line, that's the way it's got to be. it is voter id and nothing else. guest: i am glad you have that experience when you can drive 10 miles and you don't have all the barriers. every one should have that same opportunity, the ease with which you talked about voting. it should be the ease by which every citizen should cast about. that's the thing that will protect this. host: for more information about the fight for voting rights by the naacp, go to naacp.org. you can follow on twitter as well. derrick johnson

>> washington journal continues. host: ken cuccinelli is here and national chairman of the election transparency initiative and the acting deputy secretary and the trump administration. let's begin with your view on these two voting rights bills that president biden and democrats have been pushing this week. ken: they are both enormous. they are both designed, in different ways, basically, to drag election control to washington. and so my organization, the election transparency initiative opposes both of them starting with the basic fact that they amount to a washington takeover of elections that was the expectation of the founders. it is not perfect and will never be perfect, but it will be the

best system in the world. that goes away if either of these bills pass into law. and vociferously speak openly about how washington needs to step in to stop the states from running these elections themselves. the most recent form of hysteria is because of election reform laws. if you just look at hr one, it has been introduced in one form or another for years and years. in very much the same form. this is not new because of 2020. it is not new because of the election reforms that a few states have done in the last year. this is a long-standing effort by the most left-wing part of the democrat party for a washington takeover of elections. the elements of the bills,

getting rid of voter id, registering noncitizens to vote, making it legal effectively for them to vote in our elections, these are things that americans that when they understand they are in the bill, they don't agree with it. on the other side -- host: keep going. ken: if you take the politics out of elections if you can imagine such a thing. and by that i mean the administration of elections. and you talk to 100 random americans about what they think make up the good elements of a well-run election, we overwhelmingly agree that you have to prove who you say you are. even vice president harris said that last summer in an interview which means voter identification . which means voting in person or

early voting. people agree that you should have transparency. ordinary citizens should be able to see the process from beginning to end. there is overwhelming agreement that we should know who are on our voter rolls. it's one of the weakest parts of the entire system and every state is the low quality of the maintenance of the voter rolls. many states are doing it. it is being done in some places on a bipartisan basis which is better for america. and in large part, because of the 2020 election, the two sides, politically, have tended to line up. and this has become more partisan then i wish it were. host: sticking with the voter id laws, you mentioned hr one.

senators mansion and senator amy klobuchar came forward with a compromise called the freedom to vote act and that is what president biden has been pushing this week. the freedom to vote act adopts a different approach of voter id. it requires any state with a voter id requirement to accept any form of id accepted in west virginia including utility bills and bank statements. voters would have to vote in a process similar to west virginia. ken: that is washington dictating to the states. exhibit a of that example. when major league baseball was fighting with georgia when georgia passed the election reform law and they move the all-star game to denver, one of the minority owners can blackwell of the cincinnati reds pointed out to the commissioner, if i ordered tickets to the baseball game and i show up with

my utility bill that will call, you won't give me the tickets. those on the left today, they seemed very comfortable mandating that you show your papers including health papers, not just identification, to go to a restaurant. and we all know minorities have gotten the shots at a lower rate and i hear no complaints or concerns about the loss of access for minorities. real identification that is verifiable and understandable in each state like a driver's license though not exclusively so is much more appropriate. a photo id is a real id. anybody can fake a utility bill or a bank statement. they don't have security features that government forms of identification has.

every state that requires real identification, photo identification, provides it for free. that's the way it should be. i strongly support that. and it is an appropriate access element. the fact of the matter is that americans of every stripe, every color, every partisanship agree that voter identification including a photo is appropriate to require across-the-board in america. so why is it just the radical left of the political world insist on watering down that requirement? host: i want our viewers to join in on the conversation. phone lines are on the screen. we are talking with ken cuccinelli, former deputy secretary for homeland security the trump administration. he's the former virginia

attorney general and served from 2010 to 2014. you heard the president and democrats argue that the state laws that have been enacted after the 2020 election suppress and subvert the vote because of who they say gets to count the vote. are there any state laws that you think have gone too far? ken: i can't think of any in the last year which is what i assume you are referring to because that is the target of the president's attacks. you have seen a banning of private money coming into government to essentially take over the government function of running elections. 10 states have banned that. i can't believe the other 40 have not. it's like being allowed to pay the referee in your basketball game. it's crazy.

