reviews some of tuesday's key ballot initiatives plus we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. ♪ ♪ morning and welcome to washington journal for sunday, november 1, 2020. it's a date that many christian churches mark as all saints day. joe biden and vice president mike pence will be meeting with key religious leaders. we'll start the program asking you, is religion a key factor in your vote? here are the lines to use if you are a supporter of joe biden and kamala harris. [indiscernible] .-(202) 748-8000

donald and mike pence supporters (202) 748-8001. undecided (202) 748-8002. for your texts (202) 748-8003. a tweet ato send us c-span w day and post your thoughts. facebook.com/c-span. his religion a key factor in your vote. mike pence and joe biden had opinion pieces in the christian post on the same day. we'll start with mike pence. is the bestump choice for americans of faith. the american people and particularly people of faith have a lot to be proud of. he further says we must vote to protect the very foundation of our country.

the american people know the foundation of america is freedom but the foundation of freedom is faith. our freedoms are a gift from our creator and when we defend the we make his work on a our own. -- on earth our own. people of faith have no greater champion than donald trump. that's from vice president mike pence in the christian post, the same day this piece was written by the presidential candidate joe biden. the greatest commandment has guided my politics is the headline. he writes in the gospel of -- love the lord your god with all your heart. this is the first and greatest commandment. the second is love your neighbor as yourself. says, we are all -- we all matter in the eyes of god

and it will take all of us to america so healing desperately needs. ending this pandemic, driving our economic recovery, confronting systemic racism. pursue immigration and refugee policies that uphold the dignity of all and do everything in our power to ensure all of god's children had the future they rightly deserve. the views of presidential candidate joe biden and vice resident mike pence. if you are a0 biden supporter. a supporter of president trump and mike pence. your vote.n a key of

for the first lady and our country, we love our country. there is no country like it. i grew up next to a catholic church in queens, new york and i saw how much incredible work the catholic church did for our community. these are amazing people. catholic schools give many underserved children the chance to reach their god-given potential. catholics of all background share -- emanation is strong because of catholics and people of all faith. we believe in the joy of family, the blessing of freedom and the beginning of work. every child is made in the holy image of god. always protect the vital role of religion and defend the

sacred right to life. today i'm announcing that i will be signing the born alive executive order to ensure that all precious babies born alive no matter their circumstances receive the medical care they deserve. host: a look at the reporting where the candidates will be. this about vice president pence attending a church service with franklin graham. also in the philadelphia area, joe biden to make sunday campaign stops in philadelphia. let's get to your calls. is religion a factor in your vote. andrew is a joe biden supporter in sterling, virginia. caller: i'm a white evangelical christian. i've practiced my faith for over 60 years. i don'tlife of me understand how evangelical christians or those who claim to be can support this godless

president. most the most hateful, the divisive, the cruelest, the most incompetent president we've ever had. he detains and separates children from their mothers at the border. country with his hateful rhetoric. he's constantly attacking his opponents with death threats. what he did to the governor of michigan is appalling. we as evangelical christians will be labeled as hypocrites forever for defending the actions of this godless president who claims to be the chosen one. we as evangelicals cannot come out and say this man was chosen by god to save us. if anything the antichrist and if we continue to support people like this to be downresident, we will go

and our children will suffer. he is no role model for any of our children. he will lead this country to destruction. host: michael in indiana. supporter of president trump. trump: i support donald because i believe he cares about everybody's religion in the usa. campaigns, he does continue on with in god we trust and that's what we've always been from with the united states and this guy bashing trump saying he's a hater, he is full of crap. there is no comparison. trump has him on religion all the way and i'm a white christian. i believe everybody should believe in god and filled trump

because america will get better. host: the vice president is a practicing catholic and talked about some of the recent guidance from pope francis. here's joe biden. believe this election is about who we are as a nation. what we believe and maybe most importantly who we want to be. it's about what makes us americans. time and again throughout our history we have seen charlatans, the conmen, the phony populists appeal to our worst appetites and pick at the oldest scabs we have for their own political gain. they appear when the nation has been hit hardest and we are at our most vulnerable. anything, but

only to benefit themselves. pope francis warns us against this phony populism that appeals to the basest and most selfish instincts. says politics is something more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin. but vision,thing conflict and leak cynicism. we would do well to ask ourselves why am i doing this. aim.is my real asks questions that anyone who seeks to lead this great nation should be able to unite this i run to nation and heal this nation. i have said that from the beginning. it's badly necessary. there's atells us

time to break down and a time to build up the a time to heal. this is that time. host: the washington post reported on a new group of evangelical leaders forming to support the former vice president. they writes that the vast majority of white evangelicals are expected to vote for trump in 2020 as 80% did in 2016. the new group favoring biden set up by longtime evangelical leaders ron cider and rich mountain. huffman who is board chair of christianity today magazine, a lifelong republican and former pastor to richard nixon is planning to vote for democrat for the first time.

, i believe in the separation of church and state but i have been told too many times that i am old school carol big religion plays far too a part in politics. trump is as fake as they come in real christians fall for his crap. says i take responsibility for the vote i cast. lane says i'm an atheist and voting for a decent caring human being, not the man who has continued to show disregard for anyone but himself during his entire presidency. james is a trump supporter calling from west virginia. caller: i'm calling from west virginia. i used to be a democrat. my whole family was democrat and

before the early voting two weeks or so, me and my wife went down and changed our status to republican. prayer is important. this is the most important election that we never had. saying trump is fake and stuff like that, i disagree and they are probably going to disagree with me. forefathers,n, our men and women fought for our independence and freedom and we have given that away tune extent to where i don't believe god is happy. people disagree with me. but trump was put in there by god. the people voted him in. he done a wonderful job as far as i'm concerned.

military was going down and everything. he rebuilt this economy. they threw this covid in to try and throw him off. but they are not fighting trump, they are fighting god. host: kathleen in new york. joe biden supporter. go ahead. caller: i've been listening to these people and i'm like -- anyway. i would like to say in the bible it is written, it is good to be silent. withthose who are speaking knowledge and wisdom in their words, it is good to be silent. silent, you are foolish. you are a fool. he wants to shut up the doctors. he knows more than the generals. please. i'm going to give everybody a split screen. trump dark and divisive. father of all lies.

look at our country. he has destroyed our country. he is selfish. biden. , rainbows, birds singing. that is so true. in conway,is william arkansas. caller: good morning. that donald to say inherited a good economy from president obama and joe biden. with the agree evangelical gentleman that called a while ago. i could say so many things. trump is a joke. he has blown so much smoke. he will do anything to get the vote. if he's not elected he knows

he's going to go to prison sooner or later. show and for the hopefully joe gets elected. the front page of the new york times. an astonishing number of ballots already cast. as a record 90 million votes for in, state officials gird for the count. america is voting with an urgency never seen before in the approach to the presidential election. 90 million people have cast ballots despite court rulings that have tested faith in the country's electoral system. has alreadyrnout exceeded the total vote from 2016. 10 other states including major battlegrounds like georgia, florida, north carolina, arizona and nevada have surpassed 80% of the turnout.

turnout load has set the country on the course to surpass 150 million votes for the first time in history. in impact of the huge surge turnout -- strategists from both parties parse early returns for signs of any advantage. counting on a strong early vote to help him flip states that president trump carried in 2016. republicans are banking on their voters to deliver battleground wins as they did in key states in 2016. a tweet from michael mcdonald upping the number from 90 million. at least 92 million people have voted in the 2020 general election. his religion a factor in that vote? next insheila is oklahoma. caller: good morning and thank

you for taking my call. to start out with the scripture that the lord says that my ways are not your ways. my thoughts are not your thoughts and i and for president trump not for religion but because of his support on life and when president biden says you should love everybody, he is leaving out those unborn children that can't speak up for themselves. and we need to support that. also he's helping build the military. people need to read on china, their mission statement for 2025. they plan to overtake us on everything and we've got to be strong against them. so thank you again. vote for trump. thank you. host: denise is next, a trump

supporter in north carolina. morning america. i love you and i just want to say i used to be a staunch democrat. worked for the democrats. positionn i changed my is i vote for whoever's policy lines up closely to the bible. to what god says. and in his words, he does say that we are to be filled with the fruit of the spirit holy peace,s, mercy, grace, love, joy. now abortion i believe is wrong. because i talked to so many how after they've had abortions they really feel bad. there has to be another avenue. now i'm going to speak on the

children that are at the border. i worked in the public school system for 25 years and what is happening, many of these children come into the country without their parents. and they come into the school system. and the parents are back in their country. they don't want them. being full ofica mercy and grace, we take them in. now concerning things that i upieve, we must vote lined andest to the word of god president trump and vice president pence, they have done this. about just speak briefly when i was a democrat. i know the democrats are for abortion. that doesn't line up with the word of god. and the democrats are very upset.

i believe every human being has the right to life and the things that don't line up with the word we must stand against with jesus. host: i want to point to an article, trump still has a possible path when. those points is white evangelical women. this is in underappreciated group in some swing states and a core group for president trump. evangelicals make up 21% of white women in the south and west. in north carolina, mr. trump is running better with white women that he does nationally. kentucky, beto sends this

text. the text is i'm a catholic and my religion is very much on the ballot. two compton, california. biden supporter. thisreally appreciate topic on all saints day. regarding the religions that we are dealing with today, one of the things i hear a lot of my evangelical christians don't deal with is the grace that god gives us. he gives grace to those of us who have made mistakes and a lot of them don't want to deal with that. feel they arei being used by the far right when it comes to these issues with and the religious issues that we are dealing with.

issues we are the dealing with -- all people are not real people. corporations are considered persons, too. president donald trump is a corporation. when you look at it in the biblical sense, that's where mr. trump comes in this. they need real people to be giants. especially as believers in --ist, we need to understand we have been given so much information through the platforms of the social medias that president trump recognized last election and they used it against the minorities to suppress the vote.

recognizingagain how the spirit of god is being spread here today. withhrough grace and not punishment. a lot of evangelists want to use punishment to justify their support for trump where it's about forgiving. the word of god does not work unless you have repentance in your heart and mr. trump has never admitted to repentance and when you do not repent, the word of god falls short in your life. this is where you find mr. trump today. of lackee his failings of repentance, feeling sorry for the people suffering under the virus and all that you see going on in america. he has no retentions for the children that came across the borders. people have been coming across the borders for decades and we

never had this experience with kids losing their children like this. it was a policy decision that this administration made with no forgiveness to refugees that were going through struggle and persecuted in their own homeland. that we stand for in jesus christ name amen. host: in georgetown, massachusetts. trump supported. good morning. caller: i just want to bring up for what i feel is the big disconnect in our country. we have obviously listening to the calls today people are on fire other sides. -- far other sides. something i learned when i was young is that these politicians, make a personal assessment on these people.

