comprehensive addiction and recovery act, brought in people from around the country. a woman here lost her daughter, holly, to a heroin overdose. now she's taken her loss and constructively channeled it into trying to help, including helping me write this legislation. she testified in washington, d.c., before the judiciary committee, to try to be sure that we wrote legislation that really would help in term of prevention and education treatment and recovery. i was at the women's shelter today meeting with women who are recovering addicts. they need help. they need it now. cleveland lost about one person per day last year to heroin and prescription drug overdoses. this year we're on track to lose maybe as many as two people a day. we may see a doubling. and more people being lost not just to heroin but synthetic heroin, fentanyl. this is why my legislation is so important to get implemented. i got $37 million into the short-term budget between now and december 9. there were no other major exceptions to that legislation

except mine. why? because i was able to convince my colleagues this is an emergency, something we must fund. what governor strickland is talking about is politics. what i'm talking about is how to solve this problem and how to address it in a way that uses best practices from all around the country. that's what the comprehensive addiction recovery act will do. danita: governor strictland, you can respond to that. mr. strickland: i'm not talking about politics. i'm talking about his record. december of last year in the omnibus bill, there was money in there to provide communities like cleveland resources to fight this scourge. and he voted against it. then he spent months traveling around ohio, telling people how concerned he is and how much he's done. he didn't have the courage to actually cast the vote. he let other senators cast the vote. and then he's taken credit for what others have done. he doesn't carry the water, other senators had to carry the water for him. mr. portman: can i respond to that? karen: no, we have to move on. you called a halt to the

settlement of syrian refugees into the united states. you had concerns about their background checks. you also called the persecution of christian and other minority religious groups in the middle east genocide and called on the u.s. to do more to protect them. most polls show americans are opposed to the u.s. accepting more syrian refugees, the pictures from syria are haunting. such as the one of a young boy in the back of an ambulance covered in blood and dust from an air strike. what role if any do you think the u.s. should play with regard to the people of syria? mr. portman: i think we've let the people of syria down. sadly there are over 200,000 people who have been killed by their own government there. four million people or more have now fled the country as refugees. many have stayed in the area to be resettled. others have gone to europe, over a million. some have come here. my response to the question about bringing additional syrian

refugees was because before the homeland security committee, the director of the f.b.i. said that we cannot figure out who these people are, what their intentions are, because we have no information on them. we don't have any contact with the syrian government or any people on the ground to be able to determine that. that to me is not a good thing for the united states to do. instead, what i've called for, since my first day of senate, is to say, let's create in syria a safe zone, a no-fly zone. where they can stay in their own country. when these refugees have been interviewed and they're asked, would you rather go to the to europe, the united states, they say, we'd rather stay home. yet the united states continues to draw red lines to say, we're going to do this in syria to help, we're going to stop the chemical weapons, we're going to provide a safe zone, and they then we don't honor them. you see this in aleppo tonight, as we talk here tonight. the the russians and the forces of assad are bombing civilians. he's been dumping these barrel bombs onto his civilians over the past several years. killing over 200,000 of his own

people. the united states has not led. we lead from behind. which is what the obama administration promised they would do and that's exactly what they have done. it's what ted strickland supports and the led to tragic consequences. karen: governor strickland, what would you do, what do you think is the role of the u.s. regarding the people of syria? mr. strickland: let me say that we have lost a brave american just recently in the fighting that's taken place near mosul. we all remember that. only 1% of the american people protect the 99% of us. and we ought to honor our men and women who serve us and never forget their sacrifice for us. syria is a very complex problem. to be honest with you, i think much of what we're experiencing in syria and that part of the world today is a direct result of the fact that we went into iraq some 14, 15 years ago. but what's happening in syria is tragic. russia is complicating it. there are so many factions in syria.

and just let me say that i believe our first obligation is to keep americans safe, and that's my intention, there are some things that we can do there. we can increase our use of air power, we can increase our use of drones. we can increase our intelligence gathering. but i'll tell you one thing that i will never support and that's ground troops being reintroduced into that part of the world. we cannot solve every problem. this war has gone on in that part of the world for some 15 years and i think americans are sick of the war. and they understand that there are some things that we can do. in terms of the refugees, i believe we need to honor our values and we need to bring in those who are properly vetted. it takes about a two-year period of time to vet syrian refugees. mr. portman: again, my concern with the way we have gone about the syrian situation is a much broader one which is america's role in the world has been

diminished under this president and with the support of my opponent. when he moved to washington, d.c., to become a lobbyist for this group called center for american progress, he took on these positions of having america withdraw its strong leadership role around the world. you see the consequences. a void has occurred. look what's happening on the eastern border of ukraine with russia tonight, what happened in crimea, what's happening in the south china sea with regard to china building military bases on a corral reef and what's happening sadly in syria and iraq, so many people losing their lives. america has pulled back in many respects. china and russia has taken our place. danita: governor strickland, as we look at the issue of criminal justice reform, we see that police brutality and the shooting of citizens have been in the headlines across the country and ohio is not immune. here in cleveland, the police department is implementing a consent decree with the justice department. but the problems extends far beyond the police and into the courts where according to politifact, minorities are more likely to be overcharged or face

harsher sentences than white defendants. what specific measures can senators take to address the systemic problems within our judicial systems at the local level? mr. strickland: we have a problem, we need to face it, we needed to deal with it. too many young men of color are losing their lives in america. the statistics don't lie. it's happening. in my judgment, tamir rice should be alive today. and the man who was in the wal-mart store holding a toy gun that wal-mart sold should be alive. so what should we do? we need to recognize that black lives do in fact matter. and that there is a disproportionate number of deaths occurring among the community of african-americans and other people of color. and i believe our government at every level has a responsibility to acknowledge it and to work to

stop it. we've got to come together, but we can't solve the problem unless we recognize it. and admit it. and then come together and work to solve it. so there's a federal role. i'm glad the federal government is getting involved in many of these situations. one of the things we shouldn't do is what senator portman has proposed to do. he has authored and introduced a national stop and frisk bill. that's not the approach we need. we need to pull communities together, not use issues that drive them apart. but the first thing we need to do is acknowledge the problem and then commit ourselves to finding solutions to that problem. danita: senator portman. mr. portman: you asked about criminal justice reform and some of the deeper problems. there is legislation, as you may know, in the senate, cory booker's legislation, that's bipartisan, to reform some of

our criminal justice system, some of our laws, some of the disparate outcomes that have occurred. i'm in support of that legislation. i'm a co-sponsor of it. i've also taken the lead in washington over the years on this issue of ensuring people who are coming out of prison the opportunity to get their lives back on track. why? because it's good for everybody. certainly it's good for them, achieving their god-given purpose in life. it's good for the community because you reduce crime. it's good for the taxpayer because right now more than half of those people are in a revolving door. they're back out of the prison system within two or three years, they're back into the prison system again. and i authored what's called the second chance act. to give people the opportunity to get the jobs skills they need, to get the drug treatment they need, to get the mental health help that they need. to be able to get a job, become productive citizens. there are some great examples of that here in northeast ohio. northeast ohio has taken full advantage of the second chance act. over $2 million has gone into grants in just the last few years. tonight in the audience is

brandon, he runs edwin's, incredible story. it's a restaurant, but it's much more than that. everybody who works there is someone who has come out of the prison system. returning citizens and a lot of them have faced tough times. he teaches them a skill, over six months, which is a culinary skill, but also how to work and show up on time. how to apply for a job. his placement rate is about 95%. i brought him to washington, d.c., and had him serve lunch to all of the republican senators, along with one of his colleagues, just to show off what he's doing. we need more second chance act. danita: we ask that the audience refrain from applause. governor strictland, you have 30 seconds. mr. strickland: i worked in maximum security prison as a psychologist for over 10 years. i've seen the results of the criminal justice system that is broken. we're sending too many people to jail for too long a period of time. and when they get out, they're in a situation where they can't earn a living because of their records. we need to change things fundamentally.

karen: final question is to you, senator portman. you're on record calling for the repeal of the affordable care act, also known as obamacare. in 2013 you co-sponsored a bill with your senate colleague and former republican presidential candidate ted cruz, that would defund obamacare. the a.c.a. has some components that americans have said they like. do you still believe obamacare should be repealed and if so, with what specifically will you replace it? mr. portman: i've never said repeal without replace. the liberal democratic governor of minnesota just said the affordable care act is anything but affordable. this is just in the last week. bill clinton just said in the last week, it's crazy. it's not working for middle class families. ted strickland supports it strongly. in fact, he's said the wonderful. he said, obamacare is something we should celebrate. well, a 91% increase, that's the average increase for families in ohio.

the individual market in ohio. that's a $200 a month increase just since obamacare went into effect. think about that. think of all the small businesses that now are struggling to provide health care because the costs have skyrocketed. the exchanges aren't working. insurance companies are leaving. there are many counties now, 30% in america, in ohio, there's only one insurance company. no competition. this is not working for ohio families. people tell me, a woman named joanne recently wrote from me saying, i've got health care but i don't have health care because now my deductible is so high, it's like i don't even have health care. because it's $6,000. out of pocket. before anything kicks in. this is not working for anybody. it has to be replaced. i think both candidates, know that. we have to know that. it's not working for ohio. we have to replace it with something that is patient-centered, that gets more competition into the system, that gives people more choice, that does keep some of the good part of the affordable care act, the best part i think is that pre-existing conditions.

if you have a pre-existing condition you can't be denied health care coverage. you can do that without throwing the health care system upside down as the affordable care act has done. mr. strickland: i celebrate the fact that over 800,000 ohioans have insurance coverage through obamacare. i celebrate that. i suppose it's easy for someone like you who gets subsidized, government subsidized health care, to talk in such a cavalier, casual manner about people who before obamacare had no access to health care. that's not a perfect bill. but it's a good bill. it's one that we ought to fix and improve, but we ought to keep. what the senator is suggesting, if you repeal it, you allow insurance companies once again to charge women more than men for health care, you allow insurance companies to say if you've got a pre-existing condition, we're not going to insure you. that's a big problem. we need to improve it, we can do that, but the senator has voted

to repeal it. and i've never seen any kind of replacement as a part of any vote that he's ever cast. so it's a good thing. i'm so proud of governor john kasich for having the wisdom to expand medicare coverage, only possible because of obamacare. you couldn't expand medicare coverage without obamacare. so i'm very excited about the fact that we are moving toward a time in america where fewer people have to worry about whether or not their kids have access to care, whether or not they'll have care if they have a pre-existing condition, and so i support obamacare. a big difference between the two of us. mr. portman: i can't believe that governor strictland continues to support obamacare. this is not working. absolutely you can cover people with medicaid without having the affordable care act. by the way, 3/4 of the people he's talking about who get coverage, the medicaid.

it's not the exchanges. we just found out that in ohio, there's going to be a 13% increase for people in the exchanges next year. one year, 13% increase. no one can afford that. i talked about the middle class earlier, the fact that wages are flat and expenses are up. you know what the biggest expense is for most families in ohio? health care. danita: we want to remind you that you are tuned to ohio counts. a debate between rob portman and ted strickland. we are coming to you live. we are now going to transition to the second part of our debate where we take questions from the audience. these questions are submitted by audience members and vetted by the city club and the media

partners to avoid duplication. they had not been shared with the candidates. and if you are following us on twitter tonight, we will be taking one question via twitter at #cityclub. #cityclub. so you can compete tweet your question. right now we're going to go to our first audience question. welcome. questioner: good evening. my question is on foreign policy. with isis currently losing significant territory in iraq, what do each of you see as potential solutions to help with the long-term dismantling of fundamentalist teachings that have led to the creation of isis? mr. strickland: thank you for that question. as i said earlier, syria's a very complicated, complex problem. there are factions in syria, multiple factions, religious and national factions, russia is complicating the situation certainly. first thing we should do, and i'm glad that it looks as if

we're moving into mosul and we will rid isis of iraq and the effective territory they may hold. so then we'll have to focus on syria, where isis will make their final holdout, i believe. we've got to work with our partners in the area, we've got to expect them to do more, we've got to expect saudi arabia and others to help us more than they are helping us. we've got to continue to use our air power effectively. i support the use of drones to take out isis leadership. but the final solution cannot be one that america imposes. we have been at war for going on 15 years in that part of the world. we've sacrificed our wealth and the blood of our sons and daughters. and so the last thing we should do is involve ourselves in another ground war over there. and so we need to improve intelligence, we need to share

intelligence, we need to expect more out of our partners, we need to stand up to russia, and -- sorry. i ran out of time. mr. portman: i think your question was about isis, not syria. i think we're not doing enough. i think we ought to do three things much more effectively. one is go after them where they are. and i think the fact that we have pulled back in terms of our role in syria has given isis more breathing room. i think we need to be more aggressive in terms of using u.s. air power against isis. both in iraq and in syria. but they've spread to 20 other countries. the not going to be effective just to do that. we have to do a better job protecting our own country. as you know, a lot of foreign fighters are expected now to go back home. there was a warning issued day before yesterday by the european security officials saying that as mosul falls, which i believe it will at some point, a lot of foreign fighters are going to go back to europe. a lot of those european countries have a visa waiver

program with us. where they can come back to the united states also without going through the normal procedure you would have to go for a visa. there are also foreign fighters from the united states, we don't know how many, but probably in the hundreds. so we need to do a better job of screening those who are coming back into our country. we need to do a much better job of dealing with homegrown terrorism. including those who are isis-inspired. like san bernardino. the tragedy that occurred in orlando. and this i think is the most difficult and perhaps the most important part of this. number one, we need to work better with the muslim community here in this country. better cooperation. working together to solve this problem. because the vast majority of muslims in this country want to solve this problem. there is but only one example in ohio, it was the first one in the country, of a foreign fight who are came back and was arrested on terrorist charges. that was because the muslim community worked with us.