those have been among the more controversial items. cleaning up the voter rolls, knocking dead people off the voter rolls. that is a federal requirement as well. there are voter role maintenance requirements if i remember correctly. the help america vote act. and those have not been followed by most states whether they are red or blue. the narrative attacks you are hearing, jim crow two point oh, even the washington post, no bastion of the right, gave for pinocchio's to the president for the assertions that he made. and he did it again in georgia this last week. he doubled down even though the liberal washington post has said it is a lie. it is completely untrue. for people old enough to remember actual segregation, i

know virginia's history. virginia and other states used the law to try to keep lack citizens from voting. that is a real history that we have to be sensitive to and distill on the books with section two of the voting rights act. it is illegal under federal law and it can be prosecuted and should be where it occurs. and it does still occur here and there. it's not just southern states. it's appropriate the voting rights act applies everywhere. what is not appropriate is the attempt to require states to get permission from federal bureaucrats before making any change to those election laws. the narrative attack that comes from the left of voter suppression and so forth, it goes all the way back to the early thousands. this is not a new ad hominem attack but that is what it is.

it gets weaker and weaker every year as voting is made easier than ever before. as you and i are talking, it is easier to register and easier to vote for every legal american voter today than it has ever been in american history. and that isn't changing. we are improving systems in some states so that you can rely on and see what's happening. it's not an accident to the organization i leaders called the election transparency initiative. our goal is transparency because we believe if people from both sides, whoever wins and whoever loses, and maybe three sides and some races -- if they can see everything happening, they can have more confidence in the outcome. we have seen increases in transparency whether it is audits which are sometimes controversial. it's good to think in terms of

future elections instead of past elections. you want things to work well in the 2024 election, let's say wisconsin, a perennial swing state. we don't know who is going to be in that race. we don't know the outcome. by putting these things in place beforehand, they are as if someone is refining an election. that is not the goal of these election reforms. 2020 is behind us and it is time to look forward. host: elbert in chicago, democrat caller. guest: good morning -- caller: good morning. i just wanted to mention that while you are on here talking about the democrats assault on state's rights, georgia right

now has purged all of its black members from the county election boards. they did not do this in 1961, they did this in 2021. so this is why the government has to get involved in these elections because states are abusing their rights. ken: so the assertion made is not accurate. but let's pretend that that hypothetical played out. and that georgia knocked all of the black members off of the electoral boards off of those boards. section two of the voting rights act which attorney general merrick garland made very we are that he is very ready to be aggressive about prosecuting, would be triggered.

that would be clear voting rights act. that is the law today. it is still in full force and effect. the only thing that doesn't exist that some on the left would like to see is a process called preclearance. in chicago, they did not deal with preclearance where albert lives. but in virginia, we did. that meant every single change to anything in our election system. literally if we move a precinct from a local school to a local theater, it had to be approved by federal bureaucrats. what they did with that is every opportunity they got to hold a change over our head became an opportunity on their part to negotiate how the system worked to try to control what went on in the state rather than simply make sure that we want to discriminating.

that is part of the goal of the amendments to the voting rights act. you mentioned hr one. that would be hr four, the john lewis voting rights act he had the purpose of that bill is to reinstate this entire structure for preclearance. not just for southern states but the whole country. host: i want to read an editorial. georgia is among the states that effectively allow state lawmakers always under the control of one party or the other to appoint a hand-picked board that can take control of local elections in the event of a controversy or questionable activity. that is dangerous and undemocratic. the law shortens early voting and reduces the number, visibility of, and accessibility of drop boxes. restricting voter access disadvantages black voters. ken: it is true that right now,

republicans control the house, senate, and governorship in georgia. but there is nothing that says that will always be the way things are in georgia. you don't have to go back to far for that not to be the case. and if you look around the country, if similar programs are implemented, we have many split states. north carolina, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan. and there are no guarantees that either party will retain control . in most states in america. in virginia, we just saw kratz lose c

kind to be linked to ballast harvesting as an issue. the ability to collect costs put pressure on people to vote the way collect once about rather than independently. how they might vote on their own. different things are referenced in there, and i would suggest that leaving any drop boxes is an element of insecurity in an election. georgia has much more early voting to most of the states in the northeast. that is the usual comparison because in a federal level, it tends to be where the centers are complaining about it. i was in a hearing and in no witness in connecticut, and he