all we have are there actions. the only way we can judge these politicians are by their actions. what policies do they do. because our news corporation's 2012 areountry as of basically shoveling propaganda at us. it was the rise of the fake news. lienalists and people who specifically about politics, they are covered by a provision in the 2012 national defense theorization act called smith mode re-modernization act. problemshere a big with media started and they have not turned back. liable for theld

false things they say in the propaganda they spread for our government. specific question, is religion a factor in your vote for president trump. caller: no, religion is not a factor. people's's morals and people's values are. if people want to believe in religion, that's fine. we really need to stick to what these people actually do. sources says media they do and if we look at this president, no other time in with theas the media together andnt got

came down on a president to try to unseat him from office. these people should be tried for treason but they are working for cnn. wherelet's take a look at christianity stands in the american public. in the u.s., decline of christianity continues at rapid pace. they write that the religious landscape continues to change at a rapid clip. 65 percent of american adults described themselves as christians when asked about their religion. down 12 percentage points over the last decade. nonreligious part of the population now standsagnostic, n

particular now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009. the two charts show that side-by-side. the decline in identification of christians and the rise in religiously unaffiliated. joseph -- robert is next in key largo, florida. a joe biden supporter. caller: good morning. person,ery religious because i believe in the 10 commandments. [laughter] i don't think anyone out there seems to understand that anymore. especially these people that concerned about abortion. my theory is when they try to bomb some innocent people, how many abortionists -- god is not concerned about abortions anymore. toy have sold their souls

the people that really don't have any souls. , godyou vote for trump wants you to know that if he destroys this earth, his creation, he is going to destroy you. you keep talking about used to be democrat. there is no such thing as used to be. of soulou are a person and concern, or you are a person that has no empathy for anybody but yourself. you people out there, you have a great day, and make sure that you understand that god is watching you and he understands who you really are. next -- host: next is joseph in middlefield. joseph, you are next.

tv ande volume on your go ahead with your comment. joseph in middlefield, connecticut. we will hear from frank in fort lauderdale, also a donald trump supporter. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to comment on that clip of joe biden talking about pope francis [indiscernible] he mentioned the word -- the pope mentioned the word [indiscernible] the pope is saying to me -- i think that's the point biden was making. ishink joe biden [indiscernible] a lot of people refer to him as a nice guy and a decent man.

he also supports not requiring medical care -- that's evil. joe biden is a practicing catholic. that is one of the most important teachings in the catholic church. all lives. joe biden is for gay marriage. is joe biden campaigning and what he had to say about the role of faith in his life. biden: -- host: we don't have that ready. glenn inr next from arizona, a joe biden supporter. in arizona, a joe biden

supporter. caller: religion is a factor in the morality of the character of who is leading our nation. that's why i am supporting joe biden. i am an independent in arizona. the reason people are shying away from religion, look at the example that has been said by our evangelical leaders. they are so hypocritical. with this abortion issue that has been used to divide and guilt people, i don't understand why if you are against abortion and the right to life, i understand that position whether i agree with it or not, i believe god is a forgiving god and sin is sin. if you don't know what god decision will be on who he will forgive or not that is why we do not judge and love our neighbor. andsame people who are poor decide to have abortions, when the children come you want to cut their benefits.

you don't want to support welfare policies. you don't want to help them. you think god cares about these little kids that came to our country with their parents and were treated like that? do you think he cares where they came from? children.od 's they are not just america's children. they did not come here with coyotes, they were here with their parents. you are against abortion -- i would say that the morning-after pill, let's agree on that. the morning-after pill will prevent more abortions than any supreme court justice ever will. let's get behind that, something we can all agree on. host: about a half an hour left on our topic, the first hour, is a religion -- is religion a factor in your vote? if you support

joe biden and kamala harris. (202) 748-8001 if you support trump and pence. talking about the role of religion in his life. here it is. faith has carried him through dark times. the loss of his wife and daughter, the death of his eldest son, but he has never lost hope. joe knows what it means to find purpose in service to others and to be your brother's keeper. that's exactly what we need. we may endure for the night but joy, thin the morning. >> i'm joe biden and i approve this message. an ad,ously not an ad -- not a campaign experience. this is what our coverage looks like on the c-span networks. two more days on the campaign trail. here is where we support this afternoon. kamala harris will be campaigning in georgia just two days before the election.

joining her is the democratic challenger to the republican senator david perdue. our live coverage is at 1:00 p.m. eastern. later on joe biden heads to philadelphia and he will speak to a black religious -- a group of black religious leaders at a get the souls to the polls rally. donald trump traveling to north carolina for 105 scheduled campaign stops. we will have live coverage of that in north carolina at 5:45 eastern. also traveling to boone, north carolina and attending services there. a couple of comments on twitter then back to your calls. this one says "in a roundabout way i was raised catholic, but in a manner that embraced social justice, caring for the poor. i am occasional unitarian, but i

still follow the values i was raised with." afreedom of religion matters great deal as well as the separation of church and state. i vote for someone whose platform is close to my values." "trump had evangelicals come to the white house and he closes his eye obediently for the cameras because it plays well with evangelicals -- anyone can see he is playing evangelicals for suckers." to your calls on our undecided line, it is tricia. good morning. would religion be a factor? caller: no. religion will not be a factor in my vote. i am not voting under the auspices of religion. and voting for a candidate

trying to put -- if you put them side-by-side, donald trump and joe biden. has ak donald trump stronger positioning regarding security. he has a stronger position regarding the lack of allowing communism infiltrating our country. joe biden is trying too. i think his time has passed. don't have a reason to vote democrat. , what as his running mate does it matter anyway? the abu dhabi of what every suburban educated woman that owns a business despises.

i am leaning towards president trump. i feel so far he has made promises. host: next is a biden supporter from barstow, california. believe donald trump is christian, a good christian. he is not a good businessman. my family was in the automobile business for over 50 years. the second we were oldest toyota dealer in the united states. we sold dodge, plymouth, chrysler, ford, lincoln, mercury, nissan. that if anyonect in my family or our business --

if we treated customers -- if we talked to people the way donald trump talks to people we would never have sold any vehicles at all to anyone. he is a poor businessman and not a good christian. he is a ridiculous person altogether. thehe became president in first place is beyond me. i am a democrat, i have always been a democrat. i live in california and i have been a mail-in voting for a long time. it's a very easy method in california to vote that way and i have been doing it for a long time. both of my parents before they passed were also the same, male and voters. onlyint is that he is not not a good christian, but not a good businessman and never has been one. that's my comment and i appreciate your show, i watch it

all the time. you get comments from callers who say you are not fair and do this or that, that's all hogwash. i believe it's a very fair program and i appreciate it. thank you. to sarasota, florida, virginia is a trump supporter. caller: i am a trump supporter and as far as i am concerned about religion there is no perfect being. the only perfect being is our creator. i'm not going to downplay anybody because we all have our faults. i do think that trump has done a wonderful job. he's working hard for the country. i think he's true to his word. that's all that matters for me. from hill city,

south dakota, a joe biden supporter. caller: good morning, thank you for this forum. trump as an antichrist. mr.666 fifth avenue. for those of us who actually read the bible. trump's fruits are rotten. all lies,he father of and he lies continually. i don't see where there is much of a choice here. i believe that joe biden is an honest man and that he has empathy for others, which is a christlike quality. i think the fruits of christ are what we have to look at and

those who have those fruits are the people that can build our country to be what we always were when we sang "america the beautiful" which was taken away from the children. it was a prayer every day to ask the lord to show grace on our country. i pray for the children that have been kidnapped and lost. that is not a christlike quality and there is no way i could ever vote for trump. i hope everybody gets out and votes and that we do the right thing. your soul could be the very thing on the line here. host: the question is, is religion a factor in your vote. on twitter "no, nor should it be. citizens have many beliefs and we need to have government that does not recognize or favor religion in any way.

the intersection of biology and religion complicates this." in a theocracy, we live in a democracy." the trump-pence stand on pro-life is a big issue -- about joetrump spoke biden's view on religion and other issues. this is donald trump. pres. trump: joe biden's policies put china first and america last and that's what he will continue to do when he is president. you will have a disruption in the markets. you will have a crash in the markets because he is going to double and triple your taxes and do things that nobody would ever think even possible. he is following the radical left agenda. destroyy your guns,

your second amendment. no religion. god, he's against guns, he's against energy? doon't think he's going to too well in ohio. i was in texas the other day. guns,her side is against , thend gas, religion bible, god, how is he going to win texas? how was he going to win texas. back to your calls. louis on the undecided line from marlborough, massachusetts. caller: hello, how are you doing? my choice is about religion. the 10 commandments, if the democrats say that --

why are they taking out the 10 commandments? if they are for religion why have they never moved how come they never move the embassy from tel aviv to delusive them. -- the news media is downplaying about trump. news --ot getting the we are not getting the truth about his son being a crook. think all of that could lay on me on that day. i think i might go republican. mexico --en and the host: we are going to go to martha from west virginia. a trump supporter, go ahead. caller: hello.

i would like to call out the previous caller's statement. , he made the comment about joe biden being a catholic. friends and over my lifetime hundreds of friends who were catholic. --holics that i know when john kennedy was assassinated i went to mass with a catholic and i'm not a catholic. know, ittholics that i is a mortal sin to have an abortion. that is the one thing they all had in common. they were strictly against abortion. honey it's ridiculous. the catholics that i dated --

they couldn't sin from confession until after mass on saturday morning. they would not sin during that time period. i used to call this one guy hypocrite. in my religion it doesn't matter what day of the week it is, i am a sinner. does not get stuff with me. itself, ireligion don't look to president trump for my religion, i look to god. foron't look to trump an example of my moral compass. it!t judge trump, stop you are supposed to be christians, act like it. get off trump's back.

he loves america. thank you. host: donald trump holding five rallies today two days until election day. this tweet from a stanford university study, 18 trump rallies have led to 30,000 covid-19 cases and 700 deaths. president barack obama campaigning in flint, michigan for joe biden criticized president trump's mishandling of the coronavirus. president obama: do you remember that? now they might as well be saying let america get covid, that's how they are acting. if trump were focused on covid from the beginning, cases would not be reaching new record highs across the country. the places he holds rallies have even seen spikes after he leaves town. there was just a study by

stanford university that just came out showing thousands of people likely got sick because of these rallies he is holding. what is his obsession with crowd size? you notice this? [laughter] the one measure he has of success. he is still worrying about his inauguration crowd being smaller than mine. [car horns honking] he is still talking about that. doesn't he have anything better to worry about? did nobody come to his birthday party when he was a kid? was he traumatized? what's with crowds? coronavirusn the reaction in the u.k. from the guardian. johnson's u-turn puts england

under a tough new lockdown, rules would shut down cafes and nonvital shops and reviews will take place locally after a four week period. in the tracker for the new york times, covid in the u.s., the latest map and case count. ofe point one cases as october 30, up 40% over two weeks and the death total 230,400. in ohio, a joe biden supporter. caller: good morning. i am a born again christian and trump is not a christian. breaking brags about -- a man who brags about grabbing women by that part. it did not upset me when he said it because that's the kind of man he is. he is a vulgar man. when nott me was one old white male republican senator came to the support of women.

not one old white male republican congressman came to the support of women. not one old white male republican governor, save the governor of the great state of ohio john kasich. john kasich, you have my admiration. i have great respect for you and if he ever ran for office i would probably vote for him. trump is not a born again christian. he has never even opened up the bible. he has no idea. if you want to be in-service for the lord, god told us very specifically to go and help the poor, be there for the children. he won't ever do that because he thinks they are beneath them. if they are beneath him then you have no god in you. god does not need our help in israel, he has made a plan. it was in effect thousands of years ago and he will do what he

does. he doesn't need our help. the people in the united states do need your help. the children at the border need our help. the people who are unemployed need our help. the people who lost their jobs and their businesses, and their homes, they need our help. becausell not help them they can't help him. he only helps those who help him. it is sad. the united states has gone and sunk so low that they believe a man who grabs women by the -- and he doesn't do anything for the people. he is not christlike. he may have had christians that will chum up to him, but we get to see what kind of christians they are. host: we will hear from doris in georgia on the undecided line. caller: i guess you got tired of hearing me shout at you.