danita: your time is up. we have to give governor strickland 30 seconds to respond. mr. strickland: i met with some muslim citizens recently. i heard tragic stories of how they feel as a result of what donald trump and some of his supporters are saying and doing. i talked with two sisters who said they went to the mosque to pray and they said, we were wondering whether or not we both should be there because if something happened to us, there would be no one left to care for our 92-year-old mother. that's the tragic situation that results from people like donald trump and their language. danita: we now go back to the audience for another he question. senator portman, you'll get this question. questioner: good evening. my question's about climate change. which is a real and present threat to the people, wildlife and ecosystems here in ohio. public health agencies are preparing for more heat-related

deaths and new insect-borne diseases, water infrastructure agencies are expecting damage for more and intense rain storms and flooding, experts are concerned about water levels and algal blooms in our great lake erie, and increased smog during heat waves as well. our native species might not be able to adapt. the national autobahn society has found that half of all the north american bird species are at risk for climate change. what are your plans to protect the people, wildlife and natural areas of ohio from the current and potential threats of a changing climate? mr. portman: thank you for the question. as you know, i've taken the lead on this issue of energy efficiency, crafted legislation with my partner from new hampshire. we have two bills signed into law by the president. we have a third bill. the combination of the bills would be the equivalent of taking 20 million cars off the road in 15 years. what's important to me is it also creates jobs about. 200,000 additional jobs, so it's a way to do two thing. one, deal with the carbon

emissions and help to create a cleaner environment. but second, to do so in a way that creates more economic growth and opportunity. i think both are important. i think they can be complimentary. that's a good example of it. i'm also the author of the tropical force conservation act which has saved 86 million acres of tropical forests around the world. not by losing any jobs here in ohio. but by instead actually helping those countries to be able to do debt to nature swaps they call them with u.s. debt. that's been a huge savings because it's viewed as the third or fourth largest cause of carbon emissions, is the burning of these tropical forests. so i use these of examples i've done. being an vice president voice for ohio, getting things done, working across the aisle and making a concrete difference in both of those cases in terms of emissions and in both of those cases, not hurting ohio jobs. there's another approach to this. it supports the ted strickland takingest. didn't used to take it. he did move to washington, he joined up with a group there, a lobbying group, he was their chief lobbyists and that group took on our ohio interest,

energy interests, coal interests, natural gas interests, and put in place and supported overregulation that makes it impossible to create jobs in ohio. for some reason there was a poll showing him -- \[inaudible] karen: your time is up. thank you. governor strictland. mr. strickland: there's only one of the two of us standing before this audience that's ever been a registered lobbyists and that's you, senator. your first job as a lobbyist was with the chinese-based firm. you were a registered foreign agent and your client was haiti, at a time when the baby doc, who was a despot, was killing people. i believe in science. thank you for the question. i believe in science. science tells us that our climate is changing. and science tells us that our climate is changing in large part because of human activity. and i believe that and i accept it.

my opponent does not. he concurs that the science is changing but he's been unwilling to say that human activity is significantly involved in climate change. you mentioned lake erie. obviously lake erie is being affected by climate change. that's why i support the president's clean power plan. senator portman opposes president obama's clean power plan. i, as governor, passed an energy bill that had efficiency standards and renewable standards and we were seeing major investments being made in ohio in wind and solar. and so i have taken action on this issue. senator portman opposes the most significant thing that can be done to improve our climate in this country and that's to support the president's clean power plan. he refuses to do so. he can talk about the forests somewhere else. but when it comes to what's important here in this country, he's on the wrong side.

karen: senator portman. mr. portman: a lot of false claims there that we don't have time to go through. you must be desperate, governor. let me just say this about lake erie. because you mentioned it. i've been proud to take the lead there. i'm co-chair of the lake erie caucus and i've taken the lead on addressing these algal blooms, but also get rid of the microbeads that are in lake erie. one of the huge problems here. cleveland, this area particularly. my legislation actually requires companies to phase out microbeads altogether. again, i worked with democrats and republicans alike, brought environmentalists in. we solved a big problem. karen: thank you. let's go now to our next audience question. welcome. questioner: my name is nancy. my question is about guns. would you explain how your stance regarding gun violence and gun registration -- regulation has either solidified or evolved in the past few years? danita: governor strickland, we'll start with you.

mr. strickland: thank you for the question. my position has changed or evolved over the last several years. people ask me why. i say, well, i've got eyes and ears. i've got a head and a heart. and i see what's happening in our country and in our communities. 33,000 americans lose their lives to gun violence each year. about 2/3 of those as a result of suicide. we can't solve the entire problem and i do believe and support the second amendment, always have and always will. but i also believe that we can have commonsense solutions to this very difficult problem. so here's what i support. i support comprehensive background checks for gun sales. including internet sales and gun show sales. that makes sense. most gun owners support that as well. in fact, the n.r.a. used to

support background checks. i also support keeping those who are suspected of terrorism from being able to go into a gun store and buy a semi-automatic weapon. senator portman on the other hand voted against a bipartisan bill put forth by a republican senate colleague that would have stopped terrorist from having access to guns. danita: you can respond. mr. portman: in this campaign, governor strickland bragged about his a-plus rating with the n.r.a. not years ago, in this campaign. he said he has a mixed and spotty record on this issue and he can be criticized for it. those are his words, not mine. i don't know where he is on this issue. i will tell where you i am, which is i do support the second amendment. i also support tightening up background checks. in particular to get mental health records into the background checks. i also do support someone who is

on a no-fly list not being able to get a gun. but we need to be sure people are properly on the no-fly list. the famous example is that ted kennedy was on the no-fly list. and the legislation that i supported actually got the most votes, it was a bipartisan bill, to be able to solve that problem. i think it got 56 or 57 vote out of 60. this is one of the thing that, again, working together we should be able to solve. the n.r.a. did not support that particular bill. but i did support it. i think that's one that, again, regards to who wins this election, regards to who wins the majority, we should figure out a way to come together because i think there's a consensus about this. if you're tonight in-fly list, you shouldn't be able to get a gun. these are important issues. and these are issues that we have to address. we have to address the deeper issue of gun violence. when i talk to police officers here in cleveland about the gun violence in this city, they say it's related to gangs and drugs. another reason for us to get at this heroin-prescription drug issue and other drug issues. mr. strickland: i'll try to

maintain my 30 seconds. fact is, a bill was put forth. it was written by republican senator collins of maine and it would have prevented people who were on the terrorist suspect watch list from buying guns. the world was watching. the country was watching. senator portman voted no. he has sold his soul to the n.r.a. and that's why they have spent nearly $2 million trying to defeat me in this senate race. and i'm proud of their opposition. danita: thank you. unfortunately we're already on our last audience question. karen: this one comes from twitter. let's hear it. questioner: good evening. this question is from twitter. and from cindy and focuses on education. testing students' i.d. problems but takes away from teaching time. what changes would you make? mr. portman: it's a great

question. for teachers out there who are listening, they all feel this way. maybe some a little more strongly than others. but they don't want to teach the tests. they want to teach students. so i support legislation called the every child succeeds act. it was bipartisan legislation. it was worked on with republicans and democrats alike. it actually passed the united states senate a couple months ago. the president signed it into law. it did change the law. so that there aren't as many students who are being focused on the tests, not actual learning. i think that's important. i also think it's important to support our students all the way through the process. so i support allowing students who are in high school to be able to get college credit and to be able to get pell grants. i have legislation to do that. marcia fudge and i have introduced that legislation together. she introduced it in the house, i introduced it in senate. it's called early college, early high school legislation. i've also supported legislation to ensure that when someone gets out of college and they have a

big student debt, which unfortunately in ohio a lot of students do, $28,000 is the average, that they should be able to consolidate and refinance that student debt. it's called the repay act. it has an interesting provision that, for students, they could opt never to have to pay more than 15% of their income in interest on their debt. which i think would be a terrific thing for students and our economy. karen: governor strictland. mr. strickland: i don't know if it's the lighting in here or my perspective. but your nose seems to be growing. the fact is you have consistently opposed allowing ohio students to refinance their student debt at a lower interest rate. that's his record. that's his record. read the repay act. let me say this about the question. we need to respect teachers. we need to allow teachers to help us formulate the approach that we take when we try to educate our kids.

for far too long we've tried to adopt a corporate business model for our schools. we treat our children as if they're some -- these wedges. every child is individual, every child is different, every child has a different method of learning and needs to be valued as an individual student. this testing is maddening, it's counterproductive, and it's harmful and it takes away from a good educational experience. education should be enjoyable and it should be adequately funded and we, as i said, we need to put professional educators in charge of education. mr. portman: the bitter partisan attacks over here and the

falsehoods, you know, he needs to look at the repay act. because it's good legislation. it's bipartisan legislation. it allows students in ohio to be able to pay less in student loans. that to me is very good for them. the also good for our economy, so they can buy a car, get a house, get out of the parents' basement. i think the great legislation. it's the kind of thing that i focus on in washington as an independent voice for ohio. i know it frustrates him because i got a lot done. when he was in the united states congress for 12 years, i mentioned i got 45 bills done. he got zero done. danita: we have come to the point in this debate for our closing remarks. by prior agreement, the candidates will follow the same order as the opening remarks and we want to let you know, candidates, you have 90 seconds. 90 seconds for your closing remarks. and we're going to begin with senator portman. mr. portman: great, thank you. appreciate you guys tonight and the city club. you've seen a real contrast here tonight. you've seen ted strickland talk about, again, bitter partisan attacks. he doesn't want to talk about

his record. i don't blame, if i had his record i wouldn't want to talk about it either. the cleveland dealer said when they endorsed me, he has no road map for the future. that's true. on the other hand i talked tonight about my independent voice for ohio. my approach and working across the aisle to get stuff done that helps ohio families and helps ohio workers. i'm proud of that. what i do is i go to washington, d.c., to represent you in the united states senate, taking with me the ohio values that i learned growing up. when i was a kid i was living here in cleveland, ohio, my dad had a job as a salesman. he decided to give it all up and take a big risk. he took us back to cincinnati, ohio, which was his hometown, to follow his dream. and that was to start a small bill. he gave up his health care and his commission. mortgaged the house. couldn't get enough money to start the business because the bank wouldn't give him any money. his family didn't have any money. had to go to my mom's uncle to get a loan to start the business. it was five people, five other guys, my mom was the book keeper. they lost money the first few

years. but they persevered through hard work, sacrifice and an ethical approach to business. eventually finding their niche. i worked there, my brother worked there, my sister worked there. i ground the rust off lift trucks, prepared them for painting. i swept the shop floor, built a paint booth. recently i ran into a guy i've known almost my whole life. he was a lift truck mechanic at the company. danita: senator portman, need to wrap it up. sorry. governor strictland, 90 seconds for closing remarks. running out of time. mr. strickland: thank you. i want to talk to the people of ohio. there's a choice in this senate race between rob portman, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and has spent his political life looking out for people like him. the wealthy, the well connected, the washington insiders and the wall street bankers. so that's why i oppose nafta, voted for it.

