted to say was like and hillary and with obama well, them in -- backing her up, what my concern

is the government backing hillary, as to whether do something to make it go hillary's way. guest: well, again, this is why e need voting systems that provide strong evidence so that we can all believe that the outcome was correct. it shouldn't be possible for whoever they er, are, whatever party they're part influence on the outcome of the voting process. is not fully that possible with the election system we have now. be is not supposed to possible. but the problem is that the machines don't necessarily provide strong evidence that rationally skeptical people are going to be convinced when the election is over. of evidence is generally comeing from machines that have the only record of the

in computer memory because those are the ones that are otentially subject to cyber attack. host: professor, tell us your confidence in voting machine november, ome this what number would you put it at? think i want to put an exact number on my say that , but i will the risk is uncomfortably high foreign influence on -- fortune cyber attacks that might to cause some form of disruption there is a lot of ork we need to do to improve the security of our election system, to make sure that everyone has some kind of record of their vote. i just hope this election being extremely close because in the event of a there may be an attack that cast doubt on that result. voters, though, that the only way to guarantee count te isn't going to

is to not vote, so if you -- some doubts you about the technology involved, please do make sure you vote, there is a good chance that everything will be all right. host: professor, alex halderman, university of michigan, talking about voting machine security prompt fessor, thanks your time. guest: thank you. our for remainder of program, we want to revisit the question we started with this orning and seeing if you are planning a cross-over vote, as it is called for your president. f you are republican, you are thinking about voting for hillary clinton or democrat thinking about voting for donald trump. you are a member of the gop, republican going to support hillary clinton, 202-748-8000, the number to call, and if you democrat planning support donald trump, 202-748-8001. the line that best represents you and get ready to tell us why you plan to vote the

are planning to vote. at this point we're showing longwood rom university in farmville. debate.e of the you can see it starting at 7:30 tonight. have been meeting people on the campus of the university and attached to it. leased to be joined by the president of longwood university university. welcome to c-span, president. guest: well, good morning. good morning. here at fantastic day longwood. host: tell us about the university made for tonight's event. this is a culmination, it

is just great. this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for our students. host: how much money has the university invested in preparation. guest: it is a meaningful investment tochlt do the million, t's about $5 which is right about what we are spending. as that figure is concerned, why that high of a that and how much of figure goes to security? meaningful part certainly goes to security. you can imagine all the reasons why, these are a date that is lot far in advance and a of it goes into obviously the of the t.v. lue itself and it infrastructure to make sure it is in robust shape to get the world here. host: we've been showing viewers this morning pictures of the is takes place. can you tell us about it?

guest: it is a beautiful spot. it for basketball, it has an academic wing to it. willet hall and obviously for onight turned into a t.v. studio. and a lot of students will be in tonight, which makes me proud. host: do you get the sense your students realize the importance having debate here and what has the campus done and the university done to prepare them that? i really do, i really do. the thing i'm most proud of that done, we university has have huge array of courses this students ar the cheering now. huge array of courses this fall specifically to the lection, the debate, i think our students at this point understand that this may well be the most important vice

presidential debates in our the importance of the issues, the age honestly candidates dential and the experience of the vice candidates. ot more combined gubernatorial experience on the vice presidential stage before. the you can sense excitement of students. what is your advice to students post-debate? do you want them to take away from it? uest: i want them to take away enjoying tonight, an hour and a realof what i hope will be substance, a real measure of ivility, a real exchange of ideas. those have been relatively short with all the , exotic dimensions of the 2016 race. really relish that and see that themselves as a future.for the

host: w. taylor reveley longwood of university, the site of the debate tonight. president, thank you for your and for being ng on c-span. guest: absolutely. you.k host: again, with the vice mind, theal debate in topic for our last segment, cross-over votes. a republican planning vote for hillary clinton or democrat planning to vote for tell us why. on the lines today, 202-748-8000 or those republicans who are going to support hillary clinton. and 202-748-8001, democrats trump.ting donald start with gary, gary is democrat voting for donald fletcher, north carolina. gary, tell us why. well, i've just been considering the way things have been going. i think the minorities and i care about them, in this

