>> waiting here for the start of a discussion on election threats and security ahead midterm elections next week. we'll hear from current and former state officials. this event is hosted by the center for american progress and ask to get underway shortly. >> our first guest is mary mccord. she serves as the executive director. she also served as a former acting assistant attorney general for national security from 2016 to 2017. talk about your institute and what it does in the space of elections. guest: we stood at five years

ago. we litigate across a broad variety of areas but we have really moved into a lot of litigation related to protecting our debit attic processes and protecting -- democratic processes and protecting against political violence. particularly after charlottesville and racial justice protests in 2020 after new mexico. we are currently looking at that as part of a scheme for electors to meet his cast ballots for donald trump even though he was not the winner. in the course of doing this and also based on my own past as a federal prosecutor and national security at doj, we have gotten involved working with private researchers and public officials. >> we are leaving this to hear

life from -- here live from current and former state officials. this is hosted by the center for american progress. >> these laws make it harder to register, harder to vote by mail and all in all make it hard for americans to exercise this fundamental right. you must respond. vitally, we must do everything we must do everything we can to combat electoral subversion and interferes which i have described. the next two days are critical. we need to ensure every eligible voter has the ability to carry out there right. in the long-term, we need to continue to fight against these dangerous and regressive efforts. this means we must agree on the basic norms of democracy, the safety of elections, the peaceful transition of power and a complete condonation of any political violence. we are honored to be joined by

political leaders who have been at the forefront to protect and safeguard our democracy and right to vote. lee chapman, the acting secretary of pennsylvania and grayson, the former secretary of state for kentucky. i am going to hand things over to the cap's director. i want to take a moment to thank our panelists for their effort and leadership. they have continued to be among the leading guard in the fight to protect our democracy. >> thank you patrick. welcome to our guests and our audience in attendance for this virtual conversation today. i want to remind folks joining us that you can input questions for our guests using the q and a function at the bottom of your screen. we are going to get to other

questions later on. a week out from election day, we are excited to have this really important discussion with two bipartisan leaders who have been and are currently responsible for administering elections but also have really important voices only things we have to do to address threats to our democracy in trying to forge a way forward together. i want to welcome the secretary of the commonwealth, pennsylvania lee chapman, and former secretary of state from kentucky, grayson. thank you. let us dive right in. as you both know, election officials at the state and local levels are under tremendous pressure. a week out from election day, they have been for several years now. both because there are elements

in our country spreading this information that is confusing voters. there is voter suppression activity going on. and there is a real assault people feel under democracy. some from the last election we have seen. the president trying to pressure one of your colleagues shift and change election in georgia. i wonder if we can start this conversation having you all describe your personal experiences in administering elections and talking to colleagues under these conditions. let us start with secretary chapman. >> good morning and thank you so much, william and cap, for having me here today. we are a week out in the election officials in

pennsylvania are really dedicated to ensuring that we have a safe and secure election here. in pennsylvania, we have 67 counties. election directors in those counties execute and administer the election. one thing you mentioned is unfortunately, since the 2020 election, with pepsi a slew -- we have seen a slew of misinformation around our election in pennsylvania. a lot of it is centered around pennsylvania mail-in voting because the commonwealth did not get mail-in voting until 2018, a lot later than other states who have been used to that culture of mail-in voting. we have also seen a slew of new legislation death litigation. there were over a dozen lawsuits in 2020 and 2022. since 2020, counties have been

inundated with a lot of right to know request which are publix records requests. counties are dealing with all of this at the same time as executing an election. because of the strain and stress of many counties, and we have seen over 15 million election directors in pennsylvania counties leave their jobs since 2020. we have seen -- some have been from planned retirement or changes in jobs but unfortunately, some people have left their roles because of the threats. threats to themselves and their employees or their family. this really has no place in democracy. there should not be threats against frontline election workers who are doing their jobs to make sure every eligible voter can cast a ballot. these are your friends and neighbors trying to do their jobs. we are doing everything we can to support counties and election

