and tonight, a special edition of "washington journal" as we hear from economist john cochran on the economic effects of the coronavirus. he'll be joined by former veterans affairs secretary david shulkin and pennsylvania representative susan wild. live tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span's "washington journal," live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, national low income housing coalition president and c.e.o. discusses how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting the housing needs of the nation's poor and homeless. then, the national federation of independent business talks about the impact of coronavirus on small businesses. and u.s. naval institute news on the role of the u.s. navy's hospital ships in the coronavirus response. watch c-span's "washington

journal" live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. " continues. host: stephen sneed is with us and we are talking about the impact of the coronavirus impact on the election season. first on the project and how are you funded? we are a nonprofit and we are a watchdog. we were not expecting to be in a pandemic such as this. our primary mission is to ensure the integrity and security of the electoral system and to defend the rights of voters to participate in a system which is free, fair, and honest. there will always be challenges so our democracy, pandemic being the latest and we need to respond to those with elections

that people can trust. .ost: with reaction to their decision to avoid people clustering at the ballot box? guest: i commend them for their swift action to make the elections as safe as possible in these incredibly uncertain times. we certainly don't want people to be congregating in close and othern the cdc health officials are advising otherwise. that is a wise precaution for states basing these impending immediate deadlines to conduct elections to postpone them so they could devise thoughtful accommodations for these uncertain times. i think that was the right move. the: what do you think impact will be on november voting? guest: i think it is a little too soon to say with any degree of certainty.

we are looking ahead to a few weeks or couple of months at this point where we can say with some degree of certainty what health restrictions are guidelines will still be in place. looking ahead to november is a bit more challenging and quite frankly i don't want to read those tea leaves with the sense of certainty here. i think we just need to wait a little while and see how the curve develops and see if we can flatten the curve and see what health restrictions are likely to be with the impact of the virus will be closer to the november elections. it is important that states right now be thinking through a series of contingency plans to be prepared to meet whatever sort of situation will be warranted. host: the new york times editorial had a piece by voting by mail. they wrote, experiments in the state so far have yielded key findings. first, turnout is significantly higher nearly everywhere voting mail is used.

second, political persuasions use it and like it. third, it is safe and secure. barcodes allow for ballot tracking and validation and stays using it have encountered essentially zero fraud. is the election system on a state level in a place where every state could go to a mail-in ballot? guest: no, we are nowhere close to that era people are using mail-in voting more and more with each election -- close to that. people are using mail-in voting or in war with each election. at a long way from being able to get to an all-male election. quite frankly, i am worried about people who are calling for us to make that sort of major transition, structural change to how we cast ballots. ,n the best of circumstances

much less in a matter of months in circumstances where government offices are closed and workers are home we are trying to make significant changes to elections in the midst of a pandemic. we have a long way to go before we get to mail-in voting. there are health of democracy reasons, security reasons that we don't want to go in that direction. host: what you mean by the election? what are you concerned about? people cast ballots by mail, they often do so days or weeks ahead of an election. one of the things we saw as recently as this past super tuesday was a phenomenon of voter regret where they cast ballots for people no longer in the race. au might say that presidential election, the likely hit of one of two not be the candidate on election rate is pretty low, but there are all sorts of things that can happen feelchange the way voters

they want to vote for. when there is a high degree of uncertainty given the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic with uncharted waters, that is one thing i am concerned about. absentee ballots are the least secure only second to internet voting. they can be lost, tampered with or destroyed and in the circumstances voters might find themselves disenfranchised. we saw this happen in north carolina in 2018 were hundreds of ballots were tampered with or destroyed in a concerted effort to swing an election. they had to redo a congressional race because of that. that is what i am concerned about. host: let's do get to the callers. surely in florida. you are on the air.

caller: thank you. what i was going to say is that we need to make sure that everybody who likes to vote do vote. if we have to do it by mail, then that is fine, but we can't allow the virus to be the reason for not voting at this time. it is so important that we vote. voting is a way of speaking to the people. it is very important that we vote. host: are you worried that if this pandemic is still ongoing in november that we could see even lower voter turnout than we

have in years past? guest: it is a concern but we need to be cautious in how we respond to it. i do think there should be a thoughtful, targeted response by the states and there should be a range of options they develop and contingency plans to allow them to respond. we do not know what the situation on the ground will be in november. it could be we are under the same sorts of lockdowns we are today and in all likelihood we will not be. i do not think we should be locking ourselves into a particular course of action like all- to all-male voting -- mail voting which could cause more confusion and problems solved. what to ensure that everyone who to vote can this year and we need targeted accommodations and they should be designed to deal with the virus outbreak and

designed to be maximizing the odds of success and that means we have to make the minimum necessary changes to the way we cast ballots, particularly given how close the deadline is and given all of the other uncertainties that prevail in our elections right now. host: will go to vermont, michelle, independent. caller: caller: good morning -- caller: good morning. my question is in regards to how we are pretty much a democratic state in vermont. we have a republican governor but most hands -- times his hands are tied. i am on the border and because we had to shut down the borders we rely on tourists dollars. my question is in regards to unemployment and how i am required to make three job searches a week in order to receive my benefits instead of giving us a 10-week callback so we can just draw unemployment and not have to worry about going out and job search.