country, hispanic citizens and are lack citizens, i think getting lost around by the know, atic party of, you of the current process. by allowing a lot illegal, abor that is down.eps the wages it is stagnant and people that discriminate against blacks illegals, i think that it would improve their outcome a little better if donald trump was president. dalton, dalton in chicago, illinois, republican voting for hillary clinton. good morning. caller: good morning. am i on the air? host: you are on. you.r: thank thank you for having me on. the reason why i switched

at ies for this election least, i was republican for many voting.p until i decided to vote for clinton because of just a lot of seeing of the white nationalist sesupremacist support for donald trump. is down in north carolina right now demonstrating about the tweeting situation and he was attacked whiteiciously by a lot of nationalists on twitter, including very major white are supporting trump, such as white nationalist hyde, who once ran the brotherhood, long history of iolence, threatened him directly and said if he were to come down to charlotte, it would for you, ly painful you know, we've also seen this ort of just very violent rhetoric from white supremacists in favor of arson

donald trump. zicon ben. nicknamed you are seeing this green frog, racist basically this hate symbol the adl has pointed out. the frog, you are seeing so much of this imagery all over twitter. host: those things convinced you to change? aller: yes, what convinced me to change was seeing the ground red and nationalism on twitter and then going on garson, sam hyde, all hese people who are incredibly racist and white supremacist supporting trump, i didn't want camp, i wanted to stop them any way i can, if that and voting for hillary switching parties, so be it, the thf thing that can help out situation are diverse sxit cultural enrichment. the supreme court refused

yesterday to reconsider resident obama overhaul of the nation's immigration system following tie vote in june that blocked implementation of the eight-member court order shut the door on plan that seemed dead a few months ago. declined to wait until a ninth justice is concerned and eated in order to rehear the case and possibly ve verse the june decision. next from john, memphis, democrat voting for donald trump g. ahead. caller: thank you very much. switching my vote from democrat to republican party just don't cause i trust hillary clinton. i don't think she's good for this country. think that trump is the best candidate we've ever had, is the worstlinton candidate that we've ever had being er than her completely untrustworthy, i don't think she has the american people's best interest in mind. say what leads you to

that? aller: entire benghazi situation, she failed to provide assistance to americans as ioned over there diplomats. host: we lost his line. sherry in chicago, illinois, democrat voting for donald trump. hi. caller: hi. yeah. i have given it a lot of thought position on f my the tpp, i'm extremely anti-ppp. i feel like there is a chance thatdonald trump in office we won't have the tpp, transpacific partnership that is really important to me. thentinuing goes to jobs in united states, especially in the from.belt, where i'm that is probably my biggest reason for deciding that this vote for have to trump at the top of the ticket nd then certain democrats down

ballot. host: has trade always been a major concern 've yours when it election years? caller: it's becoming a greater concern. as much given trade thought since nafta, i knew i nafta, but i voted for president obama two times, tpp 2-1/2rd about the years ago, i thought, that can't make any sense, why would obama be pushing that kind of a trade package after happened with nafta, we naftta has been. ore and more in the news and started activist type conference alls to learn more about the tpp, and the more i learned, i became a --

serious about the tpp, i started clinton is hillary definitely for the tpp, she it and o architect touted it. i can't vote for hillary clinton now. host: okay. chicago, illinois, sherry alking about trade, trade a topic that came up in an event with donald trump yesterday. talked about a lot of things and talked about trade, here is a bit whaf he had to say. great ld trump: we need people negotiating our deals for us. we have the greatest negotiators and the greatest business people in the world and we use negotiate ours to deals, not anymore we're not. not anymore. [cheering] trump: put me into the board room as your epresentative and i promise i will deliver. hillary clinton is in it only her erself, her donors and

special interests, i'm fighting for america. pueblo know ere in what it takes to rebuild this city with t is a the -- [chanting] donald trump: friend or foe. foe.d or ell, he's got a very weak voice, culet him stay. but just be good, sir, be nice, nice. we all love you. you are on the other side. sanders the bernie people have more vigor than the hillary people. are not in people the same category. sanders had not made the deal with the devil, he would have gone down in the politics as a very rare and unique person. that deal and i know that he wished he didn't, lost, he had an