that's why i supported the auto rescue. he opposed it. that's why i oppose raising the retirement age and privatizing social security and voucherizing medicare. he wants to raise the retirement age. he voted to voucherize your medicare and he wants to privatize your social security. in terms of working people, he's opposed to raising the minimum wage. he voted to strip overtime pay from $6 million of you, $6 million americans, lost overtime pay because of this man. so i'm fighting for you. i believe in working people. i think you need a break. and senator rob portman represents everything that you don't like. he's the ultimate insider and he's taking care of those who are already well to do and want to take care of regular, working ohioans. people who actually work for a living. thank you so much. danita: we're going to ask the audience to refrain from any noises, any sounds. we've been good so far. let's close out on a positive note.

you have been tuned in to ohio counts, race for the senate. a debate between rob portman and ted strickland. partners include news 5234 cleveland and wpo cincinnati 9 on your side, along with pbs. i'd like to thank both candidates for participating in this debate tonight and a big thank you to our studio and twitter audience for their thoughtful questions. karen: for my colleague, danita harris, from news 5 here in cleveland, i'm karen from ohio public radio and television. thank you fortuning in and good night from cleveland. \[applause] \[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] \[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

>> c-span3 schumer debates from key u.s. senate races. sunday night at 10 eastern coverage on c-span senator patty and and republican chris van debate. and monday evening at seven 11 c-span the pennsylvania senate debate between at to me and katie mcginty. on wednesday night at tendencies and a debate for the florida andte between marco rubio patrick murphy. thursday night at eight eastern republican senator harry a and maggie hassan debate are the new hampshire senate seat.

now to election day he debate on the c-span network. the span.org and on the c-span radio at. where history unfolds daily. donald trump outline his agenda for the first 100 days of his residency in a speech earlier today at the eisenhower complex in gettysburg. here's that horsemen of his remarks. i am asking the american people to rise above the noise in the clutter of our broken politics and to embrace the grace and optimism that has always in the central ingredient in the american character. strongernothing better than the american character. [applause]

i am asking the american people once again. what follows is my 100 day action plan to make america great again. donald contract between trump and the american soldier that begins with honesty, accountability and change to washington dc. [applause] my homee first in of office, my administration will pursue the following six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in washington. first, a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of congress. [applause] second, hiring freeze on all federal and will use to reduce

federal forster attrition exempting military, public safety and public health and. requirement that for every new federal regulation to existing regulations must be eliminated. they are killing our country and our jobs. fourth, a five-year ban on white and congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service. fifth, a lifetime ban on white house officials lobbying on the half of a foreign government. complete and on foreign lobbyists raising money for american election.

on the same day i will begin taking strongly seven actions to american workers. our american workers have been treated so badly by politicians that do not have their interests at heart. verye going to change that fast. first i will announce my intention to totally renegotiate nafta. areof the worst deals country has ever made, signed by bill clinton. i will withdraw from the deal under article 2205 or it i will theunce our withdrawal from transpacific partnership, a potential disaster for our country. third i will direct my secretary label china ay to

currency manipulator. china is a currency and if you later. what they have done to us is very sad. i don't blame them. they have been very smart and i blame our politicians were letting this take place. it is so easy to stop. i will direct the secretary of and u.s. trade representatives to identify all foreign trading abuse that impact american workers and direct them to use every tool under under american and international abuses nder those immediately. [applause] >> fifth, very importantly, i restrictions on the production of 50 triolets fe -- trillion dollar

oil, natural le, gas, and clean coal. and we will put our miners back to work. [applause] sixth, i will lift the obama, allow road blocks that this energy infrastructure to go forward. we have road blocks like you've never seen. environmental blocks. structural blocks. we're going keystone pipeline and so many other things to move forward. numbers of jobs. and good for our country. cancel billions united nts to the climate change program and fix water and environmental

infrastru infrastructure. we're paying billions and billions and billions of dollars. e're going to fix our own environment. [applause] first day, ion the ill take the following five actions to restore security and constitutional rule of law. do that.o ancel every unconstitutional executivement memorandum and president obama. econd, begin the process of selecting a replacement for ustice scalia whose wife, by the way, has a trump sign. his wife is a phenomenal woman, a trump sign in her front yard. isn't that nice? just found that out this

morning. boom. isn't that nice? great. from one of the 20 judges on my list. know we're going to make great decisions from 20 outstanding judges on a list submitted who will up hold and defend the constitution united states. applause] third, we will cancel all sanctuary ding of cities. e'll begin removing criminal illegal imimmigra llegal immigrants from our country. rug dealers gang killers and cancel visas to foreign won't take them

back. was hen hillary clinton secretary of state, and they had someone who was really bad and them back to the country and the country wouldn't bringhem, she said, well, them back, we don't want to force the country to take them. there won't be one such instance president.e we're going to suspend terror-prone rom regions where vetting cannot occur. if you look at syria, and the migration, we're taking thousands of people into our country. idea who they are, what their thought process is, and they come from, hillary clinton wants to increase the number of those housands and thousands

550% tly pouring in by right islamic terror is around the corner. we have to be so tough, so smart, so vigilant. can't allow that to happen. problems.nough all vetting will be considered extreme vetting. very careful. next, i'll work with congress to broader the following legislative measures and fight for their passage within the days of my administration. and e class tax relief simplification act. an economic plan designed to per year andomy 4% create at least 25 million new massive tax reduction and simplification in with regulatory relief and lifting the

energy.ions on american need that so badly. jobs. we need jobs. our jobs have left us. ur good jobs have really left us. the largest tax reductions are who have ddle class been forgotten. the forgotten man and woman. they have been forgotten. he middle class with a family of two children will get basically approximately a 35% cut. that's what they can use and that money will go back into the economy. [applause] current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 tax forms will likewise simplified. he business rate will be lowered from 35% to 15% and the

of american dollars cooperate moneyover seas -- be y overseas can now brought back at a 10 rate. it's stuck. back.'t bring it it's stuck. companies can't get it back into the country. actually nies are leaving not only because taxes are so high but because they they get their money and are actually leaving to get their money. that. going to simplify we're going to have them bring the money back into our country nd use the money and spend the country. building our

across a it tax free very strong border. believe me. they send it tax free across the border and what are we up with? we have unemployment. tremendous losses. nd we have none of the benefits. so we will establish tariffs that, it will do be consequences. and work ice and fair with them but there have to be consequences. they know that, our companies will stop leaving the and going to other countries. innra structure act

leverages public-private artnerships and private investments through tax spur ives to infrastructure investment over years.xt ten we're in such trouble. debt doubled our national under president 8 years, ess than $10 trillion has been added and fixed anything. everything is broken. in debt.0 trillion an all-time high. true.s our va hospitals are in bad shape and our va is in very bad shape. fix that. we are going to work on fixing that because our veterans have treated properly. illegal immigrants that

are treated far better in many veterans, err our we're not going to have that. education act nd redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their children to charter, ivate, religious, or home schools of their choice. we're going to end common core and bring to local supervision communities. we do so badly on education if at the lists and you see sweden, norway, denmark, at the top, ntries ou see us at the bottom and, yet, by far, per pupil, more oney than anybody and it's not even close. e spend more money per pupil than anybody.

other countries spend far less the top of the list. obviously our current system is not working. will change it and make it good. totally forgotten about they can do things that you wouldn't even think about. ones who some of the build the walls. we're going to need them. need them. to them. going to need ut you ever see how they're genius at fixing a car but history not so good. physics, not so good. we have to open vocational

again. those are the people. these will great people. -- these are great people. obama eal and replace act.acare and repeal obamacare replace it with health savings accounts. we can do that. savings accounts, there's numerous way but this is the ability way, to purchase health insurance across state lines which we have to do because that's politicians the because the of it insurance companies don't want competition. but we'll open it up and get rid of that and let states manage medicaid funds. will be so good. reforms will also include fda.ng the red tape at the here are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval and we want to

speed the approval of life-saving medications. they're looking at drugs that and you ng very good have terminal patients that it's over. these people are dying. they want to get the drug. they won't be living much longer. we study it for years and years. do ome point, they have to what they have to do. they have to do it properly but drugs 4,000 different and products waiting in line for approval and we can't get them approved. speed up that significantly. affordable child and elder care allows americans to deduct and elder care from their taxes. you see that with a couple of such a greatd it's thing to see. it creates tax-free dependent accounts and

accounts for s dependents with matching ontributions for low income families. so good. act.llegal immigration fully funds the construction of wall on our southern border. don't worry about it. payingr, i said mexico's for the wall. with the full understanding that of mexico will be reimbursing the united states for the full cost of such a wall. okay. we're going to have the wall. the wall.l pay for mexico -- by the way, i met with the president of mexico two and half months ago. wonderful meeting. wonderful person. i told him, there's a two-way highway. one-way highway. we have our people we have to take care of our people and people.our so it's got to be a two-way

street. a erwise, it's going to be whole different deal. but it establishes a two-year minimum federal prison sentence. this is people coming in illegally or reentering the united states after a previous deportation and five-year mandatory minimum for llegally reentering those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor or two or more prior deportations. in, we somebody comes send them out. they come back in, they go to prison for quite a while. back.ome they come back again, they go five years. ecause what's happening is they're coming back ten times. case.d go case after they come back look at what happened in san francisco. five times he came back. on the fifth time, he killed kate. times.

so many others. times came back. killed somebody their tenth time. when they get deported, they will stay out. once you do that, they will stay out. now, they have no consequence or consequences. reforms on visa rules to enhance penalties for open aying and to ensure jobs are offered to american workers first. number eight, restoring community safety act. reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a task violent crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist your local police. we're doing such a great job, me.ieve resources for federal law enforcement agencies nd prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent

ffenders behind bars or out of our country and into the country from. they came restoring natural security act rebuilds our military by liminating the defense sequester which has been very tough for our military and expanding military investment. now at no time practically do we need a military like right now. use it but it's peace through strength. we need a strong military. terribly ry is so depleated. provide -- de pleat and hif they're waitingif they're w online.'re waitinhif they're w

depleat if they're waiting in te if they're waiting in 22 suicide asee it day, but if they're waiting in and a see a doctor simple procedure or prescription and they their problem become very sick and they die, they die waiting in line. the going to give them power to go across the street to a local doctor, a private a public hospital, or a private hospital, all looking to do and all looking to business. and we'll pay the bill. so much cheaper but much more the veterans will finally be taken care of properly because what they're through now is unacceptable. to protect our

vital infrastructure from cyber attack. it establishes new screening procedures for immigration to nsure those admitted to our country support our people and our values. e want people that love our country or can love our country nd people that will love our citizens. we want people that can love us. ways through talent of determining that. and other countries do. but we don't. just come on in, folks, come on in. clean up corruption in washington act. ethics reforms to reduce the corrupting nfluence of special interests and donors on our politics. will ember 8th, americans be voting for this 100-day plan our store prosperity to country, secure our communities, to our government.

to you.my pledge but if you follow these steps, once more we'll have a and for the , by, people. make portantly, we will america great again. believe me. you.k thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. [crowd chanting u.s.a.] crowd cheering]

>> we've seen a tremendous rise n funding for scholarships for our students, scholarship by

faculty and engagement with the community. e're here today to talk about really i think one of the most important issues we've moved three weeks of the election which is the concern or charge about rigging. -- doremus is a known ex -- doug in election pert

law. tammy patrick worked as a compliance officer in the largest county in florida. president's of the commission on elections. hank you, both of you, for being here. let's start off and clear the brush and make sure we know what talking about. what is rigging? as you see it? what is the idea of rigging an election? tammy, do you want to start? >> sure. think it's really critical in this discussion because we're seeing a lot of variety in the exactly whatnguish we're talking ability here. so -- about here. here have been reports of rigging. hacking. those are two very separate and istinction things we'll probably talk about both of them this morning but we want to rigging on the allegations. the other thing i think is very critical to onsider as well is that there have been discussions about the elections as a system as a whole be aware lly need to of the fact that there are two

real channels here that we're talking about. one is voter registration and voter registration databases and systems that list our eligible voters and then there's also the that are used to cast and capture and tabulate our our votes. so i think it's important to lay out that ground work. about rigging, rigging is really the predetermination of an election it occurs or some sort of action that's going to take to influence the outcome of that election in a doesn't our democracy necessarily intend. because you can have good campaigns. commercials good that certainly can sway an election or influence the the election. but what we're talking about malfeasance and what means. >> i think tammy has it right.