was complaining about georgia shortening early voting days, and i asked why connecticut has zero. needless to say, he was a little bit stymied by getting asked a quietness by a witness. you know, early voting doesn't equal access. even expert witnesses call it convenience voting. it is for convenience. there's a lot of agreement on election day for federal holidays, and i think that is something the left and right might agree on to make election day accessible. i am not suggesting that we would ever get rid of all or early voting, because we could offer people what they need to accommodate the schedule. it is the most appropriate ballot -- balance, i think to provide convenience, as experts call it, and securing elections. of course, this is all without

even touching on mail-in voting. >> let's get to everett. grand junction. republican. >> good morning. the main part of my question here is about people who passed away and the -- are they able to vote. how do you determine they have passed away and they are no longer eligible to vote. there was a gentleman, an attorney-at-law, from nevada i believe. he was back in 2020. he brought this up. i wrote down the statistics, and he was trying to prove it in front of congress. he said that at least 1500 dead people voted, according to the social security records. he went through a whole list of statistics. he swore in front of congress that his research showed that there was election violations in

nevada. i listed a bunch of them, and they're just too many to mention, but i guess to address -- how do you verify that people are citizens. how do you verify that they are boding ok, and they are still alive. how do you verify that they have at their bow they passed away? they may have passed away a day or hour later. >> well. let's start with your last question. that does happen. one of the things that can happen with early voting is john doe votes on october 1, dies on october 15. ballots get counted on november 3. at the time of the count, most state laws indicate you have to be alive on election day. that is for your vote to count. how do they spot it. the practical answer, that is for a tight window, and i'm not

aware of any state that is figuring out who those people are right now. you can look at georgia, and you will find hundreds of people in a similar situation. you mentioned nevada. i have to pronounce it correctly. that is a challenge. you also mentioned the social security administration database. that is a very commonplace that state governments look to confirm death. the real question is how often do they do it. when they find someone has died, do they actually remove them from the voting rules. it is led by christian adams, and it is suing michigan to remove thousands and thousands of dead people from their roles. they literally have attached page after page of obituaries and everything else. all of the records. folks are dying, and the local election officials remove -- refused to remove them from the role. why is this important? >> some of you may say they are dead. why does it matter?

names center on voter rolls that are blatant, and are not active, they can be used by cheaters to vote not in person. it is one of the biggest problems with security in every state of the country. the lack of equality -- data quality, of this voter role itself. it is a tremendous weak point. the social security administration is one place that the government looks to identify that. their own departments of vital statistics typically, there is some expectation that will be checked briefly. obviously, we are looking for names of people who have passed away. i would tell you that most states, that does not happen regularly. when it does, they are very reluctant to remove those dead folks from the voter rolls. that is a real attentional problem when it comes to the

potential to perpetrate fraud. you have an even tougher question. how do you identify citizenship. really, the way that happens, the only way this happens, systematically, that is when you vote, taking a box saying you are a u.s. citizen. i was just in arizona, and efforts have been made by that democratic secretary of state to not make that statement have legal consequences. what do amoebae that? we all signed government forms that affirm we are a citizen under penalty of perjury. she remove the penalties. it was attestation to a limited potential for criminal liability. even though, you have to be a citizen, to vote in federal elections. by law. many on the left are taking steps to make it impossible to police that.

there is not a citizenship database. there are databases and the federal government that saved database that can help you identify people who are not citizens. but that sort of proves a negative. only a few states, nevada, texas, have to my knowledge taken advantage of the database, which is a federal database that deals with people, for instance, who are seeking citizenship. iran, illegal in minute gratian -- a legal immigration agency. if you are not in that database, they are not automatically a citizen. you can be here legally, and they don't get caught up. the only real way is to ask for a certificate for the united states or a citizenship certificate for those who become naturalized citizens. only a few states really utilize that. >> you'd -- judy in delaware,