event recently, 150 people him talk, i hear will say this, we've had the biggest crowds, but he was second, he was second. but he made a deal with the are no d his supporters longer really his supporters any longer, that i can tell you. know, one of the things that bernie sanders and i agreed trade. and trade is something that is so sad for this country, what is happening, jobs are being taken. the difference is, i can do something about it and make a into a great deal. all he knew was it was bad and e want to do something about it, we can't be a critic. ost: donald trump in pueblo, colorado, campaigning. political report new poll taking pueblo, or colorado, says that hillary clinton is 38%,ing donald trump 49% to with libertarian gary johnson 3%, another 3% of

likely voters are undecided. wichita falls, hecks hecks, republican voting for clinton. hi. go ahead. like donald t feel trump, i've always thought, you republican party stood this mething, however, year, i can't say the same. any l go against my party ay to let some person who has no business getting anywhere donald oval office, trump has proved himself to be racist, has proved himself to be oval.for the the d clinton has held up stage despite all the backlash with benghazi, and the e-mail scandal. election is s

greater of two evils and the greater of two evils is hillary clinton. presidency is not some fashion statement or some t.v. of the u are the leader free world. we need someone who can act like they are the leader of the free and that ist office what i believe hillary clinton she is not -- , she doesn't get mad, i don't gets mad about everything with their hand on code.ar i believe that is why i am voting for hillary clinton, switching sides and voting for this y clinton in election. host: bill from cordova, voting for donald trump. hello. caller: good morning. to the fella from texas and i'm going to tell you a s, donald trump is not racist. can you hear me? host: you're on, go ahead. is not a racist. he employs thousands of people.

i live close enough to arkansas time,'ve lived here a long to know the clintons. very corrupt family. since ve been corrupt they started in state politics, it hasn't gotten any better, gotten worse. now hillary has become dangerously corrupt. hurt people, she's ctually permitted people to be killed. and i'm sorry, i can't support that. host: off twitter, this is saying i just told my husband if he votes for trump, i will divorce him. said, "sweet," and you can post on twitter or our facebook call the lines asking about crossing party lines and your vote, couple international stories, the "new york times" talking about the recent break-off of talks between

and the united states over syria. saying "this, is not a decision that was taken ightly, unfortunately russia failed to live up to commitments," and rather than chosen to go ime for a military course with usization of hostility demonstrated by intent against civilian area which american say have included hospitals. notably missing from the the ment was reference to united states might take strengthen the syrian opposition by providing anti-aircraft imposing economic sanction to punish russian organization helping the syrian government. that is in the "new york times." if you go to the "washington at events taking colomb ia, peace deal saying president santos invited political party

asked them to form a big 10 coalition to rework the to and make it appealing voters in sunday's referendum by narrow margin. santos told colombians cease-fire with the forces of ry armed colc bia would remain in place. attempts, the peace process was thrown into lucrshl lurch. steve is up next, steve in jefferson city, missouri. hello. caller: hello. host: you're on, go ahead. caller: yeah. used to vote democrat. a the clintons, they got line of dead people going to the overnor's mansion in arkansas and now she's got, she's killing

our troop necessary benghazi, she has no business being in the white house. taking monfrepeople to come up with payroll every month and not to mention her health is failing. obama obama, we're going to change, change, change. would bring be he the races together in this country and all he's done is big wedge between everybody and made everything worse. do. is all she's going to host: liverpool, new york, a republican voting for hillary clinton. hi. caller: how you doing today? host: fine, how are you? caller: i'm okay. my name is kenton. i would like to say, i've been morning and listening to people and it is ike at a point where all americans, if we could sit there of watch somebody lie 95% the time on t.v. and has done

help us out, a billionaire that never pays us build ourhelped infrastructure, never paid for military, never paid for any any roads to be built, how do we believe that a he's going to become president and he's going to help ut our communities and it is nonsense and we being the strong republican and being even bigger america, i don't understand how people could sit and watch this does nothing for any of him.nd still vote for host: donald trump, hillary remaininghe topic for time today. particularly asking if you are republican, would you consider planning vote for hillary clinton or if you are democrat, planning vote for donald trump. us a call and tell us why. 202-748-8000 if you are a going to vote for hillary clinton and 202-748-8001

going to support donald trump. york, rom liverpool, new republican who is planning vote for hillary clinton. hello. let's go to dan, dan, charlotte, north carolina. hi there. caller: good morning. voted both ways in the past, i'm trying to analyze this election. main thing that would keep me from voting for hillary linton is i remember when the clintons left the white house, then, remember way back there was fighting the paula jones lawsuit where he was exposing himself to paula jones and they said that fact, there ke n. were articles about them losing the white house and taking shouldn't have taken. there was an article about them not being able to afford a house the white ot out of house. they were having to lean on house.to help them buy a