comment is, does anybody know what the word christian means? i will enlighten you. the word christian means footstep followers of christ. the example he set while he was here on this earth is what we are supposed to be following. going back to just before he was murdered by religious leaders and politicians because he was about to upset their apple card. the same thing is happening today. religion is in cahoots with politics because of the position and the power and the money they will garner from all that stuff. i look at it as a bunch of pigs at a feeding trough, and what they are eating on is our tax money. if you pay close attention to

what trump says, almost every other word out of his mouth is money, money, money. it points out what a hypocrite he is, because the bible plainly --s that the lovers of money that's the root of all evil. karl in will hear from oxford, massachusetts on the others' line. is religion a factor in your vote? caller: good morning. no it is not. i was raised a catholic and for years i was an evangelical. i want to ask all my evangelical friends, what do you say when jehovah told the hebrews to murder men, women, and children and have no mercy on them? if they read in numbers chapter five in the bible, there are circumstances where god, whatever -- i am an agnostic now.

they used to use herbs to induce miscarriage. that's one of the best ways to become a skeptic or agnostic or atheist is to read the bible. i read the bible and i just can't see, what do you base your faith on? what are you basing your faith on? that's all i want to say. i voted for howie hawkins. host: vice president michael religion,ting about saying this about joe biden. "when joe biden was vice president we saw a steady assault on religious freedom. weer president trump repealed the johnson amendment, ended the assault on the little sisters, and stood for the religious freedom of every

faith." let's hear from a trump supporter in texas. go ahead. believe god has checked the stench from -- has chosen trump. i believe in the trump prophecy. he wasset before elected. he wouldso predicted have three supreme court justices and then eventually five supreme court justices. if you read the book you will see that he is not only getting -- the people that are railing against him not being a christian, you are not supposed to judge lest you be judged and we are allowed to become a christian at any time in our life. when he was younger he wasn't good.

he is losing money and doing a wonderful job. that's why everybody that goes up against trump gets beaten down. just watch this election and you will see. trumpa tweet president retweeted yesterday, some video shot in texas of texas trump , this is friday, harassing a joe biden campaign -- surrounding a joe biden campaign bus in texas. donald trump spoke about that at a rally. in tampa, to beverly florida. on our biden supporters line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i don't believe religion should

be involved with politics, and i believe everybody should have the religion they believe in, that i see a lot of followers of trump that i am very disappointed in. they are lying, the man lies. i don't think he knows how to tell the truth. it's been proven. it's been proven what he has done. a man of god, one of the first rules i was taught of being a christian was to be charitable and not lock kids up and build walls and everything else. i don't know what kind of a bidenent will biden -- will make, but whatever he does will be better than what we have now. as far as biden dealing with china, who is the man that was andussia, in china, everyplace else out with

dictators? that's what his main goal is and if we keep going this way we may see it sooner than we think. thank you so much. host: still ahead here on washington journal, next up we talked to the bipartisan policy .enter's john fortier what to expect on election day. later, american university lichtmanrofessor allan talks about the electoral college. ♪ ♪ left until days election day on november 3 when voters decide who will control congress and occupy the white house next year, stay with c-span. watch campaign 2020 coverage every day on c-span. stream on-demand at c-span.org

or listen on the c-span radio app. your place for an unfiltered view of politics. tonight on q&a, a look at mail-in ballots and election security with the bipartisan policy center's matthew wilde. florida may be called by 10:00 or 11:00 on election night because it will count so much of their early voting strictly. we have states like michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania that could be determinative in this election. they have policies that limit how fast or how early they can counterbalance. >> i think the security experts are less concerned right now the votesthreats to counting than they have in years past and that is a good thing but because of the increase of paper records and increased

coordination among the state and federal government, there is a lot of reason to feel good that this election will be better. >> mail-in ballots and election security with becky wilde and c-spantella tonight at eastern. >> washington journal continues. host: next we are joined by john fortier, studies director at the bipartisan policy center. here to talk to us about what to expect heading into election day, you wrote a book in 2006 promises and perils," while that is the story so far with states like texas and hawaii already surpassing their total of 2016. what you think that massive number of votes means? 2006, it maybe was

not as interesting but we are talking a lot about it today. we are seeing a huge increase in voting by mail and early voting in person. 2016 we saw 41% of the population voting for election day. 17% by early in person voting. we are seeing another explosion beyond that in this election. we have already seen 92 million people vote early this -- as of last night. we are going to see more before election day. deservescdonald really credit for keeping these numbers which keep expanding. we will see on most 50% of americans voting by mail. the average for the 4% voting early. just a little bit voting on election day. 23% or 25%. it means changes in states doing very different things. some of them casting ballots in

a new way. one of the thing to note is in the past a lot of votes and in person votes were very close to election day. this started early. as early as the method opened up, we saw lots of ballots coming in early, several weeks before. there are going to be problems with counting. perhaps some issues and delays. but i do think we are going to run this election, we will see record turnout and we have seen lots of voting by mail and early in person voting. host: what are the driving forces behind the mail-in voting, the early voting? is it the coronavirus, a pushback to some of the critics of mail-in voting? guest: i think it is the coronavirus. we have seen this trend so we would have expected some increase anyway. there is a substantial fraction of the populations of vote by mail.

western states have been voting by mail for a while. the coronavirus did really push some people to want to vote by mail. one thing we have seen is a partisan divide over voting by mail which we have not seen in the past. we have not seen voters saying they were going to vote differently by party. republicans and democrats used to take advantage of weather system -- whatever system of your we are seeing more democrats saying they are going to vote early by vote by mail. the numbers of people in the states that have those registration numbers bear that out. democrats are voting earlier that way. we are seeing republicans voting more in person and no wings -- knowing what is calm -- what is to come is hard to tell. have did most states that mail-in or early voting, did they start counting ahead of time? guest: no one officially starts

counting but many states do some preparation and even putting ballots into a machine and toulating an almost ready press the button to get a final number. that is an issue in this election we have not talked much about before. some states with the volume of absentee ballots we are seeing this time will benefit from being able to start the process earlier. some of the states we are looking at on election night that we might worry about getting a result are states that don't have very much time. there are other factors, whether they count locally or centrally, but again, states that have an earlier time to begin the processing and almost the counting of those ballots are going to be in a better position than states that don't. host: we would love to hear your experiences. we are talking with john fortier with the bipartisan policy center about election day,

really voting as well. if you voted early in person, here is the line to use. (202) 748-8000. if you are voting on election day, (202) 748-8001. if you have already sent in your ballot, a mail-in ballots or absentee, (202) 748-8002. if you don't plan to vote, (202) 748-8003. we will get to your calls momentarily. we have not talked about polling places but i want to read you a piece from the wall street journal. way,"ng sites brace for a they say that counties have been grappling with in person voting during the pandemic. many encourage early balloting on election day but some are adding early voting days and locations. some counties have turned to unconventional locations like sport stadiums that can maintain social distancing even with big groups. they write that changes have

resulted in the changes from 2016 and the total number of polling like pieces election day -- polling locations on election day wisconsin and michigan, analysis from data of secretaries of state and county officials. the journal also obtained data from counties in florida and georgia. what are you anticipating in terms of, you said you. 25% of the vote -- you said you thought 25% of the boat would happen that day. will we see long lines that day? think the message for people this election to try to cast their vote in an earlier way is a good one. we are probably not going to see the volume of people voting on election day that we have in the past. we don't have the final turnout. we expect it will be high than we have seen in history. again, so many people have voted by mail or early in person that

the numbers may be down. it is still worth your while to make a plan to vote. at this point you are probably either going to hand in your ballot if you have a mail ballot. hopefully it will be to a dropbox or some location. there are a few places that still allow sunday or even monday early voting. are going to go on election day. i do think we are going to see less volume on election day. again there are some factors that the states are facing. sometimes a polling site might not be able to accommodate as many people with coronavirus restrictions. between how balance much volume we see coming in on election day versus the issues that the states are having trying to process voters given our coronavirus situation. host: calls next for john fortier.

sophia is first in the bronx and voted early in person. welcome. caller: yes, good morning. i have a question for you. i will try to be faster. i have a comment for mr. fortier . i will put forth my question to you. what happened to steve scalise? two weeks ago on friday which i missed it, if you can before the end of the program, if you could let me know what happened, why i do not see him. that was the question for you. host: the address that briefly and go on with your comment. our colleague steve scalise is currently on administrative is on-- steve scully administrative leave. caller: thank you. that means he will come back. host: it is possible. i don't have all the answers, but yes. caller: thank you.

because i love him so much. for mr. fortier, i wanted to say this. 50 years ago, i used the same word. the first word i have is americans are stupid. i am a conservative republican. more thanen does win 150 million votes, i'm going to believe what they say the , they say0 years ago we are stupid for this because it is too much. thank you, thank you. host: any response? know: obviously, we don't the election results and the early voting is suggestive that democrats have gotten not there in the early period. but we do not know what is left.

we know republicans are voting more in person. i'm not going to say anything about the final results other than i think we will have record high turnout and it will look different because many more people will have voted before election day than on election day. host: you point out that donald trump, one of five presidents to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. those presidents, john quincy adams in 1824, 1876 rutherford b. hayes, benjamin harrison, 1888, george w. bush in 2000 and donald trump had 2.8 million votes more than hillary clinton in 2016. from philadelphia she is going to vote on election day. sectionit was the only in 2016 that voted for trump. i voted in person. i was born in 1932.

i will be 88 years old at the end of the month, the 28th of november. mail and iust the want to vote in person. trust -- i live in a democratic city and state. trusteve you, i don't anyone so that is why i am voting in person. thank you very much. host: clearly a lot of people are trusting mail-in, absentee and early voting. guest: yeah. a trend. obviously our country has different states in different places. in recent years we have united states out west almost 100% voting by mail. other parts of the country are looking more traditional with most voting on election day. i see the trains that many people are voting very early this time. -- the trends. some have decided they want to

vote either early in person or on election day. you are very likely to have the same polling site as you usually do although you might want to check that with your registrar of voters. there will be plenty of options to vote on election day even at this late time. those are options many people are going to take advantage of all three of those options. host: one of several articles you were quoted in, this is a good news story. voters turn out early in historic numbers. with us this morning, you are cautionary with your not to read too much into what those numbers possibly could mean. how early on election night do you think we could begin to see a sign of what the early votes of this massive amount of early voting is meaning? guest: i do think because of the large number of people voting

early, also all the changes that we have made in states to the elect tour system and covid, -- electoral system, we will have more issues. that is not maybe will not have an accurate count, and i believe we will, but there are some states that are going to have a hard time putting out provisional results on election night or the day after. resultss else -- final never come out until at least a week or sometimes 30 days after the election. the question is what is the margin of victory on election night. if we see a big margin for one of the candidates over the other, we could easily have enough states called by the networks and we know the winner on election night as we usually do. but if it is closer, we can see because of certain states waiting, and i do think pennsylvania may be one of those. michigan is another that might take longer. we may wait a few days. if it is close like it was in

aorida where there is recount, we could wait a long time. i think we could know at any time but there is more pressure on the system this time to be able to process those ballots in a way that gets us closer to being able to call results on election night so we will just see whether we are able to call it on election night or whether we will have to wait a few days. either way voters should know what the process is going to go forward either way. host: do you think that this massive amount of early and mail-in voting is a change for good, not just a covid effect? that from here on out most americans will vote early or vote by mail? guest: we have seen the numbers go up a selection. more modest increases -- each election. voters tend to like the change. i think you will see whether voters like their experience. levels i do expect a high

of vote by mail and early in person voting after this election, much higher than 2016 going forward. we might see a drawback in 2024 under nonemergency situations. i think we will set a higher baseline where many more people are voting before election day in the future. host: let's hear from stephen in lexington, kentucky who voted early. caller: thank you for taking my call. i voted in person and early. i was surprised at how quick and efficient it was. i was worried that there would be large crowds and i would be waiting a while. my area got it cleared out and very proficient and quick so i was very impressed. if i was going to vote by mail, since the post office has been having problems that my ballot was not going to

be in person so that is why i decided to vote in person. map a question? -- may i ask a question? host: yes. caller: so, hypothetically we do not figure out who wins on election night, can one candidate say i'm just going to take this victory and go with it, can they do that? can they announce themselves the winner themselves and just continue on? host: john fortier? guest: there are several things to consider. first of all in terms of when the election is resolved, there are different ways of thinking about it. we often have, calls made by the networks or other press organizations based on very serious information, not just exit polls but primarily on results and what the margin is. those are not official results.