independent. >> hello. good morning. i think here in delaware, we seem to be doing very fine with how we vote and the lack of early voting and in person voting. it seems to work for us. i don't understand why everyone is all up in arms with some of the southern states or other states and the losses. massive early voting. it causes convoluted and confusion. but like you say, maybe it is for convenience. the state of delaware actually has been able to do it. other states, new jersey, connecticut, i don't know what or why there is an issue here. to comment, on the individual

that was talking about the 800,000 that was being for green heart holders. why is that a problem? it is a problem because it is against the constitution. in my not correct? >> you are correct. federal law, as it relates to federal elections. you are correct. states are given the authority to choose to let whoever they want vote. the federal government does not govern that. people are technically not supposed to vote in federal elections, but one of the problems is how do you really segregate those folks out from a federal election if you're going to let 800,000 noncitizens on to your voter rolls. we have not seen that elections run so smoothly in our and people are on top of things. they can distinguish between a u.s. citizen, and a noncitizen.

people who are supported lucidly -- supposedly legitimately on the voter rolls. i have no illusions that those 800,000 people are somehow not going to be voting. many of them are voting in federal elections. i think that is largely a fiction. you are seeing people challenge on the constitutional basis. that is as an equal protection violation for u.s. citizens among other challenges. i think we are going to hear more on that subject, largely because your city, they took the action they did. there are small towns in vermont and parts of the country that have voted to give noncitizens the ability to participate in their local elections. new york city is sort of the baker kahuna in this whole discussion now. the hundred pound gorilla. i think it is certainly going to draw litigation and the very question you raised, is this constitution under the federal constitution? it will be addressed.

i do not know whether it will go to the supreme court anytime soon or not, but i do think this question has been raised now to allow pearl -- has been raised to a level never before seen. in many states, legislators have worried that it will happen anywhere in their state. there have been state constitutions that bar it's under any and all circumstances. there is a counter debate. a counter argument being made in different states. this is where you choose to stay tuned because this will develop over the next two years with the timing of litigation and how that typically goes. two to three years. more there on early voting, and the fact that delaware does not have it in your system. it runs fine anyways. i would note that one of the most significant advocates, the most experienced advocate against early voting in america

is the now retired secretary of state of new hampshire. the longest-serving secretary of state in american history. bill gardner. he is a democrat who has been elected by the legislature. that is how they do in new hampshire. both democrat and republican legislatures, no matter which party has control since 1976 they have elected to continue with him as the secretary of state with the simple reason that they believe he has been doing a great job. he will tell you that avoiding early voting makes election day special. avoiding early voting allows for a cleaner elector. avoiding early voting avoids overburdening logistical challenges that your local election officials have to absorb and contend with. he thinks that the new hampshire system, without early voting, it

works spectacularly well. he would be the first to make the statement that if you had some reason you can't get to the polls, there would be a combination for that. mail-in voting, absolutely with used absentee voting. i don't know one on any part of this debate that doesn't support the continuation of the availability of mail-in voting for people who are sick or have moved away from their polling for the locality on election day. those kinds of things. your experience in delaware, you are not alone. there are people all over the country who do not have early voting, no excuse early voting available. they believe their elections run just fine without a -- it. but i would not say that the very first presidential debate, it occurred after voting had begun in many states. i can tell you a someone who has been a candidate five times, you have to target what you're trying to communicate to voters.

this is what i'm going to do. if you elect me to act. you have to target that from election day, backwards. we have all sorts of different early voting schedules. that becomes very difficult to do in those national elections. >> let's to otis in detroit, michigan. a democrat color. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> will go to a republican. >> hello. how are you doing? works just fine. a question mark >> it is very simple stop the cheating with people living in one or more's vote. everyone has a social security number. a thumbprint, and eyeball print. if everyone was tied into a federal computer system, anyone who showed up with more than one thumbprint, social security or i print, they would be just qualified. this is something that could've been done along time ago. it should've been done along time ago.