16 years later, they are now million.0 never stepped foot in the private sector. calls that public service. now she's sold access to the overnment through private e-mail servers and through the foundation, the clinton and they made -- they haven't made $110 million, they million, they have made a whole lot more than that, if they paid taxes. money from wall street at higher level than elitist ump, she is candidate, listens more to the foreign government than to the american people. next from michael in new york, democrat supporting donald trump. hello. host: hi, you are on. caller: thanks for having me. think obama is serving foreign ountry interest and so does clinton. thousand of people terrorist saudis, defend them

them in the iraq war. --is only fair the family of chance to prove their case in court, but hope hillary isn't president because she is carrier president. been paid by as saudi corrupt royals and if she hillary will promote our national interest for the source in the borld and -- host: what about donald trump do like that you want to support him? caller: i'm not a democrat. a republican, i will ote for trump so that he can back our greatness lost in the history. you.k host: we'll take more calls for the next 15 minutes or so. washington the times. the department of sxhelth human

about their plan for what they want to do with funding for zika. the department will receive lion share of the funding $933 and split most between mosquito surveillance and vaccines. research authority known as barda, supporting several will e sector trials, ehs use some mosquito control montow in public million health and emergency fund to get started over ziki. kong bickered over the request the president submitted in february. hhs would split remaining funds, to million among effort track pregnant women. the disease can cause serious and support community health center necessary puerto rico and other u.s. territories. is next from tennessee. yes.er: i'm long-time democrat and i twice.or obama

but this time i feel like i want for donald trump and there is a lot of reasons. of the ho what some other sentiments were. the l say also as far as race situation, people being racial, against racist or whatever, they want to throw that out. voting a race sxift i'm for trump f. he has supporters, there is nothing he can do about overall, most of his supporters are not racist as like to try to present in the news media and there is vote are for i'm donald trump is because the cnn and csbn are so biassed in eporting, it is totally negative against donald trump all the time, whatever they present. clinton low balls trump situation 0-year-old

years ago with a comment he made of his pageant people that were in his pageant. i listened to a video recently nd watched it about how he was treating her very nice. the media just completely acts hillary plays the woman card and race card all the time votes and just assuming everybody will vote for her because she's a woman. in tennessee.ick vice presidential debate 7:30 on starts at c-span, you can watch it on the network, if you go to our you other 'll give options to watch it, including the ability to give you split screen. both candidates on the screen at the same time as they ot only respond to the moderator, but also respond to each other. post n see that, there is about the options available on the website, including, make a

debate, questions that are asked and answers that debates , watch past going back several years, all c-span.org, le at and our television coverage, campus s evening at the of longwood university in farmville, virginia. richmond and toward head west about 70 miles or so you to farmville, virginia, the site of tonight's debate. virginia, you are next, republican voting for hillary clinton. hi. caller: yeah may name is frederick, vote for hillary clinton clinton. us, the not one of impression they are giving party is e republican

-- and i am so that reason, or are go iing, using republican name to manage to destroy this party. sometime to see republican people behind what is if hillary will win, she will be president.-time prefer to let hillary be the give to n -- not to his because trump is -- republican party will completely political

decision-making for decades to come. columbia,s go to tom, maryland, republican voting for hillary clinton. hi. yeah, no taxes, no trump. a crook. host: randy up next, chatsworth, georgia. hello. caller: yes. i think the government we have legalized mafia. and deficit, dit they have a credit card and it's unlimited and the border. host: we're at -- hold on, too much further, is this why you are supporting donald trump and why are you supporting donald trump? caller: yes, i'm supporting donald trump. host: you are a democrat? caller: yes. host: who did you vote for in election? caller: i did vote for clinton.