the numbers you see on election night or a few days after our writing counts -- are running counts. other states may be taking longer for those things to come in. -- some days after in some states, a little bit longer. in other states, there is an official certified account. there could even be recount that extend those counts longer. we are not getting the final results absolutely counted down to the last vote for quite a while. that does not mean we will not know who the winner is. as we are question of could somebody say they are the winner, there is a process and we are going to resolve the election. there is an electoral college process where you will have the electors casting their ballots this year. congress counting in january. and then a new president at the

beginning of the second term beginning in january. just because the candidate thinks they are ahead, does not mean the process will certify them. i expect we will have a clear winner that everyone can see at some point. how quick that is depends on how big margin is and how quickly the votes are counted. the official results of the states are not going to be known for a while. the official electoral college process takes longer as well to really make a president later in january. host: you will talk about the electoral college in our next segment. we are here with dominic. for those who are not planned to vote this year, (202) 748-8003. good morning, dominic. tell us why you not voting this year. caller: the reason i'm not voting -- can you hear me? host: yes. caller: the reason i'm not voting is because my vote is wasted. i live in new york and i vote for a republican president this year.

no republican president has won new york since reagan's landslide. senator chuck schumer wins every year. i think it is a joke when i hear biden talk, 47 years in politics. what has he ever done? all he does is make promises. my vote is wasted. going to go for a republican president, new york will never elect a republican president. they have done it once only. host: john, do you think that dominic's vote is wasted? guest: i don't think so. it is probably a rare experience for republicans to win in new york at the presidential level. there are other races on the ballot and the ballot could also go a federal state and down to the local level.

there are other races that might be more competitive. i also think even if we had a system of the national popular vote, if you are on the losing side, some people would say your vote is wasted because the president is in one party and you did not get any share of that. it is still important to put your ideas into the political process. make your voice heard. it may not always make a difference in the particular state you're in. but it is you being part of the process. again, there are many races that you may affect with your vote, not just the presidential. host: in arizona, cheryl, good morning. cheryl is voting by mail. caller: hi. i am voting by mail because it is convenient and easier. when i lived in california, i helped with the election but i am older now and i'm not helping. economynted to say our has the fastest growth in u.s. history. growth.

in the last five months, we have jobs..4 million jobs, new so vote trump. host: cheryl in arizona. votes, york times tracks they had 92 million so far in person. 33 million so far. really 58 million voted so far by mail-in ballots. that is 65% of the total of 2016. some of the robots encountered along the way. we have heard from some states requiring notaries in some states. what other states are having some issue with early in person or early mail-in voting? guest: we see some states making some dramatic changes. i am not sure we are going to know how it all went until we look a few months later i got the process -- back at the

process. it is true that voters may like these two options voters that are new to voting by mail -- like these new options, voters may not know where to go so those are some issues out there. there are disputes between the parties as to what changes we should make for the coronavirus. there have been a number of lawsuits asking for longer deadlines for ballots to be allowed instead of them being allowed on election day or wired on election day -- required on election day. a number of those were struck down by the supreme court. we have seen dramatic change and some of that is differences thaten political parties set what they think the best mode of voting is for this election. wherever you are there are a lot of options and there are still options for you if you have not voted. even under these circumstances,

it is being administered very well as far as we can tell. i encourage you to take advantage of those options, whatever they may be. host: that's go to hamburg, pennsylvania to lori voted early in person. caller: i have not voted yet. i'm sitting here, i have my mail-in ballot. meas going to take it with and vote in person. my plan was to mail it. our boxes are open until 8:00 on election night. i'm going to fill it out. i'm not going to mail it anymore. i am afraid something will go wrong if i handed in -- hand it in. i will say it is important for everybody to go out and vote. no matter how they are going to vote. we have seen historical turnout. this is good. it is good for our democracy. constantly -- he casts

doubts on anything that he can to the american people. he doubts our country and that is what is happening today. where divided to a point there may not be a way back, but we have to find that because it is up to us. things,ate, we build and then we pass it on. -- we take things seriously when we vote and you need to vote for the person who you think will check your rights and your children's rights and who will lead us to a greater future. no matter what, after this pandemic there is going to be another pandemic. it is going to happen because pandemics have happened throughout history. it is how the people deal with it that makes a difference. host: lori in pennsylvania. john fortier? guest: on the point of voter

turnout, i think there is enthusiasm and some of that is very strong feelings for and against donald trump. i think that is driving turnout. her second point was that she was going to drop off her ballot. that was her plan. i do think that is something to stress. things ballots different but they are made allowed to you. you can return them in person. at this late time, i think that is the way to go and your options can vary from state to state whether there is a dropbox near you or whether you can bring into the polling place or the election office, it is worthwhile figuring that out. as you are states allowing ballot to be postmarked before election day with a certain number of days after to arrive. but given the possible long times of delivery and depending on what your deadline is in your state, it is wise to drop that

off if it is a possibility. that gives you more peace of mind that your vote will be in by the deadline. host: what methods have states and using to verify it is you that is voting, to verify your identity attached to that ballot? guest: the typical way is related to your signature. you sign the envelope on the outside of a ballot that the ballot is included in. in some states there is a more rigorous process for comparing that signature to an earlier signature. there also states that have requirements such as a witness requirement or a notary public requirement. those were more common in the past and really too concerned about keeping the privacy of the ballot. that may be something in your state to follow the directions and do what you need to do. sometimes address information as well. there are some things you will need to provide when you cast

your ballot. notit is possible if you do feel the information out directly that your ballot might not be counted. your information correctly. states have a crisis -- have a process. you need to check with that state with how long you have to fix that mistake. again, ballots are identified by the information you put on them. most of them are counted without problem. but those that have some issues, you may have some chance to resolve those if you are able to find that there was a problem and meet the deadline to resolve that problem. host: let's hear from scott in kansas who will vote on election day. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: i have two issues so please do not hang up before i am done. one is for the guest.

2016, news articles brought out problems about people being caught voting more than once. now with all of this mail-in knowg going on, how do we that folks are going to mail in a ballot and who is to say that on election day or whenever that they are not going to vote again ? with so many mail-in ballots, how do we know that the people that are nailing in these people that are allowed to vote, that have a right to vote with so many illegals being in the country? now that i am against people coming in illegally, -- coming illegally, that is a problem. insecond issue is the guy

new york who thinks his vote does not count. ast imagine maybe there is million republicans over there who feel the same way and none of them vote. had they voted, may be vote would have made a difference -- maybe their vote would have made a difference. thank you. host: john fortier? issue of double voting is rare. there are cases that we do uncover each year, usually it is someone in one state folks and casts -- one state votes. states share information. it is not a perfect sharing. that is something we can improve in the future. if you are talking about the question of what about people who might cast a mail ballot and try to show up on election day, there are some strong procedures to avoid that someone could vote

twice in that way. it varies from state to state. if you have an outstanding lot and you tried to go to a polling place, they are going to know that you have that talent. -- ballot. states will either require you to bring a provisional ballot to the polling place and then see if there are two pallets out there and we count one or perhaps they have more of an online system where they are able to check if you have already voted or not. i think it is very hard to imagine someone being able to an in person ballot and a male ballot given with the -- given the check in the state we see. that might lead to some longer there to cast ag if

different kind of ballot. host: our guest is the director at the bipartisan policy center. separating the lines by those who vote early in person, (202) 748-8000. those voting on election day, (202) 748-8001. and if you voted by mail, (202) 748-8002. the fortier, you head up government policy center what do you hope to happen with the studies and the results that you find out not just over election day but the presidential campaigns and otherwise? what is your group work towards? generally as a whole, we work for some bipartisan agreement on solutions and sometimes that is hard. the parties do not always have the same positions on what to do about governmental reform, about voting. but we try to reach some consensus. i do think this election there

was going to be a lot to chew on as we go forward and look back at what happened in this election. the changes are dramatic. voting very different systems in our 50 states and i expect we will have great differences. there has been so much upheaval they going back and looking at how it went, which i do think it will go well overall. i think we will get a clear result. perhaps it will take longer and we will learn something about some of the glitches that go on with those after election studies. host: a question for you on twitter. jose asked on ranked choice voting, maybe you can give us a quick background or explain what is ranked choice voting. guest: ranked choice voting is used in the state of maine and local areas. if you think of some elections that have a runoff, two candidates, we see this in georgia, if two candidates run and nobody gets 50%, then it

gets narrowed down to the last two candidates to have another election. somebody will get over the majority. ranked choice voting is a way for having those runoffs all at once. when you go into the ballot box, you will rank your choices of 4, ifndidates, 1, 2, 3, there are that many candidates. you have a counting of the votes, the candidate who finishes six, they will limit that candidate and see who voted and who did they want as the second choice and they will reassign the votes. at the end of the process, we will have two candidates and one of them will have the majority. the main use of that and one interesting point is that maine has not used that at the presidential level. this time we will see in the electoral college with the race between donald trump and joe biden, those votes of the third-party reassigned and so a different total for the majority will come out of that election in maine and we are watching

that to see how it goes. host: let's hear from patricia who voted early in person in new jersey. caller: good morning, america. good morning, c-span. in 2005. employment recession-depression. i voted early because i got so much concerned about the provisional ballot. you could either vote in early in new jersey or you could go to the polling place and it would be a provisional vote. i thought, what is that all about. that is not an immediate vote. that is the only reason i was going to go in person. i could be wrong in my thinking. this, i am 64 and a

half and i see america repeating itself from the 60's, the 70's, the 80's and the 90's and 2000 and we are still doing the same thing. i pray for us. and john, someone like you, hello? host: we hear you, thank you for your call. john fortier, she mentioned a provisional vote. what is that? guest: that is worthwhile thinking about as we go into election day. the provisional ballots are ballots that if you show up at the polling place and there is an issue, we think of it as an registration issue. you may be show up and the people tell you that you are not registered and you believe that you are, you are still going to be able to fill out a ballot. but you're going to put it in an envelope like an absentee ballot and that will be sealed and the election officials will determine after the fact of whether that vote should count or not. maybe you really were registered

