nothing is too far away. host: are you going to be inside the debate centered tonight? guest: actually, i'm going to be here in the we will be taking live feed from the debate center and wrapping it with studio productions here with panel discussions and some spanish-language programs. the second most ethnically and racially diverse wepus in the country and so are trying to work in a bit more coverage for latino audiences. we have got that going on plus panel discussions here and then incorporating the live shots in the debate. host: good luck with that effort tonight. thank you so much for the time this morning. asking --nk you for having me. host: that is going to do it for a program today.

remember, tonight's debate coverage on c-span at 7:30. the debate expected to started just after 9:00 eastern time. ,ou can check at c-span c-span.org and on c-span radio. we will see you back here tomorrow morning for our wrapup on washington journal that begins at 7:00 eastern tomorrow. ♪ 10:00 eastern, some 11 hours away from the third and final presidential debate tonight, a reminder our coverage starting today at 7:30 eastern on c-span, c-span.org and the c-span radio

app. chris wallace will be the host for the final debate tonight. we will take you live in about 20 minutes to hear from the health and human services secretary. she will be talking about the affordable care act and we will take you there live at 10:20. an issue that is, been the two previous presidential debates. an issue in the last week or so is the issue of the election yourself -- itself. that interviews with more than two dozen members of their public and national convention show of biting fears fraud andtic voting widespread believe that at least part of the process or outcome is rate. on this morning's washington journal we spoke with the secretary of state of connecticut, denise merrill about the integrity of the voting system. host: banner headline on the

front page of usa today. fraud officials insist no is the headline there. one of those voting officials is the connecticut secretary of state denise merrill who joins us on the phone. the democratic senator desiccated state and also the -- thank you so much for joining us. what do you say to voters who are worried about their competence in the vote? they are worried about these claims of vote rigging and voter fraud? i agree entirely with president obama. -- by the way a completely unsubstantiated claim that somehow our election will be rigged. i'm not sure what the word rigged means. it implies that local election officials or someone at a very local level would tamper with

the voting machines. , can't say it often enough people should understand that there is no voting machine america that is connected to the internet first of all. that right there tells you that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to muster a conspiracy on a level that would effect the presidential election. host: what is the role of the secretary of state. could you talk about how it works in state and how it affects his elections? >> guest: that's one good thing that comes out of this. we will learn more about how our elections work. in most states the secretary of state is the chief election official. we don't actually operate the election system, we oversee it and tried to maintain the laws in each state that govern elections. .t is heavily regulated

each state is a little bit different. there are federal overarching requirements for the standards on the machines. many states now have statewide electronic voter lists which is the database that everyone is talking about. that in some cases have been attempts to get into them. the voter registration database is not at all connected to the actual machine on which to vote. most states, and nothing in this is standard, most states use a votee scanning machine and still on paper ballots which are inserted into the machine and the ballot is capped and the machine has a card in it that is read and those of the results a commodity in of the night. the entire system is overseen by local election officials.

in most states, that means the county clerk. , statese local level like the new england states, it is done at the town level. even tiny connecticut, give 169 towns, each one has its own election official and moderators and pollsters hired by local officials. at a statesee, even level it is extremely decentralized. the laws of governing elections are mostly the state level and they differ somewhat by state. there is usually an election commission that actively oversees any kind of enforcement of infractions. let say something is reported to our office, something is going on, maybe they're a very long lines at the polls. hotlinezen can call our and every state has hotlines as well. we would then report any

infraction that sounded serious to our election enforcement commission and they would be charged with seeing whether something should be done about it. , there are about over 10,000 local jurisdictions actually running each election. within that there are hundreds of polling places in each one of those jurisdictions. host: i want to focus on the voter registration databases for a second. curtis is a senior policy advisor the donald trump campaign, has a column in today's usa today. focusing part of that column on voter registration databases saying there are 2.7 5 million people that have registration in more than one state, more than 1.8 million dead people are registered as voters. if you put a reservation files are wrong, what keeps people from showing up at another name or voting twice? guest: again it is heavily

regulated. we are very careful before we take anyone off the list and that usually explains why there is somebody duplications. also most people don't realize that you have to change your registration every time you move. sometimes even within your own town. usually that is handled by various ways. in connecticut we have a separate list that has a star next to it. first of all the lists are printed so there is no -- the chance that someone could go in, change a lot of things on the list and have it not be detected would be very difficult because we print the lists at least a week in advance. everything is still on paper. that becomes the protection source. someone came up to the desk and their name is either not only list or on the list inappropriately. first of all in a must every stage of the produce some sort of idg show you are the person

that you claim to be. discussions lot of about what you need as an id, but almost every state has a requirement that you show and id. the fight is over what kind of id you need. if you don't have an id and you are not on the list, you cannot vote. unless you absolutely claim you thend be on the list and in 15 states, we have something called election day registration suit and go down to town hall, register with proper id and vote. it all comes down to the fact that you need to identify yourself. again, many of these jurisdictions are extremely local. .eople know people that is a protection of sorts as well. host: before we let you go, in your time as the head of the national association of secretaries of state, how many cases of voter fraud, proven

voter fraud have you seen? we have literally gone to try and look for it because there's been so much discussion about it. there are long academic references to it. there are been a lot of studies referring to that entire body. there was one study i can remember in particular that looked over a billion votes 2014ed between 2010 and and in there, there were 14 possible accounts of alleged voter fraud. that someone commented jokingly that you're more likely to be struck by lightning than to experience voter fraud. it just doesn't happen. host: denise merrill's secretary of state of connecticut, president of the national association of secretaries of state. guest: thank you very much. >> on the issue of so-called rigged elections or voter fraud,