everybody only has one each of those. >> take that point. >> you are talking about using biometrics. that is absolutely correct. the technology exists to describe what you are describing. but there are major privacy concerns with going the direction you are describing, particularly in a federal database. it is true that almost all u.s. citizens, but awfully close, have a social security number. noncitizens, by the way, they can have a social security number. if you are here illegally over the long-term. you would, if that were all one big database, yes. you are correct. as a gateway to voter identification, thumbprints, it would accomplish what you say. but i do think, i and many others, we have concerns about

putting all of the information in one place. for no other reason then, when government has information, they use it for other things. it also gets away from state run elections. last year, we are noting it one federal database, there are other ways to get close to that. it is what you call a ballot on demand. you use a personalized left only, meaning the guy who called in, qr code. barcode. it means only you have it on your ballot. i'll use ken cuccinelli in virginia as an example. i could have a personalized ballot printed. there would be only one in all of virginia. the simple question of using barcode technology. it identifies it as a ballot. if i show up and they say your ballot has already been voted, well then we know there is something going on. we know there is a problem.

it allows us to kind of run that down backwards 200 down. there are ways we can individualize ballots without having to use metrics. our lives go secure? no. not quite. but they don't involve the kind of privacy concerns that arrive we stock -- start talking about biometrics. >> can is in virginia. a democrat color. >> hello. >> morning. >> good moring. listen, ha ha. good morning. a couple questions, and this is something i need to have addressed. in 2016, former president trump said if he didn't win, it was weight -- rate. he won, so it wasn't rigged. in 2020, he said if i don't win, it's rick. so he lost, so it's rick. i don't understand how you can say if i don't win, someone else's sheeting. that is the first thing.

the second thing is it is so hard to defraud and have a collaborative effort for the whole yard states. to defraud on election day. you walk in, you give them id, and they vote. that is it. the last thing is, if you didn't win, if you one in 2020, do you think the republicans and the republican states would have changed the voting law. they have been going crazy over this. thank you. >> i don't think we are going actually crazy. i don't think others are, although i think there might be some people include that category. 20/20 is sloppy and so many places. i don't think it would have mattered who won or lost, whether you saw voting reform going on. i would point back to bush v gore in 2000. the whole race turn on florida. the outcome never changed in

florida, bush gore in florida and every round of that count, but we all learned is how horribly run system they had. what happened after bush v gore, george bush was sworn in as president. set a policy the aside. the florida legislature for years, followed that election. they talked about cleaning up the system. it was legislating for years. they wanted to fix problems, identify in 2000, and those problems have been there for. it was the intention of bush v gore and the contest that brought them out of their stupor and made election reform a priority. the winners went about fixing their system as best they could, including firing some people who were not doing a good job. you are seeing a lot of that happen whether you consider it for the winners or losers.

it is in states all over the country. i would point out in some places, this is bipartisan, and in kentucky, the democrat governor signed off on an entire package of election reform. it is only as part of the discussion that i think of 2020 that this is becoming so politicized. this is a process by which we run elections. of course, your comment about declaring an election rate beforehand, it is not holding up. it is about voters, leader voters, having the chance to express themselves with their vote. that is where the chips fall. the idea is with election reform, you have more confidence in what you are seeing is how the system is supposed run. rules are not changing in the middle, and by the way, and 2020, this was a big problem.

changing the rules in the middle of an election is a very big -- bad idea. it shatters confidence before you ever get to an outcome. it does start to look rate. i would just note that from a point standpoint, scott rasmussen points out that after the 26 -- 2016 election, 26% of americans thought that donald trump wasn't properly elected president. after 2020, 30 1% thought joe biden was not properly elected president. i have a funny feeling that those two groups of 57% of electric do not overlap. there might've been partisan bias and how those folks answer questions. the challenge for us is to make a system so good in every state that even the losers can see that they were treated fairly, and the rules were followed in that election. in that state. that is the goal we should have. to work towards together.

>> european, did president fight and win in the election in 2020? >> i think there were a lot of problems in 2020, but in a norma smith. more than ever before an election. but i don't think the final outcome was changed because of those problems. i can say that i think in nevada, arizona, georgia, there were more people who were casting votes, including some of the dead people we've been talking about. supposedly. that was more than the margin of victory. that does mean -- does not mean that every vote went to joe biden, and therefore the outcome would've been different had we will never know that. one of the important things about maintaining election security is that once the ballot goes into a ballot box.