or you can go back and give information that will help them account to that. that is true sometimes if you do not have your id in a state that requires an id or other issues. one thing -- place where i think that could come at this election and voters should be aware of this is if you receive an mailtee or male ballot, -- ballots, they are going to know that. maybe you are told to bring it to the polls and that might be i amh to say here it is not going to cast a mail ballots. what if they are not sure you're going to cast that ballot, they are going to ask you to vote in this different way. it gets sealed in an envelope. you voteoof of whether or not is going to be determined after the election, ok, count that ballot at the polling place. if there was one cast, then when

are the others going to be counted. provisional ballots are not necessarily -- nobody likes to cast a provisional ballot it is a failsafe for voters who might not have the votes counted at all to have a chance of having their votes counted. it is therefore elected officials to figure out if there is an issue between two ballots, make sure they are not counting both and get the right one counted. host: do you think we will get a number of who voted by mail, that actually got that male ballot and dropped it off at a ballot box in the locality -- off ballot and dropped it in the locality? guest: some places have been doing this extensively. in colorado, more than half voters vote by drop boxes. statesome of the new that are doing it for the first time are not reporting at the

same way. there are other options that are not necessarily drop boxes. again, check your state but some places you can drop at a polling place. i think we will see some sense of the numbers but the idea that we have a consistent way of counting exactly how many people dropped off versus mailed in, the numbers are not going to be exact. host: let's hear from frank in west virginia who voted by mail. caller: how are you all doing today? host: great, thank you. caller: i have two questions. theof them is who favors lords turnout is the first question. the second question is with voter suppression which is done donerent ways, why is it and who doesn't favor -- who does it favor? there has to be a large turnout. i don't know how you would

figure out in this situation had to vote which i primary absentee and i voted in the general absentee. if i'm not mistaken i think on the general ballot there is a overcode that they can go in west virginia. does at curious, who large turnout favor and with voter suppression, why and who does it favor? host: a couple of good points. go ahead. guest: what we know about people that don't vote, they tend to be more democratic. that is partly because younger voters do not vote at a high rate. hispanics and other newer immigrant groups do not vote at a high rate as other groups. if you were to say everybody voted, the vote would be more democratic. but we do not know, of those new

people who are voting, whether they are democratic leaning voters or republican. we cannot say for certain that a higher turnout will favor one party or another even though all the voters who do not vote to lean more on the democratic side. the voter suppression, people mean a lot of things by that when they use those terms. i obviously think we are doing a lot to try to prevent people from actively stopping other people from voting. we also have a lot of issues with the way we vote and people disagree about whether we should have longer deadlines or witness signatures. at the end of the day i really don't think anybody should be thinking about those types of issues with respect to can we suppress the vote of one group or another. there are some differences in the way states want to vote and the systems they want to vote. i think we are going to see significant turnout.

most people who want to vote, the vast majority are going to be able to vote, are not going to be able to be stopped. host: associated press headlines this week, florida believes the system is ready. let's go to daytona, florida and hear from tim who was planning to vote on election day. caller: hi. i just want to make a suggestion before i get to the questions that i want to ask. should takeguys c-span and get somebody on their that would explain the cost of elections and voting pools and polls and everything and where do they go. i would likeguest, you to explain to the people or if you know how much it costs for each state to set up different polling sites when people go to vote.

i know in the primaries because of the covid, they changed our voting, where we used to go vote, to a bigger place to accommodate the covid. what you hear is a lot of people complaining about suppression of votes because the closest -- they close a polling place and move it somewhere else. we were notified by mail through our election commission that they were changing our voting precinct to where we needed to go vote. so a lot of times i feel like people claim suppression of vote is because they have closed their precinct where they go vote at. i think sometimes it is because of the cost and nobody seems to ever say what the cost is. host: great, we got your question. john fortier? guest: it is a really good

question and one that is hard to determine and partly because we vote in different ways in different states. you can imagine just taking about some states, they may have many of the polling sites provided by three by the schools and fire stations -- provided for free. others, there is a cost associated. there is a big debate between states that do more vote by mail or rather -- whether they save money because they don't have polling places. costsrse, we know posting and other costs as well. i think your point is right about the question of polling place closing. it could happen for all sorts of reasons. normally there are polling places because they are not available and there frankly is some consolidation of polling places over time as we have seen more people voting early or by mail where some of those local

polling places may see some dwindling numbers. there are some economics involved, resource allocation, but it is hard to put a number on it and compare place to place given all of the differences between the states. people have been trying to do this for years and i am not sure we have a great handle on it. host: the left question for you. how will you vote this year? guest: despite all i have been saying, i will vote on election day. i planned to vote early. i had some schedule issues on both of the days i was planning to vote early. i was not able to get to an early voting place. i am voting on election day. i would recommend that most people that they vote earlier. i do believe election day is going to be an option for many people. they should not be discouraged. if you have a mail ballot, get it in person. i'm going to vote on election

day at my polling place in my local area. is theohn fortier governmental studies director at the bipartisan policy center. thanks for joining us. guest: thank you. host: next we are joined by an american university history professor, allan lichtman. we'll talk about the electoral college and its future. later on, national conference of amanda zochtures' . all of that ahead. >> that is what gives us the confidence to describe the first 10 seconds of the universe like we were there. >> it all started with the big bang. >> is there a song in their? >> i would not give a reporter an interview unless they read

one of the books first. >> for 20 years, in depth hosted america's top authors for an in-depth conversation with viewers. join us for our lives 20th anniversary special. more book talk with authors, your phone calls, comments, and tweets and a look back to memorable moments. >> the picture on the back,? do you remember those days? ? >> no. not conceivably. >> what is in the book? >> the book with an examination .f life at yale >> watched today's live at noon on book tv on c-span 2. >> american history tv on c-span3. exploring the people and events

that taught the american story every weekend. coming up this weekend before election day november 3, a look at presidents and presidential elections. today at noon, the final debate between al gore and george w. bush. at 2:30 eastern, the first presidential debate between president george w. bush and senator john kerry. at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the presidency, history professor william goalie on the personality, leadership and achievement of franklin roosevelt. exploring the american story. watch american history tv today on c-span3. ♪ continue.ton journal host: is withallan lichtman us. he is here to talk about the electoral college on washington journal. it is our love-hate relationship

with the electoral college. article two, section one of the constitution, where are we in 2020 terms of your concerns and what folks should look for? guest: we are the world's longest continuing running democracy. and that is a great thing. that establishes really strong political institutions and a commitment to the traditions of democracy. but on the other hand, it saddled us with some obsolete 18th-century institutions. foremost among them is the electoral college. back when they set up the electoral college, the gap populous andeast most populous state, you had a 5-1 ratio. today it is well over 60-1.

the electoral college is biased against the most populous states and biased in favor of the smaller states because no state, no matter what its population, gets less than three electoral college votes because votes are determined by the number of congressional representatives plus the two senators. so the small states have just one member of congress, but they also have two senators. that is three electoral college votes. it distorts our political system. now, why the electoral college? why did the framers set this up? like anything else, there are multiple reasons. the framers loved the common people, but they did not love them all that much. they believed that the populace could be swayed by unscrupulous demagogues. the prevailing wisdom of the time was first of all we should

amit the vote to people with stay in society. that meant men and property owners and taxpayers. the framers also wanted to put as a buffet between the people and the presidential vote, this group of wise men known as the electors, members of the so-called low door college, that so-called electoral college. in the original constitution and in any of its amendments, there is no right to vote. people think they have a right to vote, they don't. it is not in the original constitution and all subsequent age arets on race, sex, all phrased negatively in terms of what the states absolutely cannot do. and the only directly elected

national representative under the original constitution until the early 20th century were members of the u.s. house of representatives. the president was selected by electors and the u.s. senators were selected by the state legislature. the other thing of course is that the electoral college is intimately tied to slavery. would not leave the popular vote to the president because then the slaves will count for zero. and of course, the free states did not want the slaves to count for anything. so there was this notorious 3/5 compromise that the purposes of congressional representation and the electoral college, slaves would count as 3/5. even though they were treated as property in

the slave states, slaves would expand the congressional representation and the electoral college votes of the slave states. course until the 13th amendment to the u.s. constitution abolished slavery. host: we will remind our viewers and listeners, just underpinning our conversation about the electoral college. established in article two section one, there are 538 electors in the u.s.. isajority of 270 vote required to elect the president. a state of our survey is allotment of electors is equal to the total number of members in its congressional delegation. d.c, threend senate, electors. the award their electoral votes using a winner take all system and maine and alaska split theirs. how far back in history does it

go that the candidates really focus on those states with the largest number of electors? thet: it goes back to earliest political contest in the united states. there was really no contest in the first two presidential elections because george washington was elected. 1796 and onward, there would be a concentration on the larger states with the most electoral college votes. in those days on the swing states, there was a real contest. there is no requirement in the constitution that electors be selected by popular vote within the states. most electorsays, were selected by the state legislatures. and so politicking in the low

door college is very different. --was designed to sway politicking in the electoral college is very different. after washington, it was considered unseemly for candidates to promote their own advancement. host: it is called the electoral college, but is that phrase actually used in the constitution? they talk about electoral in the allocation of electors. it is misleading. it is not a college. it does not actually have all these folks get together. s submitthe state their slate of electors. the slate of electors vote and then there's votes -- those votes are counted in december. those who are

so-called rogue electors and do not go in accordance with the vote in their states, that was unresolved until very recently when the supreme court upheld the legality of faithful electoral laws in the states. host: the supreme court did rule this summer. there is an article note over the summer that says that the faithless electors are rare and inconsequential. of more than 23,000 votes cast in 1804, fewer than 100 can be considered faithless. they will become even more rare regardless of the court's decision or any state attempt to tighten laws binding them to the vote of the electorate. each political party has two undertake a deeper vetting to ensure its electors support the nominee. why did the court take up this case? guest: because there were challenges to the faithful

electoral clause in the states and the court had never in its history rule on whether or not electors can follow their own conscious regardless of what is going on in the states. propositiony because i am not sure the framers intended the electors could be -- to be battling. the philosophy was we want these wise people to make decisions which would imply independent judgment. host: allan lichtman is with us. we are talking about the electoral college. we welcome your comments. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. from the gallup organization, their september poll, 61% of

americans support abolishing the american -- abolishing the electoral college. is that number what it is every four years? guest: that is a pretty high number. and it is understandable because i developed a prediction system called the keys to the white house to forecast the outcomes of presidential elections in 1981. and at that time, you had to go all the way back to 1888, grover cleveland and benjamin harrison to find a disparity between the popular vote and the electoral college. 2000cropped up again in when al gore won the popular vote by half a million but george w. bush won the electoral floridaby 537 votes in giving him 25 electoral votes. 2016 when up again in donald trump lost the popular

vote by nearly 3 million, a whopping loss, but he got through the electoral college with victories in pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin. two out of the last four elections, the five elections we have had the electoral college and the popular vote diverge. there is a real reason for that. and that is to change political demography of the nation. candidate,democratic 5 million to 6 million extra votes in new york and california. they count for essentially nothing in the electoral college. democrats could win those states by 537 votes and still get all of the electoral college votes. there is no comparable republican state. so there is kind of a build in dynamic to create divergences

between the popular vote and the electoral college vote that did not exist prior to 2000 and we are now a country in which we no longer have governing by the consent of the governed so it is not surprising that a substantial majority of the american people seeing what is happening should be in favor of eliminating the electoral college and i'm in favor of that myself. host: host: you mentioned your prediction. want to make sure we ask about you that before we wrap up, but let's get to our conversation on the electoral college. our guest, professor allan lichtman. first up is from north carolina, tim on our democrats line. caller: yes, good morning. i would like make several comments. i've been waiting since 7:00 this morning to get on. host: glad you got in. go ahead. caller: i do agree that the electoral college probably should be abolished. i think for this abolition, we