halley jackson posting the words of kelly and colin -- conway. no i do not believe that there will be widespread voter fraud and election day she tells msnbc. we are keeping our eye on throughout the day the debate hall at the university of nevada, las vegas. debate time is 9:00 eastern tonight. our preview at 7:30 here on c-span. is makingsity itself available to the media a number of delegates from 20 nations who are at unlv participating in the international study mission which is cosponsored by the commission on presidential debates. it provides about 54 visitors with insight and perspective on organizing political debate. debaterd and final tonight at unlv. we spoke on this morning's washington journal to one of the

provost at the university of nevada, las vegas. on the campus of the university of nevada las vegas, you're seeing the debate stage tonight for tonight's third and final presidential debate. it is being moderated by fox news anchor chris wallace. an estimate that the debate could draw 80 million viewers tonight. our coverage beginning on c-span at 7:30 tonight. the debate set to start just after 9:00 eastern time. campus of the university nevada las vegas, joins us.r he is a senior vice provost there. as is the first time that unlv has hosted a presidential debate. how did unlv get tonight's third and final debate? guest: it has been a long haul, over nine months since the commission solicited

applications. unlv and the las vegas convention and visitors authority submitted an application. there were a number of site visits to make sure we were the appropriate venue and we were chosen to host the third and final presidential debate. we are really excited. host: how much does it cost to bring a debate to unlv? we have heard estimates of previous cost of upwards of $5 million for previous debates in the cycle. what is accosting you guys -- what is it costing you guys? guest: the final costs haven't come in yet. we are scaring the cost with the las vegas visitors and convention authority so we don't have the final cost, but we will probably be in the same ballpark as the other debates. debate tonight being held at the thomas and mack center. can you talk about security there and logistics around the center?

what is happening around you? what are folks going to have to get through to get into the debate site tonight? bring clearly when you the two presidential candidates, campus security is quite tight. is being well looked after by our campus police and local las vegas metropolitan police. we have secret service here in the thomas -- and the thomas and mack center is being well looked after and their are a number of security checkpoints before you can get in here. host: that arena sits something over 19,000 people. the duck but it will be in the audience tonight? guest: the arena holds about 18,000, 500. 18,500.

my understanding is about a third of the tickets will go to the democratic party, a third will go to the republican party and the other third is split between las vegas convention authority and unlv. unlv has opted to provide all the tickets that we get towards students. we have a lottery, with 3600 students apply for that lottery -120 thatose about 100 will be in the audience tonight. that is exciting for our students. host: when you talk to her students, any preparation for those will be in the customer -- in the audience? guest: many students about the opportunity to take many courses that we set up specifically oriented towards the debate. we have courses of the freshman level all the way to the graduate level. they involve political science department, history department,

journalism and media studies. communications and sociology. students are studying those at various levels. we have also had a presidential debate lecture series at unlv or a broader national experts on debates. the history and impact of debates and the students of them -- attending those. i think our audience will be well prepared for what goes on. host: any special instructions are giving to the students inside the center? i think they are receiving the same instructions that all participants will be receiving which is they are to be professional, courteous and mindful. they are not to show any partisan responses and really listen to the debate and absorb the debate. i'm sure students are very excited and looking forward to this. our students are good. i'm just 11 real learning experience.

any lessons that you've learned from the previous two debates this cycle in your preparation tonight? guest: we certainly did have debriefs with hot to university and washed to an, st. louis. -- washington st. louis. ideasave us a lot of good about how to do the lottery for the students, how to work with media and media relations. a full array of things. we gain from their experience and it is a tremendous opportunity to speak with those officials. i think we will have a great debate because they had good debates. is the senioriber vice provost at the university of nevada las vegas. we appreciate you getting up early for us. guest: thank you so much, it's a pleasure. the mack center lashe university of nevada

vegas. 7:30 our coverage will get underway. fox news's chris wallace will moderate the debate. debt, immigration, foreign hotspots, fitness to be president and supreme court are topics for tonight's debate. just a few minutes here on c-span will take you live to the health and human services department to hear from secretary burwell on the opening of the open enrollment season for the affordable care act. on the issue of where things stand in terms of the electoral college, more polling numbers. two more states solid for hillary clinton reports nathan gonzales. he were part she writes of the beginning of the cycle, many gop likely nominees had -- need to win florida, ohio and virginia to get more than 270. clinton continues to outpace two

of those initial tossup states. she is 11 point advantage in virginia and nine point advantage in colorado. live coverage coming up in a few minutes at 10:20. more about the third and final debate from the university of nevada las vegas host: now we take our viewers back out to nevada to the university of nevada las vegas, the site of tonight's third and final presidential debate. there is the debate stage there. spoke to obama students on campus in june of 2012. and democratic present a primary debate took place in november 2007 although this will be the first general election debate taking place at unlv. president bill clinton spoke there twice in august of 2008 in june of 1996. president george w. bush is part

of a republican national committee rally their in 2004. as we prepare for tonight's third and final debate, we turn now to michael green, he is an associate history presser -- professor at unlv. the important thing about the third debate, are these the debates where the candidates now know each other's positions and hunker down into the regular roles or is this a place for more fireworks? think usually the third debate is a continuation. you find that they do know each other after the first couple of debates and so the third debate, they are both really consolidating their positions. this year of course, we have a unique presidential election. that we might have some different kind of fireworks tonight than we normally might have on a third debate. think theretime, i will be a lot of continuity fr