individual mail-in ballots, any opportunity to correct with that does to make it count wrong, it can't be fixed. at least without having a whole new election. judges are people as well. if you want to go before a judge and asked them to rerun a presidential election, i cannot imagine how or what kind of burden that is on a judge. i don't mean gee, i have to do might earn. i mean the weightiness of that decision. that is an awful lot to ask. it is why it is so important that we secure elections on the front. we don't have to contend with these problems. not in a very sort 567 week time limit. after an election is over. president trump claimed that there were 10,315 dead georgians. in the november election. the going to the constitution, let's take a look at that

claimant others. the secretary of state office investigate and found for dead voters. >> the whole reason we have things like a court process, is so that people can make their claims in advance their evidence. the reality is, to my last point, election date is on november 3. through certification of electoral college on december 14. that is maybe six weeks in between. i can tell is a former attorney general 25 years. that is not enough. there is no way to prove each of those cases because every to the one of those allegations is a case unto itself. a voter fraud. with the investigation, with the trial. with the proof. the logistics of it accomplishing at in the time we currently are using to certify elections cannot be practically done.

we have to clean up our voter rolls. every state needs to do that. we need to be taking steps to make our elections transparent from the beginning. secure all the way through. some of that, we have left our left to let -- less -- last to argue about. i don't want to suggest we never get rid of any concerns at all, but however the more we whittle that down, and in the process of the election, the better off america will be from a stability and confidence standpoint the outcome of all of our elections. >> one last quick phone call. a quick answer. ken cuccinelli. in somerset kentucky, independent. go ahead. >> in 2016, elected officials from 6% of the voters were 50 years old. at the time it would've been 71. the country's life expectancy of 77. you can imagine how many of those voters have passed away by 2020. on the democrat side, over 50%

of the voters were over 50 years old, a large portion was 18 to 24. in 2020, you can imagine how many 14-year-olds voted. 18 or under. and in 2020, they voted for him. i think that is something everyone ignores. i hope you have a great day. >> certainly, every election, with age -- different age groups, they go different. they change their views. i've changed my views on issues like the death penalty and other things. that happens as people go through life. as they own a home, and have children. their views change. so, i don't look at any outcome of any particular election of how people vote as casting some iron cast

individuals continue to learn and evolve their own thinking and that changes who they vote for and how they think america can be made better going forward into the future. collectively, our elections are about deciding that as a people and to do it peacefully. we need to do it securely and we need to do it transparently and those are improvements that every state needs to make and i'm proud to be part of that process. i'm also glad to see that washington isn't likely to be taking over elections very -- anytime soon. that is important for the evolution of elections. my last comment is from my homeland security days. i will tell you that in the last election, part of my job as deputy secretary was dealing with potential for foreign interference. and if you have an election system run by washington, it's a lot easier for outsiders to crack that and manipulate outcomes then it is when we have 51 state elections plus the district of columbia. that makes it more difficult to

do. nationwide efforts are more difficult when you have 51 election systems than one national election system. host: ken cuccinelli is now the chair of the election transparency initiative. you can learn more about the organization if you go to electiontransparency.org for more. thank you for the conversation. ken: good to be with you. host: we will take a break and rap with your top news stories of the week. the supreme court yesterday announcing they oppose president biden's vexing mandate for large employers but they kept in place mandate for certain health-care workers and you had the voting rights debate that has happened all week and we talked about that this morning and u.s.-russia tensions as russia tells u.s. officials they may be done with diplomatic talks in

the january 6 select many announcing they have subpoenas social media companies and representative kevin mccarthy who says he wont cooperate with that panel. on that last story, take a look at what cnn just posted. they found and kevin mccarthy said publicly and privately in the days following the capitol riot's that president trump admitted personally bearing some responsibility. they said mccarthy share the details of the conversation with trump on a little noticed local radio interview done a week after the insurrection which mccarthy said he supported a committee to investigate the attack and supported centering it on president trump and while he made similar comments about this and other places around the same time, the radio interview

in which mccarthy has harsh words for trump and strongly condemns the violent attack, provides how the california republican has shifted his tone since the insurrection. i say he has responsibilities, mccarthy told a local radio station in bakersfield california on january 12 of last year. he told me personally he does have some responsibility. i think a lot of people do. he shared a similar account last year with house republicans during a private conference call a day earlier. here is the readout of that conference call. here's a readout from the republicans. >> mr. president, when president biden came into office one year ago, he pledged to use the power of the presidency to help everyday americans tbr