we are supposed to be staying home. everything is closed up anyway. i apologize. we have moved on to taking question about the primary season and what effect the coronavirus is on that. we will get back to how this is affecting the community at the top of the hour. host: dan in oregon, a democratic caller. in oregon, we vote my mail all the time and we have not had a single problem and yet he says it is not a good system. while i take affront to that. thank you very much. host: jason sneed. guest: i am certainly not meaning to cause anyone ill feelings. the bottom line is, the states that have adopted vote by mail systems have had years to implement them. they have not tried to implement them in the midst of an international crisis like the one we are dealing with right

in whichort deadlines staff are dispersed to their homes, in which we are struggling to run elections in the meantime as well. we have to keep in mind that 2020 so far has not been a good year for rolling out new forms of voting and new electoral reforms. we saw the problems of the act out --s used the -- the app used for the iowa caucuses. we saw michigan well out same day registrations and it slow down the process of voting to such an extent that in some places voters were left in line for hours. murphy's law prevails in elections and what can go wrong will go wrong here the idea of rolling out a systemic change and are in election year to the way that we cast alex invites a whole lot -- cast ballots

invites a whole lot to go wrong. host: to wisconsin, republican. caller: i have been anxious to make my comments. i am a 77-year-old woman, born the 1940's.ning of as i got a little older, we were still living in a depression type atmosphere, plus also with the war, we were restricted also. i pretty much know what it is like not to have anything and to barely get by. be has to be may postponed, because of the fact that what you have been going through with the previous elections and the problems that you've had with long poles and people not getting to vote.

you may have to look closer at may havethat elections to be they do that november. it is not set in stone. has theson sneed, who power to postpone an election? guest: we would have to have congress pass a law to change the date of the november election. this is not something the president can do unilaterally. in some states, governors have the unilateral power in the state of emergency to change elections, as we have seen that power used a number of times in recent weeks. would have to look at a congressional enactment to change the date of the federal election in november and realistically there isn't a whole lot of leeway because there is a constitutional mandate that the new president take office on january 20 next year. that would require pushing that back and would require an amendment to change that.

i don't think we are close to needing to make a decision about postponing in november. we do not know what the virus 'impact will be. --could be i don't think we need to worry about postponing the election. host: an independent caller, good morning. caller: as far as postponing the election, i think that would be a nightmare. voting wouldail-in ifthe solution and i think they treated it with the same urgency that they are treating everything else that has come up with the coronavirus and made the investment in it now, that it could be successful. lostentioned ballots being and not knowing whether yours was counted. if they have barcodes on the

ballots, it seems to me they could just take the number on the barcode posted on the internet and you could check your number to make sure that your ballots was counted and if it wasn't, there would be some system in place where you could try and correct that and get your ballot counted. i think it would make a lot of sense and moving on it now would be the solution rather than waiting until the last minute and saying we don't have time and throwing our hands up in the air and being in a crisis situation. i think we do have time and mail-in voting is really the best solution at this point. anything more to add on that? guest: i do think we should be looking at targeted expansion of mail-in for vulnerable populations and populations who are sick with coronavirus and don't want to infect other

folks. we have to keep in mind that elections are complicated. changing the way the that people cast ballots is a difficult proposition and far from something which is easy. there are legislative and logistical hurdles in place, changing not only how people vote but what the absentee ballots would look like to ensure they have barcodes means that you also have to change the way you print the ballots, buy new equipment, training personnel on the new equipment and also we have to consider the fact that taking these mail in ballots and processing them is more personnel intensive operation in most places. riske inviting potential for sowing confusion at the very least amongst voters and poll workers and election officials if we make too broad of a change , particularly if we come into the november election find out the virus is not as significant a worry as we feared it would be in march. i think we need to make targeted, temporary changes that

maximize the odds of success in voting in november. i think that means we make the fewest changes necessary. host: where is online voting at this point in time? we see that we can register with the 2020 census and fill out the information that they require online. why not being able to vote online? when athis appears to be few areas a bipartisan agreement in the election space. ill-advisede is under any circumstances. it is simply not secure enough. the opportunities for interference with voting, whether from foreign actors and nationstates to simple hackers themselves bye how people vote from one party to the other. the risk is simply too high. we are a long way away from being able to have a system in place that we can trust to be

able to reliably and accurately count and tally our vote on election day. just look at the iowa democratic caucus, where a simple app that nobody was using it to cast alex with simply to report tallies -- used to simplys report tallies. but stop laid that out -- but extrapolate that out to november and that would sow the seeds for disaster in terms of voter confidence in the election and the results. i do not think that is a direction we want to be heading, even in a crisis like the one we are dealing with today. host: andrew in north carolina, republican. what is your question? caller: i enjoy your show. it is my understanding that the democrats want to insert in the stimulus package strict guidelines on how states should