when you think about elections country, rigging focuses on the narrow piece of real estate that is the polling place. line that's great been attributed to lots of it's actuallyhink not inppard democracy is the voting but it's in the ounting and rigging is when something breaks or a black hat is involved in the counting where there's a slip between the actual vote and the tabulation of the votes. when we think about rigging is whether or not there's not hing going on but malfeasance, an actual bad act. >> so let's pick up on just that issue. what evidence is there that in ing that you've defined either respect is actually going

on? >> well, i would argue that really isn't any sort of evidence that this is happening. that i think thing is really important to talk has been ow this brought into the public onversation is specifically about the presidential election. so i think we need to talk about it on a national scale. instances where there are some rogue actors that ave done bad things but the majority of those types of and of course this is in local elections where you have something like vote buying or someone casting a that's not their own. it occurs occasionally and rarely in local elections but it happen in a large-scale national election. i would argue that there are vulnerabilities and

election administrators know are and they have mitigated and trained their poll orkers and staff and all the stakeholder groups, election observers, and others on what to make sure it o doesn't occur. >> so the list of things that people worry about in terms of so-called rigging, things like who got voters showing up are dead. how's that possible? impersonation. or we've got mexicans sneaking and casting a ballot. can you give us a sense of what incidents?ut those >> yeah. so a lot of what you've just back to voter registration because in order ballot, ne to receive a they have to have them registered with the exception of a few places that have election registration in which case they can register at that point. so if you're talking about who are ineligible

for any reason, citizenship, they'rey're only 15 but really enthusiastic, they've been seeing all the rock the ads, or they, you know, are state from felon dis it's -anchisement for an ineligible person to get registered. and then you have to in fact ballot. the if you're talking about requesting a ballot to be mailed someone, many states require signature verification so you easily be able to obtain someone's personal information much ebook but you may be more difficult to obtain what

their signature looks like in receive a tually ballot, pass that ballot, have the signature verified a second actually be e it cast. >> doug, you are an expert on lection law and have worked with a lot of folks around the country at the state and local level on elections. you've worked with officials on pretesting of the process and then what's known as auditing.tion are those helpful in terms of detecting, wholesale igging voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election? >> absolutely. that's a nice follow on to what to say about the process. i often talk about the polling place as a black box. it is in the traditional sense that you can't see inside. there actually is a fairly process that begins

an s and months before election, election officials are testing and retesting different process.the they are doing checks on the registration list. verifying absentee and vote by mail ballot requests. hey are doing open to the public tests of their voting machines. accuracy tests. in many jurisdictions, there are opportunities for people to be observers, legal, well-behaved observers at the polls. elections don't end on election night. we is actually go through a process called canvassing before we certify the vote and in many states including minnesota, you a procedure called post election auditing. so we're dipping our cup into stream numerous times throughout the process. tammy notes you can have small disturbances that appen at the local level, the kind of wholesale outcome

altering conspiracies if you that are being discussed so improbabled be as to be impossible given the number of times that we check verify the process. there's that great line that came up during the arms debates 80s, a russian phrase which means trust but verify. officials trust their voters but they verify the so that umerous times both they and the voting public can have confidence that the what the outcome should be. >> i would just add that it's noteworthy to consider exactly what kind of numbers we're talking about here. the you're talking about number of jurisdictions that conduct elections in the united tates between 8 and 10,000 depending on what you're including whether you're including voter registration i would then it's more the 10,000. so you have 10,000 jurisdictions. some of them are run by

republicans, democrats. of them employ employees of both political parties. poll workers or onsite election day workers that you to tes require either have a complement of the affiliations within board traditionally historically it used to be ds and rs but with the growth of independent or not affiliated voters, many states had to adjust their statutes in order to allow for naffiliated voters to still participate in the polls. so you have a complement of that electorate within the polling place to keep an eye on what's happening. sworn y swear, it's a oath at the beginning of election day, to uphold the constitution. to taket of people have a sworn oath before they take their job duty for the day and i it very, all take very seriously. become obviously we've a red and blue country.

not everywhere but many parts of the country. and i think there's some trepidation on both sides of the voters that when you get to a deep blue state or you red state that despite the checks that tammy the ck has mentioned that partisans are able to work their stuff the ballot box even allow individuals to actually ho are not eligible. is that something that we've seen in america? i don't really think it is. at the risk of being redundant i think we have lots of opportunities in the ystem to check that it's working the way it should. and the vast majority of election officials in this it's possible k if they are partisans at all to put your thumb over the letter follows their name and not their leaning.

i would say that to answer the question that you asked doug and answer the question you just me, you asked if there are partisans that are registering eligible in re not order to influence and i would

the exact opposite is in fact the case. hat people who are eligible electors are having obstacles put in their path in order to participate.to i am a firm believer in facts 2004 in and so in arizona, we had a voter initiative that was passed where to document proof of citizenship before they could register to voter. no longer a sworn affidavit, no longer relevant. we had tens of thousands of registered that did not provide documentation. ow, the vast majority of them were able to obtain documentation and therefore get registered but some were not. and no longer ly had a valid driver's license or no longer had a birth certificate. say that there are and legislative fforts to -- in the hopes of ensuring that no one who is

register can sometimes at the cost of preventing eligible electors from participating and that's a policy question that people have to decide. prevent an iable to american citizen who is eligible n every way to exercise the franchise if, in fact, it know, some strict rule that ensures that no one is register who is ineligible. >> and just to be clear, the id law in arizona and efforts elsewhere, that's at one type of issue related to this vague concept of rigging. right? just for individuals trying a voter or an toividual who's not eligible register. >> correct.

>> so from the perspective of you all in the trenches, this is a pretty narrow solution. doug? >> i guess i want to jump in. asked was the 2000 election in florida an example of partnership run amuck, i think is no.wer i think it is -- it's true that very o parties have onferent views -- election officials come at it very differently. in that environment though, what happened in florida was as much about some of the other tensions have in election administration. there, you had a secretary of a te who happened to be republican who had responsibility for but not authority over local election offices, some of

which were run by democrats they elect county election officials in most on the phone florida. of florida.most so while they might have seen the problem very differently, it lack of ch about the fit between what the state requires and what the locality issue.hat was the you know, stirring the fact that you're electing the winner of and partisans from across the country are physically flooding courthouses offices.ion there was partnership. it was the system itself -- i answer though is no to was the system itself an example run amuck.hip >> people are convinced that there's a threat of rigging the and the conversations i've had with them often involve don'taration that we just know about it. hat it's going on and, you know, the kinds of issues that but e raised, that's fine that our mpant

detecting systems just are not picking it up and we're blind to it. what about this kind of issue of rampant situation of that would not be detected and would change the outcome of an election. we're better than that. think that if there was, in fact, such activity and action taking place, we would know about it. that i feel that way is because there is the ulous oversight of elections process and elections the states.in there are local elections, state elections. these election officials are equipment, laying out their ballots multiple times a year. there was something wide scale and prove atlanta -- definitely e would know about it. there's documentation of chain

of custody, security access to physical machines themselves, the machines are not internet, so the there are -- there are air gaps machines so you pma reclude any sort of malware. many election officials have sadly been diverted by this the last few months when what they really needed to the ing was focusing in on detail as because elections are all about the details. rotation and lot how many ballots you order, making sure that the date's the top of the ballot.

it's things like that they hould focus in on and not this other topic and object not that it's not an important topic timing it is but this for it is really unfortunate. that we're ngs seeing is that they're reacting in a way because they're hearing from their voters that there's concern, lack of confidence in they're m because continually hearing that their vote is going to get hacked. long line.ng to be a it's all rigged anyway. you don't like the candidates. government is terrible. participate in that? i think that's incredibly problematic. local election officials are even more transparent. they are putting their logic and voting tests of the equipment out on periscope. they're putting it on twitter, facebook living the in an effort lots to try to make sure the voters a transparent is

process. sounds like one of your concerns is the charge of america nd half of registered voters worried about voter fraud is actually starting to have a cost on the ability of s and i tion official

discount the conversation because it's a very important conversation to have. a betterould have been conversation to have last year february january or but not this close to an election. what's that's part of impacting i think the voters' confidence. charles stewart issued had iew of a study that he done >> he's a professor of political m.i.t. at >> exactly. 2012 and tudy back in asked the voters, the electorate voteou confident that your was counted as cast and how onfident are you in the votes being cast nationally? and there was another survey

recently thatjust asked not exact verbatim question but basically the same question, and what was pretty doug willg and i know chime in here if i'm getting this part wrong because i read is that y yesterday what it showed was that for epublican voters, their confidence increased somewhat by 5 or 6 percentage points but for voters, it was almost double the confidence in the actual process. negative t having a impact so far at least with those who were surveys. certainly the concern. and so that's what we would just ant to make sure that the efforts to educate the voters on the process continues their confidence. this will be ly ongoing because after the see ion, you know, we'll how each of the candidates for respond.ajor parties doug chapin, you have the being one of the

heavily devoted experts on election administration every four years. every year you deal with a litany of issues that come up. ould you talk about what are some of those issues that you would expect to come up this and are those issues issues tied to some kind asance, rigging?gging? first i want to say three things. see r one, the polls we about confidence in the election system mirror what we see about confidence in congress. own e tend to like their member of congress but don't have a lot of faith in congress as a whole. numbers milar nationwide with faith in the

election system. that teresting numbers charles brought up yesterday out the degree that partnership and tribalism have elections affect our system. it appears that the claims of the ng and arguments about election system are actually driving democrats to be more in and supportive of the election system simply another candidate is being critical of it. but finally and i think this is many mportant is that in ways public opinion polling is really ing but doesn't necessarily reflect true public opinion. ortunately, most of you are sitting down here this morning and those of you who aren't hang on to something. american doesn't pay a lot of attention to the nuts and bolts of the election there's this kind of general knowledge. and when you dig in even a little bit, those opinions can awfully quickly. we saw that with the minnesota

voter id debate in 2012. overwhelming support for photo id in minnesota but of the referendum started digging in with sort of unofficial the more you look the less you like and the more that that became available majority started to erode. i think to the extent that pay attention listen to people like me who get cornered a lot and people like what they're doing. i think they understand the process is a lot more secure and it able than they thought was. so polls are interesting and i know we pay a lot of attention but i have faith that americans actually will understand the process better than they do. having said that, what happens on election day. a lot of things happen on election day. reasons why i am an lection geek, why i love the work that i do and why we're trying to bring it to students across the onals

country is because it's this human experience. in the voting environment, wrong. will go people will find the wrong name on a list. a machine will break. there will be a long line. a door will be locked that should have been unlocked at opening. if experience is any guide, at take a e person will swing at another person on day.tion and a car will probably drive into a polling place somewhere day.erica on election stuff happens on election day. we will have places may run out of ballots. we may have places where the the list doesn't get to time.ng place on

misfeasance, up to human error. election officials know that happen and are generally prepared for it. ammy and others have been looking at this, more and more setting up election day monitoring systems in case wrong.ing goes things will not go smoothly on election day. america or n't be election day or democracy if it did. so things won't go perfectly but outcome is still something that we can all rely on. > just to be clear about this, even though things are not going to go well, your point is that's intentionallt of an effort to alter the outcome of election. >> correct. it's the inevitable result of america being america on day. on >> and you've been watching

elections for a while, tammy, country's one of the expe experts, does it surprise you things go awry on election day? particularly a presidential election? it doesn't surprise me and so on the president's commission on election administration we went around the country and held hearings and meetings to find out why do lines form. talked to election administrators at the state and local levels and the voters themselves and one of the things is that every four years we pay a lot of attention elections and usually it's rightr in the month of so before the presidential election. maybe in the primaries if they're interesting so this year it's been a roller coaster. off years,

dministrators -- reforms, improvements for resources, funding. attention have the that they should be given many known and forms are tried and true around the in the and they're presidential -- on the american voting experience. that we are set reforms know can improve the voting experience in the united states. have pickedactually up some of those reforms and recommendations and will be trying them out. be the first presidential election but they've implemented them in the ast couple of years since the report came out and i think that, that's important to know, that it's not for lack of trying. many cases and if you look at national conference of state legislatures, they keep track of what's trending and what reforms in elections are being introduced and passed. have more states with

online voter registration. states more and more joining cross check programs. we know the efficient cities there. >> can you stop there. here has followed these reforms nor unfortunately read the commission's reported. ould you -- >> it's riveting. [laughter] >> it is actually i think very and it's not written in a jargonny sort of way. a little bitsh out some of these things you're ticking off? >> certainly. tasked by executive order, president obama, to look at ten different areas of administration, everything from voter registration providing language ssistance, voters with disabilities, military and overseas voters, voting echnology, you name it, it was all there. it was a buffet of election issues. o we came up with a myriad of recommendations that were

and unanimous. so it was unanimous and bipartisan. up with reforms like online voter registration as being something that we should doing to modernize our registration process because it's all on paper. the foundation of your democracy to be accurate on really look let's at how voters are registering, when they're registering, when keeping their information current because the vast majority of voters believe hen they change their address with the department of motor vehicles, it changes their registration. states have differing interpretations of the national act and istration whether that's opt in or opt out automatically but states are they're keeping their rolls accurate. we had

very specific recommendations military and overseas voters making sure that they're permanent registrations because in some cases, they'll of el a voter at the end every year which we did not believe was appropriate. there are a wide variety of recommendations and things as layout and llot design can be as important and critical in making sure that a actually being recorded as the voter intends. yes?s, is no, no? what am i supposed to do? cast a times can i selection if it's vote for three, vote for two? that there are usability best practices that should be done but in many precluded fromre doing that because it's in statute that everything has to all in capital letters. well, that's the worst possible way to present information to our voting public. so there are ways to lessen the

lines. there are ways to make sure that the 's more integrity in system everywhere and i think that election administrators are reforms get those passed and many of them have been act recessful. work ere's still a lot of to be done. chapin, i know you're the eternal optimist. there's been a pale cast over election officials perhaps after all these are folks who really are in the renches doing the work of democracy here in the united states but is there an pportunity here as well particularly given where technology is? re there some areas where you look at -- areas where we've had trouble? maybe some of the areas that listed. just things that you talk about uring presidential elections where we have the solution new gh technology and just innovations?