also get rid of a lot of lawsuits. and it gives me great pause to have all these conservatives on the supreme court. another comment that i've been saying up since 7:00 this morning was, i don't think i went to church this morning after hearing all those sermons, and i am also a pole worker. i've been working early voting. but i mailed in my ballot. and anybody who thinks that there's fraught in the polling place should go to their board of elections, sign up to take the training and work at the poles. i want to take any comment from you. host: thanks, tim. professor lichtman? guest: yeah, he's pointed out a very big issue that's been the case throughout american history, and that is restrictions on the vote, which are often going all the way back to the early republic

justified by voter fraud. as we know in the 19th century, in the antebellum period, women couldn't vote, and in all but five states, with just a fraction of the free black population, non-white people could not vote, and this was justified by claiming these people would have their votes bought, they're not intelligent, they're not independent. throughout that history we've had voter restrictions with voter fraud justifying it. of course, we have the same thing even after the passage of the 15th amendment and the 19th amendment on women's vote. we had the jim crow era in the south, where various devices ke literacy tests and pole taxes disenfranchise people. today there's still mechanisms of disenfranchment, things like felon voting restrictions, voter i.d., voter purges, and,

unfortunately, we are seeing in this election an unprecedented effort, at least isn't passage of the voting rights act of 1965, to limit the vote of the rising democratic base of minorities and young people through encouraging intimidators to flood the polls. we just had yesterday a group of trump supporters blocking a democratic bus from getting to a democratic rally. we've had trump supporters filming people at the polls. as the caller indicated, republicans have filed lawsuits all over the country to make it harder to vote and harder to count legitimate votes. the mail has been slowed down by the mega, the republican mega donor, louis dejoy 2349 post office, and, of course, donald trump has baselessly and falsely attacked mail-in voting

as fraught with fraud. in fact, every study has shown that in mail-in voting or anything else, fraud is vanishly small. you're as likely to be hit by lightning as someone to commit voter fraud, and that includes steads by the national republic, the lawyers association, and the conservative heritage foundation that tried to find fraud and they couldn't. in fact, the lawyers association wiped out its website with its fraud study on it. host: quick look at a poll just in from the "wall street journal" and nbc news. their poll released this morning the headline, president trump trails jobed by 10 points national until final days of election. they say biden leads 52% to 42% among registered voters in their national poll, battleground states race is narrowing. to illinois, republican line. good morning. caller: first a comment on a question from a professor.

i think it's despicable that the mainstream media and big tech won't allow the town story out. but to the professor, if and when the electoral college sever eliminated, i would consider that to be the greatest source of voter suppression. no one in the states would have a voice in the presidential election anymore. could be strictly new york, illinois, and california. what do you think, professor? guest: it's a great point, and that is, i think, probably the best point being made by defenders of the electoral college. but it's just not the case. we have had incredibly close elections on the popular vote. ften 1% or less, as in 2000 or 196 owe or 1968. it was very close in 2004. and so no vote really can be overlooked. you know, right now, it's

incredible that only a dozen states have an election that matters. huge states like new york and california are irrelevant and probably until this year texas has largely been irrelevant. so i do think you'll have a more inclusive system with popular voting. host: what's changed in texas this year? just the balance of power there ? guest: that's right. texas, until this year, really has been incredibly reliably republican. hillary clinton lost it by nine points, and that was one of the closer elections in texas. but texas is changing, and the reason it's changing is the demography that's changing so radically, with the explosive growth of hispanics in texas, which -- and that's a group that hadn't participated very much previously, but as hispanic participation

increases, texas is becoming a competitive state. it's already a majority minority state in population, and that's only going to increase. i don't know if the democrats can win texas this year. they might, and that's extraordinary, but texas is definitely heading to competitive status. in a sense, that makes the electoral college even more unbalanced, because you have this, as i mentioned, this huge democratic vote in the popular vote in new york and california. that's no longer offset by texas. host: you're a professor of history. we're seeing historical numbers of early voting. what's your take on that? guest: it's absolutely amazing. we're going to get close to or ybe at 100 million early votes. that smashes any previous record. it's going to be early -- early votes are going to comprise the great majority of the total

number of votes cast in 2016. in texas already the early votes are greater than the total votes cast in 2016. and, of course, you know, donald trump has said, particularly the mail-in early votes are a bad thing, because we may not know the results on election night. a, there's no legal requirement whatsoever to know the results on election night. in 2000, we didn't know the results until the supreme court stopped the recount on december 12 with bush ahead by 537 votes. you didn't hear any republicans complaining about that, and there have been plenty of other examples where we didn't know he results on election night in 1876 in the contested election. we didn't know the results until march 2. in those days, the inauguration day was march 4, two days before inauguration. in 1916, we didn't know the results until the thursday

after the election until president woodrow wilson won alifornia by a hair, 3,773 votes, and prematurely some newspapers had declared his opponent, charles evans hughes, president. neither in law or in tradition is there anything which says we need to know the results on election night. host: is the date on which the electoral votes must be counted and announced constitutionally mandated or mandated by statute? guest: both the dates for elections and counting are mandated by statute. in fact, we didn't have a uniform election day until 1845. prior to that, elections were held on a slightly more than a one-month period up to the counting of the electoral college votes. host: let's flare paul, new york city, you're on with allan lichtman.

caller: hi. how you doing? can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: there was a "washington ost" opinion piece saying that if we have a recount on a national basis it could be a nightmare, and that would basically be very difficult to do, and what he said the he electric college does do is it allows recounts to happen more effectively on a state by state basis if there was going to be one. you just have a meltdown if you had to do it nationally, which was interesting. and i suggest that maybe you address that. the second thing i have is u.s. senate. if you think that the electoral college is undemocratic, you guys sight u.s. senate is as well, new york city has a population, and this i think is important, has a population that is larger than 37 states. ok, just the city of new york. 37 states have a smaller population. and if you think about it, it

seems kind of unfair to have small states that just got a couple hundred thousand or less than a million and have the same amount of send early to votes as a state of new york, much less the city of new york. and this idea of d.c., d.c.'s got a population that it is a fraction of new york city's, and the idea that they get two senate seats, which is what apparently some people want to do, seems crazy. i can understand puerto rico, which at least has over three million people. but again, i think you really have to address the senate if you're going to be addressing the electoral college as well. host: all right, paul, we'll hear from professor lichtman. guest: quick correction. d.c. is not a state and doesn't have any u.s. senators with voting rights in the u.s. senate. it has so-called shadow senators that are purely symbolic. first, about recounts. recounts are very, very rare in presidential elections. of course, we had the famous one in 2000 in florida, but

since then, we really have not had recounts of any consequence in presidential elections. secondly, even with a national popular vote, if you were to have recounts, you would have recounts state by state, not for the entire electorate. and i don't disagree with you about the senate. the senate is another 18th century institution that i do think needs to be reformed. i don't think it's quite right that wyoming and california should both have two senators. you don't have to turn the senate into the house of representatives. i wrote a piece on this, i hill" having "the senators repeated a sliding scale, maybe with the smallest states with two and the larger states with 10. that would take into account, to a degree, differences in population, while still preserving a fundamental

difference between the senate and the house. host: let's go to baltimore. this is donita, democrats line. caller: good morning. i have 2 1/2 questions. the first question is, i've often been confused over the difference between a delegate and an electorate. and also, what would it take to abolish the electoral college, and how likely is that to happen? guest: i'm not sure i understand your first question, a delegate? a delegate to what? caller: a delegate, yeah, right, a delegate to what, exactly? guest: there are delegates to conventions, but there are no delegates who vote for president. only electors vote for president. host: on that first point, maybe you could point out how electors get chosen or elected. guest: yeah, when they actually vote, say, for donald trump or

jobed, you're not voting for trump or biden, you're voting for their slate of electors, and they choose their slates of electors designed to pick party loyalists, particularly before they were the clarification of a supreme court decision, and not every state has a faithful elector to make sure that you wouldn't have electors go rogue. now, how do you get rid of the electoral college? the most obvious way, of course, is a constitutional amendment. and that's extremely unlikely, unfortunately, because it takes a 2/3 vote of both houses of vote of the 3/4 states. and it is incredibly unlikely that senators from small states or small states when it comes to ratification would support a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college, because they have disproportionate power, which they're not going to want to

give up. there is another creative way hat's being promoted to in essence, in practice, eliminate the electoral college, and that's compact to 70, which is an agreement being promoted among the states to assign their electors, regardless of what happens in the state, to whoever wins the national popular vote. so far it's basically only blue states that have signed on to that, not surprisingly, they're well short of the 270 electoral votes to make that effective, and, of course, if it ever comes to pass, there will be constitutional challenges as to whether or not that violates the compact clause, which says certain kinds of andacts between the states need to be approved by congress. night political report, allan lichtman, their latest preview

of the he electric -- electoral college ratings, their prediction is democrats have 290 electoral votes in their solid, likely, and lean categories, and would need zero from the toss-up column. otherwise republicans have 125 electoral votes, they predict, and the solid, likely and lean categories and would need 123% electoral votes from the toss-up column, plus 22 votes from the lean democratic column. so 270 is the magic number. what happens if there's a tie? guest: there's a tie, and there has been before in 1800, there was a little bit of a difference in the electoral college system. you didn't have tickets. the vice president would be the second largest vote-getter. and you did have a tie, and in that case, it went to the u.s. house of representatives. but the constitution says, if no one gets an electoral college majority, the u.s.

house decides, and that house, after long deliberation, you ow, well into february, gave the presidency to thomas jefferson. so if there is a tie, it goes to the house of representatives with each state, ironically, casting just one vote. so wyoming in that case has exactly the same weight as does california. host: just a program note, charlie will be on this program tomorrow morning at 9:00 eastern. to chris, calling us from new jersey on the republican line. caller: good morning, thank you. i just want to make a comment that we're not known as the people's republic of america for a reason. we're the united states of america. the reason we're called that is because the states determine what happens in the for the. now, we're not electing -- if

the constitution was held to us, it was originally designed, the federal government wouldn't have anywhere near the power that it has now. if you want to get rid of the electoral college, we got to go back and strip away all the other things that apparently don't belong either, all these excess powers that have been taken over by the federal government. but at the same time, let's repeal the 17th amendment, thanks a lot. guest: i'm not sure what he's getting at, there is a supremacy clause in the constitution that federal law is the supreme law of the land, not what individual states do. and, of course, this issue of the extreme rights of states has been settled numerous times. unfortunately, of course, in the 1860's by a civil war. host: a couple of questions on twitter. does the constitution imply reasonable actions, that is in the midst of a pandemic, is it reasonable that assisted

curbside voting is legal? second question is, guest: goat that first question. host: go ahead. guest: it's been legal for a long time, curbside voting. it did not arise for the first time in the midst of a pandemic. a number of states have had curbside voting for quite some time. host: second question for you was more comment. the electoral college should be voted out for many reasons, but none more important than the explanation of the way the framers used slaves to implement it. guest: i pointed that out in my very first analysis of the electoral college, how it led to the notorious 3/5 compromise, which slaves counted as 3/5 of a person, and slaves weighing in for congressional and electoral college representation in the slave states, or they were treated as property in those states under the laws of the states. you know, that's one of the great ironies of the original

constitution. so the caller is absolutely right. host: next up, democrats line in fort worth, texas. caller: hi, good morning. you actually touched, mr. lichtman, part of my question back to three callsers. but i still don't understand about the electoral college. who exactly -- i'm from texas, so who exactly puts these position s in their to make these decisions? guest: the parties, my dear. caller: the legislatures -- guest: the slate of electors. if you don't know who they are, but the parties pick them. caller: so how is that -- do ou have like 50%, is it split? guest: i didn't hear that. is it what? host: she asked if it was split.

