signatures before. -- forest, they were tough to prove -- when the signatures were forged, they were tough to flee. they had to show that someone had told him the ball just a valid and force the signature, but then they couldn't prove who it was. he suggested it would be great if you ballot form had an area to push down your thumb and put your thumbprint on it, the way you can leave days, that way it would be easy to authenticate a can you identify the forger if there was one. not that idea, but a lot of people are very wary about giving the government their fingerprints. the: hans von spakovsky of heritage foundation, talking to us about voting and voting by

mail. thank you for your time, sir. guest: thanks for having me. i hope everyone stays well out there and that we have a robust election in november. now, amberng us mcreynolds of the national vote at home coalition, she is the ceo, good morning. guest: good morning. host: tell us about your organization, what it does, and who supports it. we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and have been in existence for about 2.5 years and our entire goal has been to help states and policymakers improve the vote at home and by mail processes in every state. that one of the issues you deal with is this idea of voter fraud info by mail. what has your experience been in looking at the system overall?

is there fraud there? system that any includes a lot of human beings and processes has inherent risks. need,nly, recognize the and this is a focused area of hours to ensure that those critical security measures are in place to find and detect bad actors and whole them accountable to not only protect the system but more importantly protect voters. we need to make sure they are not intimidated and that they have faith in the future of the process. a good example of where that wasn't the case was south carolina in 2018. it's important to build security measures in. we met -- regularly recommend various best practices, including ballot tracking,

signature verification, so that we can detect bad actors trying to interfere with the voters individual experience. host: the previous guest talk about alec harvesting. should it be eliminated when it comes to voting by mail? guest: it's a term that hasn't been in the election terminology for a long time. it was a new work that surfaced back in 2016. with regards to everything in the election process, we have to have security measures in place and that should not include you not being able to let your husband, your neighbor, or your friend help by dropping off ballot. we see that across the country where people help each other out and do well with that. i want to make sure that there is no systematic interference with the voting process like we saw in north carolina. part of the reason it happened there is because individuals

didn't have many options, didn't have things like prepaid postage or access to a lot of different drop boxes across the county. they were limited to one location and limited in terms of having witness signatures. because all the limits on individual voters, bad actors were able to take advantage of that situation and thus we had the result of fraud from those bad actors. it wasn't voter fraud, it was election fraud done to voters. those are the sorts of things we have to make sure that our secure in the process. host: because of the onset of coronavirus, are you advocating for nationwide vote by mail and is that feasible? guest: what we are advocating for is a safe and secure voting process for every sector. what i was able to help with the colorado, seven years ago now,

that was the anniversary of signing the bill, we designed a system to put voters first. goal was to streamline the process and give the voters a safe and secure process that was data-driven. voters were asking for it. there was a huge surge in voters wanting to vote by mail. it preserves the in person voting options that some people all so thato do, there is a choice. more of it doubt as opposed to opt in. voters have the predictability that the ballot will come to

voters have the predictability that the ballot will come to them. election administrators have the same [no audio] and it has enabled us to enhance security measures that exist throughout the process to make sure our system is secure. that is an example of what we are trying to do. we don't say universal vote by , but we do say that voters need to have these options and it will be different versions of that, frankly, just like now as there are across the country. our guest with us, if you for lessons, (202) 748-8000 -- ask her questions, (202) 748-8000 for the eastern time zone. (202) 748-8001 for the western time zone. guest: i don't know if you listened to the guy before for , but he says mail goes to the wrong place sometimes. couldn't we have some kind of

special envelope, like gold or something [no audio] that's about it. host: ok. for your question, richard, it's a great question and it is one of the things our organization has been working on with our strategic arbiters. been working with state and local election officials around the country to redesign the envelopes so that it's very obvious as to what the ballot envelope looks like. also, everything about the envelope and the contents of the packets are clear for every single voter. user-friendly. single envelope that goes out says official ballot in closed and there is a

logo that is -- that the post office supplies and all election offices are required to apply to .ll ballot mailing that is the identifier. the other enhancements that some states it made, and this is one of the things that we started back in denver, way back in 2009, things like how it tracking systems. a system that allows you to track your mail ballot the way you would a fedex or ups package. it enhances security within the election system so that you as a voter no where your ballot envelope is. on the return, you get the confirmation that your ballot has been received by the election office. those sorts of things enhance usability and security and give voters the accountability. daniel, north carolina, greenville.

this would not happen if we had a male and -- male and where each citizen is issued, like a social security number, which everyone's is secure. everyone is issued an id card and they can vote. and then when they -- their information is logged. not just their name and id card number, by the way they use the computer, the way they use the browser. they will only do a third of the votes online anyway. as far as voting by

internet? guest: sure. look, security experts around that thehave suggested full internet system is not ready yet for the entire population to utilize. important for us to continue to find solutions that are more effective. secondly, state-by-state in terms of not only the ids issued, but also the process of voting in. to implement a national system like that across the internet is number one, it opens a system up to more vulnerabilities than withwe are ready for, and the id situation, given it is different by state and the state level, it is part of the federalist process that we have. all of those rules and

regulations are different. there are extra challenges in the united states for that. what i would say is as we say all the time at the national institute, we have to have a safe, secure, acceptable process. when i say acceptable, i mean it has to serve the military voters that are serving in difficult parts of the world with logistical challenges and it has to serve voters at home. it has to serve voters that might have transportation issues to get to the location. we have to have not only a system like what we talk about a lot which is mailing the ballot to every voter, we have to have an acceptable way to transfer or deliver the ballot to voters who need it. there are different examples of that happening around the country. say, look, weld have to continue, and i talk about this all the time, continue the improvement. so piloting new ways of doing things, all of that is important. the critical aspect and the

critical value we have to make sure is applied across the board. it is security. into continue to test those things, look for new ways of doing things, all of that is great, but are we ready for that type of system now in the united states? the answer is no and there is extra complexity to prevent the election system here in the united states versus other countries. host: we have a viewer off of our twitter feed, who says, i could ask for an absent eve ballot -- absentee ballot. there's something about getting ready to go to my polling place at 7:00 a.m. i hope to vote in person for a long time. i guess for some peace and -- some people, it is the mind of showing up somewhere. guest: -- announcer: now we take you to louisiana where governor edwards will talk about whether the stay-at-home order will expire on friday and what his plans are for the state. >> kuebler here re