>> absolutely. and you're right, i am an the ist but i think that's only rational way to be in any endeavor. in this occasion, i think it it y -- case, i think applies. one of the things that i appreciate about election like working why i with them is this commitment to adapt, on of improvise, and overcome when there are long how we lay outut the polling place and ballots. our program at the university of is currently running a by theon election design center on civic design. check us out on that. together, talk to one another about how to get the voters in advance about early voting or vote by mail. one study and learn from another all the time. more've come into this new technically involved era of online voter registration, starting to see jurisdictions share ideas about

how to protect their online databases tration from the bad guys out there who want to steal personally-identifiable information. we've seen them share information with one another how to make those systems accessible to people with or easier to nderstand for those whose english is not their first language. the election community is not a turn of phrase. thing.real this is a group that doesn't expect to be universally in some ways the bricks thrown at them i like to the grenade as catchers of american democracy. they're used to the line of fire but inevitably they always come together to find a way to identify a solution and more with one y share it another in a way that works for voters and the country at large. an opportunity and election officials, that's an everyday thing. >> and just to come to, you issue about

technology. every domain e in of our life. does technology offer a way, for instance, on voter registration to -- with a high level of identify who the person is that is registering and whether they're eligible to which is one of the main concerns of those worried about rigging? >> yeah. that.e're certainly seeing tammy mentioned the commission report recommending online voter registration. that was one area which was maybe not surprising to tammy was urprising to me tremendously bipartisan. that online voter registration adopted in by red states, every shade of purposing in between partedly ecause it marries the two concerns the parties have making it easier to register but states tend to bake in some kind of ility check whether it's a driver's license or something else. there are lots of

opportunities to make voter ready available. the pugh charitable trust have the electronic -- participating states share egistration data with one another not just to identify people who may not be eligible but more importantly to identify physically sending them an application or giving them a link to an online registration portal. in thissier than ever country, i am confident to say, to register to vote, and just as important, to check and update your registration. it is easier than ever to find out where it was vote, what is on my ballot? technology has made the distance officers andion voters as short as the distance from your thumb to your smartphone. is it also the case that there is confidence that the right people are

registering? that technology improves the integrity of the process and the confidence that only eligible citizens are registering and casting ballots? mr. chapin: i think, yes. the checks based in some of these online registrations, and the ability to -- whether it is sharingeric or registration lists -- they are sharing all the time in the field. i think our confidence -- the evidence suggests the confidence in the quality of the voter registration lists is and should be at an all-time high. doug is absolutely right. i'm very biased for online registration because it started benefited and it has my soapbox for over a decade. i'm excited to see its adoption. part of why i am excited about

that is not only it has all of the efficiencies i did mention, but it has third-party stakeholder groups, political outies, candidates registering voters. you can register on paper and handed it to that person. it may or may not get to that election administrator. the voter feels that they registered because they handed a clipboard. with it turns out if you have a clipboard, you can do just about anything because people trust the clipboard for whatever reason. have onlinen you registration -- and there are hundreds of organizations that have leveraged online registration to register the voter right then and there, the information goes immediately into the official state system and then many of the state have created very efficient systems to turn around that data electronically and send it back to the parties, the groups doing

the registration to let them know, this person is duly registered. politicalfor the parties. it's good for the candidates, the stakeholder groups out there doing this effort. their work shift of from registering voters to getting out the messages and getting out the electorate, i think they will be thrilled to shift their efforts in that way. reallyme jump on that quick. i think that with the advent of online voter registration -- two things we need to worry about. number one, can the system handle the load? we have seen a couple states where they simply can't. the rush at the last minute -- i believe virginia was something per second were trying to register online in virginia, and that, i daresay, rivals even "american idol" at its peak.

that's the capacity and states have to be ready for it. and in the hacking context, that is personally identifiable information. that is names, birth dates, the last four of your social, what have you. that is valuable information to people who would steal it for illicit purposes. challenge for election officials is not necessarily to protect the election process. it's bad for people to get at it. we are starting to see the department of homeland security and localities educating phishings about attacks, looking for backdoors and doors into their online portals. that it isying happening, but we have to treat that portal as golden as it is to the people who would do that. seen hackinge have

of large retail companies, of banks, hacking recently of .olitical parties and campaigns worried?erica be should they be worried about the registering system? right, those are very different things. it's important to consider that vastny states, the majority of information on file is public information or it is attained very inexpensively. other states it is more cost prohibitive. in, it soundss

like nothing. abouten we are talking voter registration information, online voter registration information is a bit of a misnomer. it is an online process. it does not automatically give access to thel database. it does not automatically put that persons information on file. if i am a clerk entering that data, im applying it to a system where it will run the background checks balancing against the department of motor vehicles, against agencies who have set up more expansive checks. process.pplication if i am going to register or go into modified my registration online -- i put in my

information and it seeks to see if i am already registered. a redundant system that gets uploaded every night -- it's not the full system itself. you're only accessing a duplicate. so there are redundancies in the system itself. .hat is what is in the news it's also important to realize that most states provide the vast majoritythe of information to the political parties. that is how they get their canvassing list, they apply it, and that is how that information was hacked. it was not hacked at the offices ingistrar the instances of the political party hacked and that sort of thing. realacobs: isn't the

threat of hacking that vote totals will be changed? the russians could come in and basically pick the winner of our presidential election? mr. chapin: you certainly hear that. i think the answer to that is no . again, all of the different ways we check and test the system. there may be some people who fear that, but i don't think it's terribly likely. go that far.ven it's impossible, i think, to change the outcome of an election remotely. the kind of threats we're talking about are the public facing systems for registration and that is just information, not outcome. a badworried that somehow actor, whether it is a state actor, a partisan actor, to get between the ballots and the outcome is next to impossible if not impossible. would say the other caveat is to say they could do so undetected, right? because that's really what is at

stake here. let's say -- i will play devil's advocate. let's say they did get in and delete it half the voter files -- delete half the voter files in a jurisdiction. those voters will still show up and vote or request a ballot. hopefully they will turn out and have confidence in the election. when they do so, if they are not on the voter file, they have the ability to cast a provisional ballot. in the case, that jurisdiction will be looking to see why do we have this huge influx of provisional ballots? and they would be able to say what are the similarities? all of these people have the registration canceled on the same day at the same time or what have you, and the voters votes would count because they could track it back to the system. there are transactional logs in every system -- which staff member keyed in someone's voter registration or changed or registration. there are ways we can monitor the system to rid there are chains of custody documentation. so being able to do it undetected is really critical.

i think when you talk about the tabulation -- i keep saying that it is important to know because everything is important to note , and i sayry rare that because i am not aware of a single jurisdiction that has their equipment connected to the internet, the vast majority have youdards and laws that cannot have it connected to the internet and there are protocols to make sure these same stick that is downloading the new election onto each piece of a different stick is used for each type of equipment. there is a long laundry list and one fortunate outcome of all of this is we are talking about some of these things so there are resources.

the department of homeland ofurity has offered a host calls with secretaries of state and state elections directors and election officials. but we would be remiss if we did not talk about the outstanding role of commissioners have been playing in all of this. there were no commissioners. we now have three of four for the last couple of years and they have done outstanding work with advanced technologies to get new standards approved, to work on the next set of standards that will really allow for increased performance of our elections. now we have to decide who will pay for the equipment because thisquipment is aging and is probably the last presidential election they will be using the equipment they currently have.

so that's yet another layer of this onion. mr. jacobs: i want to follow up quickly with you -- given the next generation of voting machines that will be coming online, do you think it's imperative given questions about ,igging, concerns about hacking that whatever new machine that comes online should have a paper ballot to provide confidence to voters, or is that just so antiquated and inefficient we should move past it? ms. patrick: i believe pretty much every single state has some requirement for a paper record for the next iteration of voting ,quipment that they purchase and currently there are only a don't, buttates that they have very rigid post election audits that occurred to ensure the validity of the

election. jurisdiction does a reconciliation audits make sure the number of people that sign -- that should be the number of ballots cast. there are other states that do things like hand count audits that prefer the paper record to the electronic record. the new generation of voting they are looking to have some sort of paper record and in most states that is considered the official ballot cast by statute. mr. jacobs: really quickly -- mr. chapin: really quickly, every as they should have a .ystem that is auditable so, right now, paper tends to be the best way to audit -- whether or not there is some technology that allows us to independently

verify the information without a paper ballot, i don't know. of the important thing is that the system has to be auditable and we have to actually out of the systems. here's a question from the audience. the question is -- very good conversation, but this is been very technical. is it the case that the critics are warningm who about rigging and some of those warning about hacking have already done quite a bit of damage by raising confusion, diminishing confidence, and casting a pall over the coming election results we will have in three weeks time? tammy, do you want to take a crack at that first? ms. patrick: sure, and i think that is the concern. elections process, it gets down in the weeds really quickly. it's all in the details.

it's much easier to make a false claim that is broad and expansive and vague. and then have to combat it with actual details of what is going on. i think that is really the challenge we are faced with here. when you have -- i believe it was recently a hearing not far -- onere on the topic set i do not think the russians have any intention of rigging or hacking anything, but they have already created chaos and by creating that chaos, they have been successful. i'm just hopeful that that plays out to be untrue in the long run .n november 9 hopefully the election administrators will have thanksgiving. that is always the question. whether you will be done counting and canvassing in time to have thanksgiving. .nd we will find out

-- weeve we may be have may have underestimated the tenacity of the american voter and the american electorate. go to the polls tuesday the eighth, they will do that, if they have the opportunity to the early, we are seeing record numbers of absentee ballot requests in states that allow voters to vote by mail, we are seeing large number of voters in early voting sites that have opened across the country. i saw yesterday in the news, something like 1.5 million people have already voted in this election. i think the american electorate will turn out. they are registering in record numbers. i think that -- again, i am an optimist. hopefully i will not be proven wrong. the challenge here

-- all the things that both of you comment on and try to understand and analyze come up during elections. isn't it the reality that because we are having a conversation about rigging, because we are giving it attention it will give credence plain idea -- it's not vanilla administrative slipups -- plain vanilla administrative slipups become seen in a different light? very heatedwe have rhetoric. whether the charges are false, i think they are falsifiable. we have the data. we can show the system works the way it is supposed to work even when stuff happens on election day. we are seeing americans react in this election and a couple weeks ago i went through the belt and suspenders election, voters voting sooner, checking the registration multiple times --

sureare going to make damn their ballots count on november 8. yes, there is a raised concern that the system might not work, but each system seems to the taking the role -- each citizens and to be taking the role that her vote gets counted. am i worried it will be a problem on election day? no, i'm not. i think we have the data to show it won't be. mr. jacobs: let me put you a question that has been asked -- are it we by talking about rigging and giving it more attention giving it more credibility than the charges deserve? ms. patrick: i have heard this brought up in the last couple of weeks. i would say that if we weren't discussing it, if we want refuting it, that sometimes silence is legitimizing this stated claim.