i voted for clinton and obama. in texas. for those republicans who are hillary vote for clinton. hi. caller: good morning. host: good morning. go ahead. hillary am voting for clint clinton, last election i voted and the reason is pure common sense. i'm shocked at the people that do the things an mr. trump has done on national and they just throw ll common sense and caution to the wind. host: that's lisa in texas. has a treet journal" story taking a look at the chief ceo of myland, the corporation that made the

epi-pen. because of price increases for the drug and use, more questions from legislators over the price increases. loftis saying house committee sent the letter to the company demanding fuller the company f why omitted key information it used to calculate the profit figure epipen drug chief executive provided during hearing last month. mylan has been under fire for epipen, the price of which treats allergic reaction two-pack of for injectors since mylan acquired the product. leaders in a letter to ceo th and eptember 30 released yesterday says her testimony omitted assumptions affect the profit per pack. they said the omission "raises uestions," and that was letter signed by committee chairman of committee, versight

ranking member. from south carolina, go ahead, you're on. i'm a good morning, democrat for donald trump. ran ch a democrat, when i or office during my county, i won democrat municipality, though i lost the election and would have loved this because people were raising -- rising from the dead to vote for me here in south carolina. we've always liked trump, my household. trump.ys supported we just never knew he was going to run for president and we're did. he however, once eight years ago, hillary clinton, they are a liar, but she did tell me the truth when i was years ago her eight and she approached me and she my , she was looking at

obama button and she said, you know, he'll be bad for the country and hillary was right bout that, obama was bad for the country. g. : louise in chicago ahead. caller: is this for louise? ahead.go caller: chicago, the reason i'm oting for donald trump, he's not a racist, chicago is race sxift democratic city, most anything i've ever chatted with people about. number one, i'm voting for is ld trump because chicago a democratic racist city, number wo, people here living illegally because of sanctuary and a lot of people we should not be in the stores shopping. not?, why you shouldn't even be here. i go to the guard, excuse me, let this person know there are plenty of places to shop in the store, we don't

on top of each other. the woman said, you shouldn't be here shopping. go threw this everyday in the sanctuary city, the democrats upport illegal immigration and they could care less about other minorities, all they want to do have people here and people feel important by putting black around own and walk trying to feel important using racism everyday. donald trump as long as i can stand up and run, i'll be the first in line voting for him. host: "washington post" takes a ook at the management style of libertarian presidential candidate gary johnson talking of t his days as governor new mexico. he shunned policy detail and liked short meetings. over the next eight years, new mexico lawmakers would struggle work with governor who paid little attention to details. as e who work with johnson political novice vowing to shake up the establishment order

executive would speed through meetings and refer to discuss fitness routine rather than focus on minutia of policy making. people are not surprised it has led to stumbles in his candidacy for president, such as inability to ame favorite foreign leader about the war ravaged city at the center of the refugee crisis ask -- johnson he issed the notion that must be involved in the particulars. cross n't dot, i's and the t's you are somehow immune. on me ts are being made i'm not qualified because i didn't know something that could secondos an in five ipad. in the "washington post," tony north carolina. caller: good morning. morning. caller: good discussion you have going on. used to be a republican when

bush was in and that kind of put me on the side i'm on now with democrats. i would like to say just one -- does wonderful vice president, if y'all mind, please pull topic mr. keith -- t -- host: roy is next, woodstock, georgia. voting for donald trump. hi. caller: how you doing? host: fine thank you, go ahead. caller: okay. first of all, in the 1990s, bill nafta, forcing a lot of jobs to the south w. a egal immigration, we have lot of illegal immigrants coming in and wages will continue to as we continue the policy. blacks t going on, with losing jobs, we have a lot of survive and to blacks are killing blacks and that. misrepresenting

so i have to vote for donald trump for that reason because has actuallymunity been deceived into voting for think we should change that. cordellncolumbia, pennsylvania. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. yeah. i am a small business entrepreneur, my business plan done since 2006. i got $100n 2017 and to my name. okay. 10-year roughly about business plan that has been sitting right, you know, the voting for 'm still donald trump is because he's for the small business entrepreneur, know what i mean? i go door to door with fliers, i flyer i made up. i'm in the process of marketing o develop it and taking architectural drafting right now to get faster at my estimate for

contractors, so to speak, you know. it has been a long time, i'm out every morning, i'm out there trying to reap in the my fits of everything that government told me i should do. i went to high school, took a d, after that, trade, you that my government told me i should do. i went to high school and graduated. after that, i joined the military. i am speaking on the behalf of american citizens. when we are told to do the right day, after 12 grade, college. host: what about your support for donald trump? that is what i am saying. all of those things are included in what i am saying. door to door with my advertising. remember like a carpet salesman. host: let's go to ken