guest: i'm not sure i get that. each party has its own slate of electors, and whichever party wins the state, its slate of electors gets to vote for president. host: all right, here's thomas in strongville, ohio, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you all doing? got a question. the reason that the electoral college was the way it was is because the major populations cannot rule over -- what's good in new york is not necessarily what's good in chicago. what's good in chicago is not really good for what's in green bay or whatever, you know? and that's the premise behind the whole electoral college, in my view, you know, just because they're more populous doesn't mean that they overrule the states' rights. guest: and the president is the

president of the entire country. we have plenty of deference to the states in the original constitution. the state legislatures chose he united states senators. of course, you also had the house of representatives elected state by state. they couldn't be elected at large in the state or by districts within the states. and as i explained the electoral college was very much tied to slavery, and at the time the differentials between the states were minimal compared to the enormous differentials between the states today. host: i think if you look, allan lichtman, you read article two, section one of the constitution establishing the electors, and even sort of the average citizen sort of reading that, it's such thick language. when in the process of writing

the constitution did the electoral college, this process for electing our president, when and why did that come about? guest: yeah, first came about during the debates in the constitutional convention of 1787, and it was part of broader disputes between the slave states and the free states and the large states and the small states that led to a number of compromises within the constitution of the united states. but the electoral college system, people don't realize this, was fundamentally amended by the 12th amendment, which went into effect for the first time in the election of 1804. in the original constitution, there was no ticket system, no system of tickets of voting for president and vice president, rather, everyone, all the electors voted for the slate of candidates, and presuming they

highest ority, the vote-getter would be president and the second vote-getter would be vice president, and hat led to this conundrum in 1800 when supposedly the candidates of the jeffersonian party, jefferson and burr, tied. you know, they were supposed -- one or two electors vote only for jefferson and not burr, so jefferson would be the burr and burr would be the vice president. so the system snarled, and that led to the separate election of the president and the vice president and the formation of the current ticket system. so you both had the original constitution and then a fundamental change in that in the 12th amendment. host: and the 12th amendment to the constitution rat feud, passed by 1803, ratified by the

states in june of 1804, and just looking at it, it is one of the longest amendments you will read. guest: it really is. host: question for you, though, on twitter, professor lichtman. one, if the electoral college is blished, would the coastal states determine all the presidential vote outcomes? and two, would proportional electors rather than winner take all better reflect the popular vote? guest: yeah, number one, that's similar to the question asked before that somehow the smaller states would have no voice, but given our polarization, we've had razor-thin popular vote majorities or pluralities, and no state can be ignored. plus there are huge populations outside the coastal states, texas, for example, illinois,

michigan, wisconsin have very substantial populations, ohio, that could not be ignored at all. was there another part to that zpwhe host: she asked about proportional electors -- guest: yeah, i think that's a really bad idea for the following reason. you know, this could be a whole other discussion, and that is the gerrymandering of congressional districts. congressional districts could not fairly reflect the balance of power between the parties because the party controlling the state legislature gir manneders, designs the district lines to favor it. so we've had, for example, the pennsylvania gerrymander of 2010 in the first election, democrats won a majority of the congressional vote, but republicans won the great majority of congressional

seats. so if you had proportional representation in pennsylvania, according to congressional seats, it would unfairly favor one party over another. so i don't think that's a viable option. host: let's get one more call. henrieta, new york, on our republican line. caller: well, at the time i'd like to disagree with the speaker, in that we're not a democracy. we're elected representative of independent states. for him to try change the senate to represent the population would be going against a constitution. it is the senate that treats each state equally, so each state gets two representatives. the house of representatives that has the population. that's how the constitution's written. now, when you try talk about democracies, when you have the states' rights, they're violating the constitution. host: peter, we'll get an

answer from allan lichtman. guest: the answer is we have obsolete 18th century institutions that we have, in fact, modified. amending the constitution is not violating the constitution. so we've had amendments i just described at length to change how the electoral college works. we've had amendments to change from the senators being elected by the state legislatures in the states to senators being elected by popular vote. so there is nothing inherently wrong with amending the constitution to reflect the fact that we are very different country in the 20th century, now in the 21th century, than we were in the 18th century. and this idea that we're independent states, i think i've spoken about it before, of course there were lots of

powers to the states, but we are one nation, and the constitution establishes the federal law as the supreme law of the land. and i understand we elect representatives, and we are a democratic republic. and the original intent of a democratic republic is to have the representatives reflect the will of the people. that is, remember, the cry of the american revolution was no taxation without representation. they weren't talking about representation by land masses. they were talking about representation by people. host: we're running short of time, but i want to get back to your prediction for 2020, allan lichtman. guest: in 2016, i predicted donald trump would win. based on the fact that there were enough of my 13 keys out against the party holding the

white house to predict a change of election. again, in 2020, now that trump is the incumbent, i'm again predicting a change election. there are more than enough keys to predict that this election will mark the defeat of the incumbent president, donald trump, for the first time that a sitting president loses since 1992. and then jobed will become the next president of the united states -- and then joe biden will become the next president of the united states. this is a system that did predict donald trump in 2016, been right since 1984, so it is purely nonpartisan. these are predictions, not any personal endorsements. host: we'll check back with you either way. professor allan lichtman from the american university in washington, thanks so much for being here. guest: thank you. host: more ahead here on "washington journal." next up, we'll be joined by national conference of state legislatures, amanda zoch, who will talk about ballot initiatives coming up in the election of 2020.

tay with us. >> with two days left until election day, on november 3, when voters decide who will control congress and occupy the white house next year, stay with c-span. watch campaign 2020 coverage every day on c-span, stream or on demand at c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. your place for an unfiltered iew of politics. >> tonight, a look at mail-in ballots and election security with a bipartisan policy center's matthew wild and cnet. >> florida may be a state that can be called by 10:00, 11:00 on election night, because they will count so much of their early voting quickly.

but we have states like michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania, three other states that could be determined in this election, and they have policies that limit how fast or how early they can count their ballots. >> i think that cybersecurity experts are less concerned right now about the threats to vote counting than they have been in years past, and that's a really good thing. that's because of the increase of paper records and increase coordination among the states and federal government. there's a lot of reasons to feel good that the security of this election will be better. host: mail-in ballots and election security with matthew wild, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by amanda zoch, with the national conference of state legislatures, an election policy specialist, here to talk

about the ballot initiatives that are popping up in states all over the country on this 2020 ballot. mandy zoch, thanks for being with us this morning. guest: of course, happy to be here. host: in general, set the scene for us. how in general do policy initiatives get on to ballots? guest: ballot initiatives and measures are really voters' opportunity to legislate, and they get on the ballot in three main ways. the first is that they can come from the legislature, so legislators themselves can refer a measure to the ballot for voters to decide. sometimes that is a requirement, you'll states except delaware require that constitutional changes must go before voters, and so might end up on their blafment the other main way is the citizen initiative process, and that is when youer i or anyone who wants to see a new law in their state can go out, gather signatures, collect enough, get

approved and get that question on the ballot. the third option is kind behalf we call the angry voter option. it's the popular referendum of people we detail, and this is when voters so dislike a law that they seek to repeal it right after the legislature has passed it. so we only have a couple of those this year. so the main member ballot measures, they come from the legislature or through the citizen initiative. host: and there are 32 states, d.c. and pourk -- puerto rico have about 120 initiatives this year. they consist of either, as you mentioned, citizen initiative or referral from the legislature. the top issues this year are election reform, criminal and civil justice reform, health issues and taxes, just on the number itself, the 120, is that about normal for a four-year election like this? guest: no, it's kind of low. so the number from legislatures is pretty stable. but the big story this year has

been that the number of citizen initiatives is down. so in 2016, there were 72 citizen initiatives. in 2018, there were, i think, about 60. this year, there are 38. so that seems to be largely due to the pandemic. it's hard to gather in-person signatures when people are under stay-at-home orders, when we're supposed to be avoiding interaction with other humans out in the world. so a lot of citizen initiative campaigns have been really affected by the pandemic and the responses to it. host: some seven states are considering changes in voting, even the midst of record voting so far in the 2020 election. typically what are some of the changes that you're seeing -- or proposed changes in these initiatives? guest: the one that's popular is changing to rank choice voting. voters in alaska and massachusetts will see that on their ballots this year. maine, as many viewers probably know, is the first state to use

rank choice voting in a protection yal election, so i think we are starting to see more and more interest in alternative forms of voting, like rank choice voting. another kind of aspect of elections that's been getting a decent amount of attention is on the ballot in three states, changing the constitution from every citizen can vote to only a citizen can vote, and that a state constitution, so that's on the ballot in colorado, alabama and florida. those measures have got an lot of attention, maybe because they seem to be in response to some concerns about noncitizens voting, even though the requirement to vote does require being a citizen of the united states, so there may be get out the vote measures, things like that. another topic that has been getting some attention is that california at least has a measure that would allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries, and that's something more and more states are

pursuing as well. host: we're talking about ballot initiatives across the country, so we'd like to hear from you and what you're seeing this year in the polls, in your state. 202-748-8000, the line to call for democrats. republicans, 202-748-8001. for all others, 202-748-8002. before we get to your calls, give you a little flavor of some of the ads running across the country, including as amanda zoch, the rank choice proposal in alaska. here's a look. >> register to vote as a democrat on or republican? >> the parties aren't for me. >> that's not my style. >> 300,000 alaskans are independent voters, more than half the state. but their voices aren't being heard because they can't vote their true preference in primary elections. >> measure two fixes the problem. >> reforming our elections to make sure every alaskan -- >> democrat. >> rep. independent. >> has their voice heard.