it's critical we are talking about the safeguards in place to ensure that our systems are secure and there is integrity in the process. i do hear that on occasion and i understand that perspective, but if we aren't out there with wrongt information, the information will he conveyed and we need to be out there the spelling it -- dispelling it. mr. jacobs: doug chapin, similar question. i want to put you the day after the election when one of the candidates who lost makes the argument they lost because the system was rigged. how do we respond to that? prove it. ? mean, prove it there will be piles, reims, terabytes of data -- mr. chapin: prove it. i mean prove it.

there will be piles, reams, terabytes of data. there was a contested election senatee u.s. minnesota race. you have to have another boat singh questioned but the outcome in doubt. right now, it's rhetoric. i think if it happens after the election it becomes an allegation of such an allegation means to be backed with proof and if there's proof, then we will hash it out. if there's not, it's just rhetoric, so prove it. to paraphrase first lady michelle obama, if one of the candidates goes in the direction of rigging, your suggestion is to go high to the data? go high to the data? mr. chapin: but prove it. talk is cheap. a day --multiple times i'm an election geek, not a political junkie. i don't do politics. i understand the rhetoric we are

seeing is the lingua franca of politics. i understand that. but you can't just say the system doesn't work. you have to prove it. election officials do not have the time or the bandwidth to prove a negative, but they are collecting enough data to show the system worked the way it should have. mr. jacobs: let me give you an example of the kind of proof that those who are doubters are putting out there. you worked for a few senators of did a study in 2010 on election roles and it showed that many states had done their job to keep the election roles accurate. those who are suspicious point to that study and say there are that aren names fraudulent on that list. what's wrong with that? mr. chapin: we don't have time to cover the whole thing.

that study was done with the intent of showing how the current registration system sometimes lags reality with regard to those who have died or those who have moved. large numbers of those registrations are people who moved from one place to another. tammy already mention this, but when you move from place a to , even if you are on the ball enough to know you need to register at your new address, you also need to let the old place no you don't live there anymore. does that create a duplicate record? yes. do people who die remain on the roles? yes. sometimes the process of notifying election offices of than itkes more time could. but again, those things are usually quickly identified. there is always going to be a lag because we are a nation of many hundreds of people who are constantly moving, something like one in six people moves,

tremendous mobility in this country. the voter registration list will always lag reality. one of the benefits of online registration is it gives voters the ability to check and update the registration and with systems like eric, to help states track that movement. is there a lag question mark yes. does that mean that dead, relocated and otherwise fictional people are going to cast ballots on election day? no. agree,rick: i absolutely and i would push back on those 18 million fraudulent registrations. the vast majority are duly eligible individuals who have the audacity to move, get married, that sort of thing. many times people have life changes and they are not thinking of contacting their supervisor of elections or the county auditor to let them know they moved and we know that

studies prove the voters believe when they do a change of address at the postal service that it updates their address automatically for butter registration and that's not the case in every state. some states do it that way. the state of minnesota started doing that and they found great efficiencies because that is what the electorate is already thinking is happening. but assuming that our population is going to know the nuts and bolts of our election laws or having our election laws reflect what the people we service believe the services -- i think that is important moving forward. thinking forward to after the election -- what would be concrete, feasible reforms that either washington or the state ought to be looking at and passing that could create the reality and the appearance of

fairness in the election system? mr. chapin: i have a long -- ms. patrick: i have a long list. i would say the best place to start is the presidents to mission on election menstruation report, of course. shameless plug. there are a number of reforms. i would say whether this should be a federal effort or a state effort is subject to debate and that is a whole other panel. but i think everyone should be reviewing the state in which they live and whether or not guidelinesing reflect a progressive way of servicing their electorate. that, manymean by election laws were written 50, 60 years ago, and they have been updated over time, but they are so ensconced in paper and further processes that they need

.o be reviewed another thing-mentioning to state legislatures, they need to be looking at their lines. it is necessary to cut off registration of month, four months before the election because you have to get that information in the books. for states with online voter registration, that's almost an instant process and if you're ,sing an electronic poll book you can update that the tuesday before the election and get it deployed in plenty of time. there are ways to reflect what we need him what we do in our everyday lives, and i think that bereally what we need to talking about, and as i mentioned before, the funding because we need to consider a revenue stream for our elections and is not something that every 10 years we decide we need to

put a chunk of money into voting equipment and then to my you know, have these stopgaps along the way. it's really critical we pay attention to it and devote resources to it. mr. jacobs: what is your agenda item for fair elections? mr. chapin: i think we need to up our investment in the election system. tammy is right. we just need to invest money -- whether it is federal money, state money, some partnership between states and localities, we need to find a way to make the cost of elections manageable so they don't have to go hat in hand to the legislature every decade or so. i think they do best on the rules and laws, and tammy is right. many of our laws on the book deal with an election system that looks more like 1910 then -- then 2010.

we are not thinking about poll books and the like. we need to look at the community itself. obviously of the university of minnesota with our certificate election administration we are investing in the next generation of election professionals, but we need to understand their job has changed. you are not just someone who is collecting and tabulating votes. you need to think about cyber security, identity theft. you need to think about the way to layout and design a ballot. you need to think about the in yourt communities jurisdiction. complexis much more than it ever was. we need to invest in a new generation of officials who can funding,ask for procedures, and do the day-to-day work to make sure the process works for their voters. president'sthe

omission that you served on, tammy patrick, -- commission that you served on, tammy concertedt was a officials toection create a profession or support the profession that already exists. can you talk about that? ms. patrick: sure. mentioned,ust recognizing the skills that you need to be an election itinistrator and looking at and a wide perspective. voter -- a be a arizona, youal in have to go through secretary of state training, a variety of things you need to know. election administrators -- in some cases they run for office, but in others, they are

appointed, hired on, and maybe they don't have any experience whatsoever. i speak from personal experience of having no experience in it and it's quite a learning curve. having an established way for someone to educate themselves on the job, what is necessary -- i will tell you, most people do not wake up and say, oh, i want to be an election administrator. and that's too bad. it's an exciting profession and wants elections get in your blood, you don't turn back. it's a career path that runs the gamut of every possible thing imagine. there is never a dull day. no two days are the same. and rewardinging position.

and we are working to train our poll workers and administrative staff because in some cases poll workers train the first time they work and then they never have to go to training again, which -- as we know, elections change a lot from one election to the next. a lot has changed, we have litigation, procedures that change. the training pieces really, really important. mr. jacobs: doug chapin, i want to ask you, i'm curious what you think of this -- there has been a lot of conversation about our criminal justice system, that officials in our criminal justice system ought to look like the communities they are in . there's an norm us generational enormoushere is an that create adoes

new generation of election officials across america? mr. chapin: absolutely. as tammy said, most people do not wake up deciding they want to be an election official. it is what i call the accidental profession. there is a poll worker or some other area of local government where they got into elections and they got into a their blood. -- and it got into their blood. right now what we tend to do, we tend to take existing officials and teach them about how to communities,other how to make the polls accessible for people with disabilities. time there's an opportunity to take people from those communities, people with disabilities, new immigrant citizens, people from regional communities, and give them the

ability to look like the population at large. a talking about ways to in many ways make it look like the population. so, the humphrey school at the university of minnesota is dedicated to the issue of diversity on a wide range of issues and we're really excited to continue that work in the field of it -- of election administration. so the short answer to your question, larry, is yes. mr. jacobs: thank you. [laughter] to jacobs: tammy, i want circle back to the conversations earlier in response to audience questions. registered poll watchers. which in number of states have created. there is concern that in some

ways this will intimidate voters. is this a strategy to chase off eligible voters? or do you think of this as quite -- aimate and constructive quite legitimate and constructive way to create greater confidence? both parties can be of the election site and be part of verifying? what theck: i think critical distinction here is whether or not they are sanctioned official mechanisms beplace for individuals to observers. most states have political party observers, candidate observers that are credentialed. they are allowed into the polling place. they are able to observe all of the functions within the polling place, but there are restrictions on what they can and cannot do. in many cases, they cannot be within six feet of the voting equipment, they cannot speak to the voters within the polling place, they have to talk to the supervisor of the poll workers, those sorts of restrictions. but they are observers. they are there to observe and

they have unencumbered observing access. then there are other observers outside the polling place outside of the electioneering limit and they can speak to voters in that sort of thing. had great value in that sort of observing effort because -- the bulk ofn the time i was there, there were 1100 polling places hiring a thousand people -- a thousand people to go to the polls. did they all go to training question were no. did they all pay attention and training? -- that they all pay attention i and training? not at all times. it could be helpful having a poll worker. they could say as old not understand this piece. -- ethel does not understand

this piece. can you send a troubleshooter over? are there to prevent access -- i was in arizona and we had that. we had individuals, not my county, but down in pima county, they had video cameras, machine gun strapped on their backs, going up to voters getting out of the cars and challenging the right to vote. that, of course, is prohibited by law. and that's where it is important that we know who is going to be per dissipating in this --ervance process, participating in this observance process, whether they are following the actual process -- which is wonderful, but if they are going to be rogue actors to intimidate individuals or restrict americans' by devout, that is incredibly problematic to that is why we have laws prevent intimidation. it will be important for everyone to know including voters -- if i see something like that, who do i notify, who

do i call? that will be really important that that information is out there, so if something like that should occur, we are able to address it immediately and prevent it from impacting additional voters. mr. jacobs: to make this a sharp point, donald trump has been saying at campaign rallies, we've got to watch the voting places to prevent raking -- and othergging concerns about elections getting stolen. if i understand you correctly, and correct me if i got this wrong, what you are saying is, that's fine. come watch. but come in through the process that is established by the republican party, the democratic party to be a registered poll watcher in states where the process exists. become a constructive part of the process. but don't come to the polls with toidea that you're going

intervene with voters trying to engage with their constitutional right. ms. patrick: i would say follow the rule of law even. there are laws about this. there are access points that individuals can get in and observe, and any concerned citizen should contact their local political party and find out what they can do to participate. many get frustrated because they are looking for poll workers. the last week before in election 20% ofctions will find their poll workers will cancel. on election day, you will have 5% that won't show up at all. i have been observing elections havecouple years, and i observed jurisdictions where one out of seven -- and one polling place of seven people, one showed up. if you are concerned, go ahead

and be an observer. that's great. but i would challenge individuals to instead be a poll worker. no to the training, find it what you areanism is, but no going to be there and you're going to service every voter regardless of party affiliation. you're not there as a point of challenging individuals here it if that is the intention, that is the intention, then i think you need to revisit the laws and understand exactly what your rights are as observer in your state. mr. jacobs: doug, do you want to jump in? mr. chapin: i think the interesting thing to watch over the next couple of weeks -- we have had concerns in the pastor calls him a pass for large numbers of people to observe the polls, poll watchers come a challengers, what have you. my experiences been -- with very folksxceptions -- those often don't show. either the results a little five in advance of election day or it's more talk than action. so, election officials will be

prepared for those folks to show up election day, but there's no guarantee they actually will. know election officials are probably more so than ever this year thinking about how they set up lines of communication with her polling places in case someone does show up with either the improper attitude or a little more aggressive than the lower common sense allows. they want to figure out how to balance the desire to keep voters safe, but also not to drive off voters with the impression of an armed camp at the polling place. one of the things over the next two-plus weeks to watch is whether or not all of this talk of people of people at the polls actually comes to pass. experience adjusted may not. mr. jacobs: so don't freak out yet? right.pin: that's be ready, but i don't freak out anyway. beingk it's worth prepared for.

you would rather be ready for it and have it not happen than the alternative. patrick, givenmy your experiences, as someone who has watched elections and helped run them, what would be your advice to -- what would be your device to states in king how to to what we hope will be very rare incidence of voters being intimidated, being interfered with? what would be the correct procedure for that kind of unusual, extraordinary situation? ms. patrick: i think election officials across the united states already have plans for a variety of conversations, whether it is an exuberant poll watcher -- they have plans in place. make sure you have reviewed your plans, make sure they are up to date, make sure they are current the command center, the way

you are already communicating with your poll workers, having rovers understand what to do in an emergency situation, whether it is a fire elementary school goes on lockdown -- the things do happen in elections. there should already be procedures in place. just revisiting them, making .ure poll workers are aware scare offwant to coworkers. i worked through a similar situation back in 2008. were resilient. no one is going to scare me away. no one is going to prevent me from doing my job. i have worked the polls for 30 years, i have worked the polls for 20 years, i will be there. you can count on me.