run their elections process or something like that. that is an incredible overreach by the federal government. what is good for new jersey may not be good for new mexico. what is good for north dakota may not be good for my native north carolina. it is for the states to determine. the federal government should not be in the voting business. thank you, and i enjoy your show. host: jason? guest: i agree the states have the primary responsibility for administering the election. the federal government should not be stepping on their toes, particularly in a crisis. should not take advantage of this crisis to push a political agenda or make permanent structural changes to our democracy. we need to give states flexibility there is a role for federal government to play by mustering resources to support efforts. it is ultimately the states that have the deep institutional

knowledge that will be necessary to make the elections a success. they have experience in administering elections and doing so with great success despite emergencies and catastrophes. there was an election on 9/11 in new york. there have been elections conducted in the immediate aftermath after hurricanes and natural disasters. we need to give states flexibility to leverage that experience and bring it to the table for the primaries and the general election. we should not be posing burdensome mandates that have nothing to do with coronavirus and make it more difficult for them to do their jobs. host: a democratic party north carolina. am an old man born in montana, right on the canadian border, raced all over the nation. i appreciate the lady from vermont. my statement is first, we are

poisoning ourselves. we are not taking care of mother earth. we don't even listen to mother earth. she never forgives. we are poisoning ourselves and it is getting worse and worse and worse. we've got to change that. voting, i amg, on over 80. i think that we should have voting from our homes and vote accurately to our county and have it counted. . appreciate it very much the general i am listening to because c-span is so great. love you. jason snead. ofst: i think there lots

health of democracy reasons. you want people floating -- voting close to the election so they have all of the facts and close to possible so that they make the most informed decision possible. we have to keep in mind that voting by mail, absentee voting is one of the most vulnerable forms of voting to fraud. of votesee instances harvesting that changed the outcome of a north can grant -- race.na congressional that disenfranchises voters want to make sure that voters nationwide have a system they have confidence in. there are a lot of states that allow absentee voting and some require an excuse and some do not. reasonable perfectly and we should not make this the primary way people cast their

ballots in 2020 or any. don, independent, in kansas. caller: i looked this guy jason snead. who is he? from the heritage project. and then you had stephen moore, the so-called foundation of the heritage. i question his impartiality and nonpartisan nature in his analysis. right now, we are in the middle of some kind of a weird crisis, the coronavirus, and it certainly has upset the regular functioning of our nation. as for elections, 58 countries on earth have paper ballots that are counted by people. papere a weird mixture of and computer ballots counted by

computers. the real fraud in american elections is election fraud. it is dishonest counting controlled by private companies that run our system. thank you. your organization as part of heritage foundation. the exactly is the goal of honest elections project? guest: i want to set the record straight. the caller is incorrect. i used to work at the heritage foundation, but my new group is an entirely separate, independent enterprise that has no affiliation with the heritage foundation whatsoever. i want to be absolutely clear about that. i am proud of the time i spent at the heritage foundation, regardless of the callers feelings, it is an upstanding outfit but completely separate from the organization i am leaving now. about where the real fraud lies, i think i will

have to disagree. i am not aware of any widespread election fraud in which private companies are changing the way people vote. what i do see when we look at this problem is that there is votinglarly in absentee that can be exploited by unscrupulous individuals. while i was at heritage we put down a database that tracks proven cases of fraud, and you see instances in which public officials are pressuring, courier sing, or buying the votes of people trying to win their way back into office, there are all sorts of ways in which it can be perpetrated. we need to take it seriously and have policies in place. host: >> follow the federal response

the coronavirus outbreak at c-span.org/coronavirus. watch white house briefings, congress and governors. track the spread throughout the world with interactive maps. watch any time, unfiltered at c-span.org/coronavirus. and tonight a special edition of "washington journal," as we hear from economist johncock ran on the -- john cochran on the economic effects of the virus. he'll be joined by david shulkin and pennsylvania representative susan wild, live tonight at 8:00 .m. eastern on c-span. c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, national low income housing coalition president and c.e.o. diane yentil discusses how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the housing needs of the nation's poor and homeless.

then kevin coolis talks about the impact of coronavirus on small businesses. and sam legrone with u.s. naval institute news on the world of the u.s. navy's hospital ships in the coronavirus response. watch spmbingscran -- watch c-span's "washington journal" live on wednesday morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. join the discussion. >> this weekend on book tv, saturday at 8:30 p.m. eastern, in her book "recollections of my onexistence," author rebecca solnik recounts her journey to become a writer and feminist. >> when i look back and say why wasn't i political when i was young, i realized to be political you have to feel like you have something in common with other people and you have to have power. i started out with neither of those things and ended up with plenty of both.

eileen journalist zimmerman looks at addiction in her book "smacked." >> those struggling with addictions were struggling with bleak conditions in their life. maybe homelessness, a mental condition that was being untreated. maybe someone i see on the side of the road, living under a bridge. i was wrong. there are plenty of people at the top of the sose yo economic ladder struggling as well. >> watch book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> defense secretary mark esper held a virtual briefing on his department's response to the coronavirus. he was joined by joint chiefs of staff chair general mark milley as reporters submitted questions on support for military families and how the virus could affect military missions. this is 35 minutes.