>> so i'm voting yo measure two. -- so i'm voting yes on measure two. >> i'm the former governor of alaska n. these uncertain tirgese the last thing we need to do is mess with our voting system, our voting rights, our ballots. ballot measure two does all of that. it takes away our choices. you can show up to the general election to vote and not have anybody there from a party or platform that you are align and had believe in. i want to vote for the person i believe in. and i want my vote to count for that person. i think alaskans nool way, too. that's why i'm opposing ballot measure two. oting no, paid for by defend alaskan. the chairman approved this message. host: you talked about this, this issue of rank choice voting in alaska. but in general, what's the spending like on some of these issues? guest: the spending on ballot measures is typically unlimited. we actually have one of the

highest spending ballot measures ever in california right now, and that's top 22, which would affect workers, classified in the state, and i think the spending is about $2 hundred million there. so that's the most expensive ballot measure in california. i think also american history. host: the national council of state legislatures, does your organization have a few overall of the idea of ballot initiatives? are you in favor of that, or because there's been pushback in some media reports about the idea of using ballot initiatives to change laws? guest: we don't take any stance on policies. we design to support legislators. i can tell you that legislators, state legislators themselves often do not like citizen initiatives, because they are laws that get created outside of the typical deliberative legislative process.

so they may not be quite as wedded to some of the long-term consequences of a particular law, and it may not have been discussed in the chambers and given the same kind of rigorous treatment as a law that the state legislature would pass. but we know that some legislators also do like the process and may support specific initiatives if they align with their own platform. host: it seems like there's been a number of initiatives in different states on legalization of marijuana. how much are we seeing that this time around? guest: most popular, again, there are five different states that will see measures about recreational and medical marijuana. so actually, in south dakota, voters will go from having no form of marijuana legalized to potentially having both medical and recreational marijuana legalized. host: we've got calls for amanda zoch from the national

counts sit of state legislatures, their election policy specialist. we're talking about a ballot initiative across the country. let's go first to westwood, new jersey. this is matthew. independent line. caller: thank you, and good morning. in my state of new jersey, the legislature is trying for the second time, because it was defeated the first time, to legalize marijuana in spite of the fact that all new jersey police chiefs oppose it for safety rains, and the states that have legalized it, for example, colorado, they've double the traffic accident deaths because of obviously slowed reaction time of the driver and many more serious injuries, they don't even mention, also pedestrian deaths are up. children is r

experiencing anxiety, our young people, anxiety. they have hospitalizations because the stuff is getting infused into candy, like gummy bears and so he had a. the young children get a hold tv and have to be hospitalized for psychotic reactions. it's a disaster. host: who's behind getting that marijuana initiative on the ballot there in new jersey? caller: our esteemed governor, who put virus patients into nursing homes also, and the democrat-run state legislature. host: let you go there and hear from mandy zoch. go ahead. guest: sure, so i am not an expert on marijuana measures. i can't really speak to the specifics of how it's played in and out colorado, even though that's where i live. but i will say that we are seeing more and more interest in marijuana, both from

legislatures, from voters, and that, in fact, lacks ballot measures that are in traditionally red states, like mississippi, montana, and so there is starting to be some kind of wide spread interest in this issue, and i believe all those measures are polling fairly well. but again, i don't know the specifics of how new jersey's measure would be implemented if it were to pass. host: mike is in north carolina on the republican line. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: just a generic comment on ballot initiatives. i'm for they want i mean, i believe in our republic in the name of our country, united states of america. that's how things were designed to function, that is allowing the laboratories of democracy to come up with different ideas, whether it's taxation, whether it's marriage laws, liquor laws, legalization of marijuana.

you know, we've got 50 laboratories out there trying different approaches to things, and we're seeing how that works because of, in a large aspect or large larger respect, the polarization of the country, we're seeing businesses and people that have the ability to do so fleeing from places like california, illinois, new york, connecticut, new jersey, because of high taxation, and they're flying to where i live. i moved here 14 years ago from colorado. it was still somewhat reasonable, but the thing i really wanted to say is, you know, we hear a lot of talk, and people still throw this out there, and it does have some merit, but i disagree with it, and that is i vote for the person, ok? independents like to use that trope that i'm going vote for the best woman or man for the job. and i disagree with that whole heartedly. years ago when i lived in

colorado, there was a talk show host there, and i think he's still there, but i don't think he's full-time. his name is mike rosen, a conservative, makes no bones about it. and he convinced me through his writing and his approach to politics, and he's a bright guy. in our system of government, party trumps person. the reason for that is self-evident. the majority party in a state house or in congress sets the legislative agenda. you've got to control the majority of the house that you're in, the bicam ral house, whether it's the house or the senate or whatever, to even get nything done whatsoever. the parties also have staked-out territory. if you believe in the trite sandeep bear arms, if you believe in smaller government, you're generally going to lean towards the republican side,

though they haven't done much for controlling spending, this, that, and the other. that's what i'm just going to toss out there. you guys can kick it around however you want to, but i firmly believe that party trumps person. thank you. host: on that, do initiatives often come about because of a lack -- i'm not exactly sure how to phrase this, are they generally of a partisan bent coming out of legislature, or is it more of this is something we need to put on the ballot because we can't get it done through the legislature? guest: when legislatures make referrals, usually there has to be some sort of majority consensus to put something on the ballot. as for the citizen initiative part, those may be very partisan, but they also may be topics that don't follow along traditional partisan lines, so one that i think is near colorado, there's an effort to reintroduce gray wolves to the

state, just the western part of the statement i know people on both sides of the aisle who support it, and i know people on both sides of the aisle who oppose it. so ballot measures themselves don't necessarily fall in one party's camp or the other. actually, this is a good point to mention, because i like the laboratories of democracy point that the caller was making. only 24 states actually allow citizen initiatives. this is not a process that's available to all states. voters in 24 states can use the citizen initiative process. a few more use the people veto popular referendum. but for the most part, across the country, the questions that voters will see will come from legislatures themselves. so there will be some sort of majority consensus behind at least putting this question to voters. host: i want to ask you about one that could have nationwide implication. this is "the wall street journal" reporting, their headline, inside uber and door dash's push to win the most expensive race in california

history. uber, lyft and door dash are spending tens of billions of dollars and flooding voters with messages in a neck-and-neck battle to preserve their current business model in california. let's see some of the ads from that ballot initiative race in california. >> just like that t. when the covid virus hit, everything shut down, including my full-time job. now i'm table pay my sandrent help our community by connecting local restaurants with customers. that's why i support prop 22. 22 protects the ability of drivers like notice continue working as independent contractors. saving hundreds of thousands of jobs and helping small businesses who really need our services, especially now. please join me in voting yes on 22. >> uber, lyft, instacart and door dash wrote proposition 22 to create a special exemption for themselves from california law that requires app-based companies to provide basic protections to workers am now they're spending more than $1

hundred million on prop 22 to boost their profits by designing their drivers' trite a minimum wage, paid sick leave, and safety protections. no on prop 22. host: what is it ball in california? guest: i mentioned this earlier am that's an effort to reclassify workers for app-based transportation companies like uber, door dash, and lyft, so that they are independent contractors and not employees. that will come with several different consequences, and this is in response to a bill that the legislature passed not too long ago that required that those workers would be employees. so the effort on people's ballots right now, prop 22, is to just change that classification for those app-based transportation drivers. i mentioned earlier, this is one of the most expensive ballot measures in american history. millions and millions of dollars is being spent, and

it's also a measure where the idea of the citizen initiative gets a little, i guess, foggy, since it's not necessarily an individual citizen or an individual voter who's pursuing this particular measure, it's big companies, big corporations like uber, door dash and lyft. sometimes the citizen initiative may actual have the support from things beyond citizens. host: and the "wall street journal" reports those companies, and we mentioned uber, door dash and others have spent $2 hundred million n. terms of national implications, all things like this, is it potential, do issues like this sometimes catch on like a marijuana legalization in terms of ballots in future, ballot issues in future election. guest: absolutely. i think ballot measures are where we can kind of see what's hot, what's trending, and this is the first time there's really been any sort of app-based transportation gig worker measure, so i would not

be surprised if we found more of those in the future in other states. host: now michigan on the democrats line. caller: hello. i just wanted to know if there's ever any hope of getting ballot initiative to put some restrictions on robo callers. host: restrictions on robo calls. any initiatives like that on any state, in any state this year? guest: not this year. and i'm not sure there's ever been any on robo calls in particular, but it seems like it would be possible. every state's laws are around the citizen initiative process, around what legislatures and deaths referring to voters vary . but it's highly possible that that could be something that we see. i think we're seeing more and more technology-related measures, so robo calls would

fit with that. host: a real change ahead likely in mississippi. the voters' guide, what to know about the state flag question. voters in that state, the magnolia theme in god we trust flag up for election in -- up for approval, i should say, in the state of mississippi. let's go back to calls, arizona, republican line. go ahead. milton in arizona, go ahead. caller: yes. host: you're on the air, go ahead. if you can, take yourself off speaker so we can hear you a little better. go ahead. aller: ok. yeah, i have a question but it was more targeted to your last guest. the scholar, if you will. i was just wondering,

independent contractors as opposed to employees. isn't the reason that they are if they become t because

independent contractors, isn't it a lot easier for them to void paying taxes? there would be tax implications depending on how the employees or independent contractors are classified. it seems mostly that this proposition 22, that this measure is in direct response to a bill that the legislature passed, which would require workers be classified as employees. voting, paid ce family leave, and a red state boon in legalized marijuana. where's the legalized question coming up, and what are they

proposing? guest: that is in oregon. and it would be the first state to legalize this, and this is aurnt auspices of health department, so we can think of it as oregon, decriminalizing it, and so would d.c. those are both questions at least put to voters, and we'll see in just a few days what they decide. host: did oregon likewise in a previous election, in a previous initiative, legalize marijuana? guest: i think so. actually, like i said, i'm not the marijuana expert, i'm pretty sure it's legal there, ut i'm not 100% certain. host: walter in arizona, go ahead. caller: good morning. regarding the legalization of marijuana and recreational marijuana state by state, i notice there's a very big conflict of interest. you had the federal government lding this illegal, so these

zpern airs have to deal in cash, and they cannot have checking accounts or it will be seized because the federal government says it's illegal. is there a way to get a ballot on the national level which states that the federal government will acknowledge a state's decision, and that state, if it's legal by state standards, it will not be illegal by federal standards. an that be done? guest: i've not heard of a national ballot measure. in terms of legalizing marijuana or making changes on the federal level, that could be done and not have to be something that goes to voters. i'm not 100% certain. host: clifton is in north carolina, hi there. caller: yes, i'm calling in reference to a gentleman speaking on legalizing marijuana, and he was talking about the increase in car

sandks stuff like that. i don't disagree with him. for 15 years, i spoke marijuana. i never had an accident. i know quite a few people in different positions that smoke marijuana, and they smoke for different reasons. nstead of taking medications for things like pain or anxiety , they smoke a joint, and that relaxes them. host: all right, clifton, question about, we touched on voting a little bit, initiatives on voting. there are several states taking up a measure that would apply to only a citizen can vote. what does that mean? guest: these states are seeking to change the constitution, which currently says any citizen to vote to only a citizen can mean. it seems like a marijuana

linguistic change, since in the united states you need to be a citizen to vote. so these are kind of operating as get out the vote measures. you know, maybe playing on concerns that noncitizens are voting or that noncitizens would be prevented from voting. actually the one in colorado, this is in colorado, alabama and florida, would have some larger implications, which is that current in the state, 17-year-olds are allowed to vote in the primary, and if this measure torp parks the 17-year-old would no longer be able to vote in the primary. it would require that anyone who voted in the election be 18 and be a citizen. host: amanda zoch joining from us colorado this morning, elections policy specialist with the national conference of state legislatures. thanks so much for you can with us this morning. guest: thank you. host: that'll do it for "washington journal" on this sunday morning. we hope you're back here tomorrow, monday, 7:00 a.m. eastern. look forward to that. have a great weekend.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] >> are live camping coverage continues today. senator kamala harris is in georgia where she will be joined by jon ossoff. that is at 1:00 p.m. eastern. withiden attends a rally black church leaders in philadelphia at 3:00. president trump visits north carolina for a campaign rally in hickory at 4:45 p.m. eastern. watch live on c-span, online on g, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. looknight, on q and a, a

at election ballots and security. state thatmay be a could be called by 10:00 or 11:00 on election night if they count all of the early voting quickly. three other states that could be determinative in the selection have to -- in this election have policies on how fast they can count absentee ballots. >> i think cyber security experts are less concerned about the threats to vote counting than they have been in years past, and that is a really good thing because of the increase in paper records and coordination among states and federal government. there are a lot of reasons to feel good, that this election will be better. >> mail-in ballots and election security,