it's important to know what the processes and follow those procedures. doug chapin, you have worked with the media for number of years and are highly .espect it as a trusted source looking at the press and the press coverage of elections, and thinking about the current context in which the blood pressure is a little up on worries about intimidation or untoward action -- what would be your advice to the press on how to cover the administration of elections this year? talk toin: i would election administrators. too often reporters reach out to someone like me, and i'm always happy to talk to them, but the people who actually do the work know the answers. we have a lot of coverage of theing, rigging delays on registration deadline with hurricane matthew.

if i had a nickel for every report that does not talk to a registration ministrations, i could retire. i know candidates like to talk. i know the campaigns have a lot to say. but he would be surprised at how much the people who actually do can give context to and grounding in the issues being discussed. so, seriously, there are thousands, tens of thousands of election officials across the country -- probably one or more in your jurisdiction. if you are a member of the media, don't just call them the next three weeks, get to know them between elections and find out how they do the work they do . i am certainly not going to tell members of the media not to cover what is set at rallies. that is part of our political

system, but make sure you talk to folks who do the work when you're riding your stories are filming her pieces. -- coming your pieces. sayjacobs: when you election officials, is there a particular office? should members of the press be going to the secretary of state? should they be going to the county? where should they be heading? my recommendation would be the local county election official. they will no state law. day-to-dayho are grenade catchers will be the one to pick the polling places, maintain the machines, they will know what the polling place is going to look like on election day and they are really smart and table people besides. mr. jacobs: do you want to jump in on that? ms. patrick: i just agree

wholeheartedly. it's a hard question to answer in terms of who to contact. in some states you have four or five county agencies that have some role. you have in elections director in charge of voting on election day. you have all of these combinations. your localking at county, parish, whatever jurisdiction, township -- municipality in some cases -- i think most people in the media would know. it's important to reach out to be secretaries of state and i would articulate, follow them on social media. many of them are putting all sorts of great content you can that are positive to inform the electorate -- whether it is what date ballots are being mailed out or hours for early aning locations or increase

absentee, there's a lot of really great content you can harvest pretty quickly. the secretary of state in minnesota just recently used facebook and smashed the previous one-day record for voter registration that was successfully done. that is a good example. obviously in some states these are partisan figures. the media want someone who does not have an or in the fight -- r in the fight. can someone who runs as secretary of state, republican or democrat, can they be trusted on election night giving a perspective from the trenches? think the vast majority of secretaries of state take their role very seriously as a nonpartisan role in the election on election day.

everyone has a partisan angle or perception, but everyone tries door.ck that out the i think election night, leading up to election day if you want a statewide perspective, these are good places to go to to find out about statewide procedures, legislation, statewide results are usually accumulated at the state website. mr. jacobs: i think this has been a stunning conversation. we have covered a lot of the issues. i know some folks have been sending in questions. they are concerned that even talking about it gives credence to charges that may not be things you have to worry about, but i agree with you, too. , theore you understand more confidence people should have in the system and its

integrity. i want to thank tammy patrick, a policyat the bipartisan center, and doug chapin who runs the certificate of election administration at the university of minnesota. thank you very much. [applause] ms. patrick: thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> today, hillary clinton and tim kaine campaigned in pittsburgh. p.m. eastern, and then at 7 p.m. watch donald trump and mike pence speak at a rally in cleveland. live road to the white house coverage here on c-span. now a discussion on possible changes to the u.s. election system. from today felt "washington journal," this is 45 minutes -- from today's "washington

journal," this is 45 minutes. krist,r -- founding member of nirvana. tell us what fairvote is. guest: it gives more voices and power. host: what sparked your interest in getting involved in the shift from music to politics? seattle involved in the music community. ,here was censorship in seattle washington state. anti-music laws.

to makevolved trying and rules pro music. along the way, i got my civic education. i discovered things could the better and there were too many uncontested elections, a lot of cynicism, a lot of disconnection. at the time, i would type in election reform, a lection's, and one group came up. them.ted working with i joined the board about 12 years ago. in 2008, i became the chair of the board. host: one of the biggest things you are advocating is ranked choice voting. explain what that is. to votersgives power because you have the ability to rank your choices.

in the primary election, if you voted for ted cruz or bernie sanders, in the general election, you get a second choice. voting, youchoice can put you first choice down on and sayot as number one you have your second choice, you put that as your number two. they count the ballots. whoever has the most first choices, if it is a majority, they can win the election. if there is no majority, it is a runoff. kind of the primary general election dynamic. the last-place candidate is eliminated and the second and third choices count for the remaining candidates and those add up until those candidates,

one of them gets the majority and wins the election. viewers can join this conversation. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. those supporting third-party candidates can call (202) 748-8003. is there a political bend of fairvote? we have people from all walks of life. we are nonpartisan. legal, they are nonpartisan. two --re 10 cities with

2.4 million voters that use ranked ballot. caller: two points i would like to make and hopefully we will get a common. the first point, i know it is constitutional amendment to eliminate the electoral college and count strictly the votes. point number two, minimize fraud in the elections. a national law, not a state law where it is run by state. a national law requiring at the time of registration, the social security number would be put down, which would minimize fraud, stop the dead people from voting. passes away, we

can close that door. thanks, gary. voting, noce .onstitutional amendment is forchoice voting equal protection of the 14th amendment of the constitution. does, you can put down your first choice, someone you want, and not be afraid you are throwing your vote away. people are freaked out about

elections now. if you look at facebook, people are upset saying on one of the two major party candidates and it is getting heavy. you want to express a third party or independent and you get a costed. costed -- acc a osted. that is how you get more voices and choices. more thirdelect parties or independence. they are part of the dialogue. there is more civility in elections. there is less negative campaigning and more positive campaigning.

that is what we need in the united states. host: ranked choice voting is an issue playing out in maine. fairvote, it is devoted to your support for question number five. talk about that a little bit and what it would change in maine. mainers need to decide if they want more choices and power on the ballot. they really want changes. they tend to vote for the person, not the party. they elect independent candidates. ranked choice voting is perfect for them. he gives more choices on the ballot and more choices in the election. in an editorial, ranked choice voting, which a number of the majority of

legislative races including only two candidates have only two candidates in each election. what is your reaction? guest: it gives voters more power and gives voters more voices and more choices on the ballot. no election system is perfect. it is a better system than we have now. you are told you are throwing your vote away, spoiling the election. ranked voting works. you can vote for the candidate you think has the best ideas and not necessarily the most money. francisco, they had ranked choice voting over the

last 10 years. .ore women have gotten elected with kristre on novoselic. myler: thank you for taking call. i have always been independent. i am pushing republic for the fact i feel obama and clinton are pushing us towards war. i am not sure about your -- we need reform. into what you are talking about by your numbering system a little more. electiontely need the to change. it seems we don't get to hear their policies anymore. caller: you go to fairvote.org,

there is plenty of information about ranked voting. it is a ranking system. you want to express yourself. a first choice and it doesn't count against your second or third choice. they count the ballots and on this version in it elects majority winners instead of -- what they do it rain is a elect candidates to have a minority. the majority of voters -- they have three-way races and made because there are independent. voted forty of voters someone else. that is not good for government. you should have majority winners. about thelso talks ranked choice 202-748-800 of one-- it says the use

of take all message and are elections is a central reasons for maple -- major problems of our politics, gerrymandering, fairsan gridlock and representation. tell us more about that. we need to end gerrymandering. we need to take the power away from the in siders who draw the to benefit themselves and their parties. look power in the hands where it belongs, with the soldiers -- voters. imagine instead of some theission drawing who winners are into the losers are before the ballot is cast, voters have the powers to decide who'll represent them.

voters decide we want to elect two republicans and one democrat or we want to elect to democrats on one republican. then there is also space for independents and third parties. politics are so polarized in the united states, with ranked choice voting promises is more .ridge holding candidates we would be electing more urban republicans and more world democrats. --rural democrats. no more politicians and insiders drawing maps to benefit themselves. if you are a taxpayer and if you are subject to the laws and of the land you should decide who represent you in congress or orders to legislature counsel and not some insiders gerrymandering maps to benefit themselves.

helen is going yet on our democratic from maryland. all yourhank you for help for fair vote. i am a member of the league of women voters. we worked hard to get this initiative on the ballot. i think there has been some pushback from some quarters. if you look back historically, both democrats and republicans have not received a brought -- a majority of votes. your point is very well taken. i just wanted to thank you for your work. we are hopeful this will pass. it is about the needs and values of maine voters.

we had a main folder or just called us and asked us what her needs and values are. it's about putting power in the hands of voters. alexandrales from virginia on a republican line. i think it would be great if we could eliminate congressional districts entirely, and have congresspeople elected at large from the entire state. give more opportunity to minority representation. another thing i would like see .none have of the above on the ballot. candidate a, e, c or none of the above, if none of the above wins you throw it out and do it in.

if you are a republican in washington dc or democrat in disenfranchised. no reason to go into vote. host: let's let chris take a shot at this. farewell does not support when her take all elections. we do not support the none of the above out idea. it's interesting you bring up at-large elections because it fair representation voting, where voters get a share of the vote. that witho do modified at-large districts. these are not wehner take all at-large districts. voters can win these proportionally. charles brought up opportunities

for minorities. where do you find fair representation voting. you find it in the case law with the voting rights act. there are over 100 cities that have solved racially polarized voting and through the voting rights act of 1965, instead of single member districts they use thesehool boards andduling methods to elect have fair elections make opportunities for minorities, people from all walks of life. talk about your three american questions campaign. guest: that is different from fair vote. it is trying to bring more substance to the election.

are switching gears from election reform and 23 american russians. -- questions. there is a lot of lurid allegations out there, revelations out there. if we can get past that and ask -- lawmakers one thing got what are you going to do about climate change? what are you going to do about the debt? and what are you going to do about government reform, these things i am talking about with their vote. how did you end up with these three questions? guest: the climate is changing and we should policies that do some thing that try to remedy these things. i believe we should have personal practices.

way thatour lives in a has an impact on global climate lawmakers need to start thinking about ways they can reduce the debt. issue is election reform is how will we make government work again? i am excited about this in maine. ranked choice voting his question five on the ballot. non-artisan election reform. it is good for conservative, liberals and great for moderates. it gives space for third parties and independents.

go to our website. .you have the world at fingertips do a word search on your favorites search engine like i did 20 years ago and you can find out so many yourself. decide for host: we are talking to the airirman of sayre vote -- f vote. kaplan is calling from california on the democratic line. caller: good morning. thank you for see sample what you are doing. my problem is unless we take all , wemoney out of politics

are never going to be a fair system. the money and politics like in $475 million that has been given to people running for office. it is sickening. eventhis election we can't depend on the judicial system because to me, they are coming corrupt. being so can you talk about campaign finance reform? guest: we are not a campaign-finance group. however interest voting in fair have shownion voting to the impact of money in

politics. where the candidate who did not reason most money. won the election how do you do that as a candidate? with the current system is you have your base, and you get your and you.d go out there and you bash you we get all this negative campaigning which cost millions of dollars. a lot of it is negative. with ranked choice voting those are all your first choices. say i don't have a majority to buy to reach out to voters second and third choice. how do you do that? and beat people. you work with groups that go out and knock on doors for more

grassroots oriented campaigns. the caller was from california. --'s interested in come concerned about campaign finance, maybe she should look at exist in cal's state rules about how they elect their state legislature and their state legislature and the governor and many local elections and see what the impact of that is on transparency, -- on polarization. think california's election system is failing. as set of getting into the particulars, our california color should check out elections -- the callerrea should check out elections in san francisco bay area.

not necessarily the ones with the biggest bank account more diversity and choices in elections area that it is what it is all about. < who are you supporting in the presidential race? > i am a moderate. i am voting for gary johnson for president and bill wells for vice president. i am glad to be doing cap. i am not a libertarian. i can be a small libertarian but i support public power and public lands. i feel like i am a moderate the like iot of times i feel am getting boxed into these categories. the blue box or the red box. maybe i am purple. when you miss the callers and we have this binary election system

where you need to vote for the orange one or the pantsuit one, that is fine. that.ect however, i feel like i have more choices. why i have been advocating election reform for 20 years now. want to be boxed into a party box. i want to see what the candidate has to say. where are you take this? i am tired of the negative camp painting. there is a study of ranked choice voting and it showed there is less negative campaigning. voters of candidates are reaching out for more of those second and her choices. --y want to bering people in host: bring people in. chrise are talking with nova selling chairman of sayre vote.-farir

from rome,ling in georgia on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. it is an honor. i asked the screener, is it really the guy from the band of nirvana? it was an enjoyment to see you. i enjoyed seeing you. i will get back to politics. i were the flannels and i enjoyed you very much and however we will get back to politics. thing.my

i enjoyed what you just said about you being in the middle. i find myself being on conservative or public and -- republican. mergener is the fourth leading immigrants.egal i believe in illegal -- legal immigration. starting to become i just the king state found out recently that even , th wheney quire id are not requiring people to asve citizenship or however we are hearing from hillary, and i am a second amendment.

i don't want anyone with any background to be able to have a gun. common sense gun control. a problem is if you are not of the country, i don't believe you should be able to cast a vote in our election. let's guest: let chris respond. .hose are the concerns you need to talk to your state legislators in the congressional delegation and express those concerns. kind of things

that we need to have discussions we need to have. if we have are positive substantial more campaigning and more voices and choices of their that are appealing reaching out to you as i think what you can better express what your concerns are. rutgers university study said it was over 75% of them voters said it was a soup or easy rosses. choice, secondt, and third. you see what can be this are espousing the issues you are talking about. you have a first choice and you both and measure first choice and give the second choice, everybody gets one ballot. process is the same. this is equal protection.

everybody has their own needs youvalues and this gives the power and sophistication of the voter to express what your needs are. host: let's talk about music. this is the 25th anniversary of the release of nirvana's nevermind. crucial to the cd. talk about the significance of this album. did you expect that to happen when he recorded it? 25 years went by so fast. i love records and music and i listen to all kinds of music. i have thousands of lps. honored thatd nirvana is considered as part of

that great music. thank you the stars of their who do that for us. there is a lot of great bands at came before us and came after us to keep the rock and roll going. they've growth is selling out stadiums. 25th anniversary is always a good time to remember kurt cobain. in onelinor is calling the independent line. caller: thank you. thank you for doing all the good work you are doing. implementations of accounting of the ballots, when you are using this. there has to be some way to check.

have to be able to reach out in some manner. i just don't trust to implement this. host: when you have elections nine thousand germans -- jurisdictions in the u.s., things are different. there is talk about rigging elections area i don't buy it because of the decentralized nature. in my county we have a per ballot. you have to fill the ballot out with a pen. i am not worried about it. document. paper the ballot itself is a record. is not muche voting different. you have the same vendors, the old-fashioned talents, they can

do ranked choice voting ballots. it is up to the voter. this is not like a new system. use in america would during the progress of arab. era.he progressive voterouldn't be afraid of fraud, not at all. is that moreticism choices thus not necessarily mean that are choices. thateporter pointed out often the argument is made that third-party candidates are unviable and by voting them you

are throwing your vote away your it but these third-party or their underdog status or some nonsense about a rigged system, these are unserious choices and are unfit that's herarea host: opinion. she is entitled to that opinion. the last election in minneapolis --re was like 25 talents balance -- candidates on the ballot and voters worked through the ballots. in my opinion, the cluttered the ballot. voters negotiated the ballot

just fine. the election. it costs $45 to get on the alex in minneapolis. to get on the ballot in minneapolis. access costs more money to get on the ballot. unviablelways going to candidates. you can put the bricks on democracy and have reasonable access requirement but not heavy ones. this is the beauty of america. you can stand on a street corner sign and say the emd is near. showboating is not against the law and we can have reasonable talent at best and ranked choice voting can accommodate all of the choices. hampshire onnew

our independent line. question inve a regards to filter fraud. ice called senator kennedy's office years ago, i see people from massachusetts with different ids. you can get a license anywhere. they go to new york they collect food stamps over there and then they come to massachusetts and collect over there. kennedyted to senator is that all they had to do was on socialb print security and stop the fraud. i was told it would cost too much money to but that is how they are getting their stuff. guest: thank you. that's an issue for your state legislators, your congressional

representatives and they need to respond to people. if there is enough concern for that issue they will respond. consideredyou running for lieutenant governor pointhington at one guest:. i am into bands right now. i am having a laugh. i went to college and i graduated with a degree in social sciences last may. i am halfway a real blast and iambic chair of they are slow c-span with be on you, kimberly. i get calls and i travel. i am pretty happy. at this point in my life i don't really need a job of being a lawmaker. i take what i do seriously. i love playing music. i play music every day and i

i amplaying in my bands. in the band giants in the trees. i'm in another band that is more butterflies host: want to soft spot. sherry is calling in from maine on the demo rep. kline:. i hate to date myself but nirvana was my favorite and of all time erie it guest: bravo. caller: we have earlycaller: voting in --. is her anything we can do about term limits.

guest: term limits is not a for us. proposal there are some good groups of that -- there that are posing term limits. there are so many opportunities in aeople to get involved elections and not necessarily run for office. you can work with a citizens to get a stopk sign at the emd of your block or to make an intersections safer. i work with my local -- a rural fraternal group. i stay connected with the community. . find it rewarding it is a relationship. you give something, but you want to give something back. if you are concerned about term limits, i am about election reform, how to give voters more

choices more power. that is why i prefer ranked choice voting. of gerrymandering one cents for all we give soldiers more power. is the caller on our republican line. are illegal immigrants in georgia get a drivers license #guest: i don't know. tom is calling it from harris or, pennsylvania. after the 2000 election it was bobby kennedy junior was going on all the talk shows and was talking about how to ensure fair voting area rolling stone did a big article.

whatever happened with that? guest: i don't know. that's a big issue, the filter fraud. r if you have evidence, call your local law enforcement right away. call your local united states attorney or district attorney so give them this evidence we don't have a rigged election. if you go online there are always videos about conspiracies and they are spooky and shady. if anything was really true, where of the prosecutions? there would be prosecutions. we have good law enforcement out there. and people -- we need to have real evidence and not just internet innuendo. the grassy knoll

i think we have good energy here in washington dc, is a great city. there is a lot to see. if you are interested in elections and politics there are opportunities to get involved. advocating things to make our country better. host: travis mero, george on the republican line. good not -- good morning walter your now i am not voting for this gentleman who doesn't have doesn't know how to

talk to people. he is a narcissist. i will vote for mrs. clinton. she is very determined as a to thend beneficial united states. one of the first speeches from mr. trump that nobody noticed as , he praisedw about thend he talked inconvenience of us hearing with i thinkmblies. guest: walter is a great example of the passion for politics. voter,is a republican

but he doesn't like the nominee. he wants another choice. is perfectce voting for him. i will go back to what i said earlier, you can have a second choice. say if you voted for ted cruz or bernie sanders, in the primary election, they did not win. now you need to have a second choice. on onechoice voting ballot gives you a second choice. if there is a candidate that you really don't like, you are not necessarily throwing your vote away, not having your friends on that you areyou spoiling the election freaking out on you. you say this is how i want to vote. walter has of what -- needs to voteit how he wants to ranked choice voting. gives us that power.

to express our preferences. you get a first, second, third choice. usingrlion americans are an balancek in the u.s. today. isola, george on the democratic line. marie's, good morning. caller: i am a fan of nirvana. i have some questions. ranked choice voting.i am also a fan of i think it would go a long way towards solving the wrong of democracy and how do you feel about proportional representation. race -- thanks for the kind words. electoral college reform, it

supports the national vote plan. do a word search and check it out. there are two things that fair voice -- fair vote has. , andd choice voting electoral college reform in the form of national powerful vote. we think that would give voters more power and would make our , and give usitive choices that we are demanding as modern consumers. vote,chairman of fair founding member of the band nirvana. thank you for joining us today. c-span's washington journal live every day with news and

policy issues that impact you. sunday morning david wasserman editor from the cook political report will discuss the impact of donald trump candidacy and his relationship with congressional republicans and whether hillary linton candidacy may affect down a la races. george washington university professor of law will discuss the integrity of the voting system and allegations of whites and voter fraud. sunday morning join the discussion. democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton and her running eight tim kaine are campaigning in pittsburgh rally is scheduled to begin shortly. we will take you to its berth alive when it starts. it will be live again 7 p.m.

when donald trump and his running mate speak at a rally in cleveland here at lori lenton campaigned there yesterday. let's see how they balance each other. looking at how all high and , it works well when you look at the median percentage is a region.

areld trump's supporters working class voters. more are leaning towards hillary clinton this year area. the polarizing community could change ohio's regional voting habits. people consider themselves democrats. the surrounding suburbs are republican. the wealthy college educated are wary of trump are they will throw their support to clinton. >> that web video is available online at cincinnati.com. is joining us

online. guest: you're welcome. host: let me start with the five ohio's. how does the breakdown in terms of expected for the democrats and republicans on election day. today i am in cleveland with hillary clinton. this is traditionally democratic base. urban areas are areas where hillary clinton probably do better than donald trump. where does clinton need to cut into donald trump's strength and what does donald trump need to get from the hillary clinton

supporters? dedicated --e educated men and women are traditionally voting block for republicans. but she could get -- pick up more in ohio. there are suburbs around cincinnati cleveland where there are a lot of college educated white individuals and these are people who voted for governor john kasich over donald trump in the march deal of the primary. to come these people over to their side. donald trump is to very well in , which has voted for democrats in the past, but it is very much donald trump country this year. host: what about the sharp divisions of the ohio republican

party and the donald trump campaign. and his formal rival john kasich is not in the campaign. did that affect the turnout by mainstream republicans in ohio? guest: it has potential to play a role. the trial campaign has not been making a lot of friends with rain stream voters this year. mainstream voters this year. kasich did not participate. he has refused to endorse tom trout. that sure -- to endorse donald trump. this weekend donald trump's organization sent out in e-mail that said the chair was not getting on board. this is not going to change

anybody's mind among donald trump supporters area. average republican voter might be a little turned off by that. host: is the obama coalition still in place in 2016? is there a strong demographic ground game for hillary clinton ? they are according young that they will turn out for hillary clinton. the suburban college-educated host:are there

supporters. rob portman is challenging your .rmor governor ted strickland what impact is the senate race having on the national race in ohio. will one affected the other in terms of how guest:. usually a presidential race that attach to the senate race but in donald trump might be relying on rob portman voters to come out for donald trump as well. host: jesse writes for the cincinnati in liar. inquirer.ati

you can find her work online. a look inside the high school in pittsburgh, where hillary clinton is campaigning today. she will be joined by her running mate senator tim kane of virginia. our road to the white house coverage continues. we are in his for now. at 7:00 eastern time we will be in cleveland for a donald trump rally. he is there with his running mate. in the meantime we expect this shortly get started here on c-span. ♪

>> we are waiting for hillary clinton to arrive here in its birth for our rally, joined by her vice presidential running mate senator tim kane of

virginia. our road to the white house coverage continues here on c-span. we are here for the clinton rally and later at seven eastern time it will be donald trump in treatment or it we will have that live for you as well. at&t announcing that it has reached an agreement to purchase time warner for $80 billion or if the deal goes through they would on cnn, tnt, the hbo network as well as warner or others film studios. during a speech earlier today in gettysburg, donald trump announced that he would oppose tot amt deal -- at&t deal purchase time warner if he were to become president. show you a portion of that speech while we are waiting for the hillary clinton rally to start. respectedighly national polls said we are in first place.

[applause] one of those pollsters was the in the laste poll two cycles. but the media refuses to even say it or put the word out, they refused to talk about it. they are trying to suppress my vote and the voice of the american people. as an example of the power structure fighting, at&t is buying time warner and thus the we will notal approve in my administration because it is too must concentration of power in the hands of too few. likewise amazon, which through

its ownership controls the washington post, should be paying massive taxes but it is not paying. it is a very unfair playing that isd you see what due to the department stores all over the country. unfair and you are talking about billions and billions of dollars. they should be paying those taxes. additionally, cast or just of too much powers in one massive entity that is trying to tell the voters what you think and what to do. deals like this destroy democracy. we will look at breaking that deal up and other deals like that. this should never have been approved in the first place. they are trying to poison the mind of the american voter. lied when they came

forward to hurt my campaign. total fabrication. events never happened. never. all of these liars will do after the election is over. a simple phone call placed to the biggest newspapers or television networks gets them wall-to-wall coverage with virtually no fact checking whatsoever. here is why this is relevant to you. if they can fight somebody like me who is as unlimited resources to fight back look at what they can do to you, your jobs, your security, your education, your health care, the violation of religious liberty, the theft of

your second amendment. the loss of your factories, your home and much more. look at what they had done to you with your jobs. it has just been learned on protestst the violent and some -- as some of my rally like it chicago where police and others were seriously hurt -- you saw that. facespouring down their because because the dnc and clinton campaign --. we did not know this. this just came out two days ago on tape. we were amazed at the level of violence. these were a operatives, paid by probably the clinton campaign. this is a criminal act. policeman were badly hurt and so were many others. these