directors that are somewhat new to the role. this may be the first election they are actually administering and executing. at the department of state, i have been here since january, and my role is to ensure that they are following the law, to issue guidance, to clarify any questions people may have about the electoral process. we actually meet with them. it was a biweekly basis but right now it is almost a daily basis to make sure they have the tools they need to execute a safe and secure election. one thing we have been doing since 2020 is partnering with our federal agencies and state law enforcement agencies. we have had extensive tabletop exercises with the counties and the department of state to ensure that counties have the tools to protect themselves against threats and also to identify if there are any

insider threats as well. to have training on de-escalation and also cybersecurity. it is something that we are continuing to provide counties with to make sure they have those resources. >> i want to plus one everything that secretary chapman said. i have been around election administration for around 20 years now. around 20 years ago, i was starting to think about my campaign for secretary of state of kentucky. it was elected in -- i was elected in 2003. while in kentucky, we are in a different space and have not been in a battleground and we do not have a big governor's or u.s. senate race. we have a senate race but most analysts deem it to not be very competitive.

what of the things that is striking to me over this 20 -- one of the things that is striking to me over this 20 years is the amount of stress and retirements of election officials. you're seeing that as well as across the country. some of it is planned but many will tell you it is not worth it and tiring and a lot of extra effort. kentucky, pennsylvania and every other state in the country are bombarded with election requests . just a few weeks ago, we got people that were requesting records because they still believe, falsely, that the 2020 election was tampered with. it is because historically we have to keep records for 22 months. people across the country did not know what they were doing but they still asked.

some are well-intentioned but misguided. others will -- were action. things like that, we never have to worry about that before. we have always had record opportunities in requests but never in such large amounts at such a critical time for elections. i will say one piece of good news because i always like to try to add a piece of good news to this conversation. two years ago we were trying to figure out how to administer an election amidst a pandemic prayer we did not have vaccines and we had offices being close because somebody had covid. everyone was working in close contact. there was fear of what if this happened right before election day or early voting started or while trying to process absentee ballots. while covid is obviously still around, that is one positive thing we are not facing right now. but the rise of disinformation,

sparked mostly by president trump and folks who followed him, we are still battling cybersecurity issues that came to the forefront in 2016 when there was russian interference in our election. fortunately, there is some good news there as mentioned. there is a lot more cooperation with federal agencies in the lead of helping state and local officials with their cybersecurity and defenses. i would also add that one thing i think is helpful is programs like this, most news outlets, all the national news outlets have reported on administration issues and can help tell a story, help set expectations for voters and policymakers. and local radio and local television, local newspapers and websites, are also covering elections more. i think that will help voters figure out what they can believe and what are the actual rules and where they can go for

trusted information. that has been a nice improvement so i appreciate the partnership we have been able to develop with the media and other groups that did not necessarily step in. i was watching my bangles lose to the browns last night -- bengals lose to the browns last night. they were talking about how many nfl stadiums are opening up for polling places. there are a lot of new stakeholders stepping up to the plate to which are all good beings that shined in little positive light in some of the darkness. >> that is really good to hear. as a good philadelphian, i am happy about seeing my eagles take a different trajectory. i am going to pick up where you all took us both on digging more into disinformation and violence. it is really good to hear this coordination happening and going

on because especially on the disinformation front, it feels often that it is such a huge problem to wrap our arms around because it is. we know the secretary of state played a critical role. a row that had not necessarily been imagined as it is today years ago and pushing back on the combating misinformation and disinformation. can you talk more on what that she talked, secretary grayson, about the information being shared. i am wondering, as to all focus on elections administration at the local level, what kind of two-way information sharing do you all have on the ground? what role is the federal government playing? as an addendum, what more can the federal government doing?

we know just this morning the national state of legislation directors put out a statement about what efforts are being taken to combat what they expect to be an uptick of misinformation and disinformation. talk more about with the coordination looks like in some additional things that perhaps the federal government can step in and do. then i will come back and asked a question about another topic related to election violence. >> i think he wanted me to go first. there needs to be a nice division of labor on election administration. in most states, we are making policy and providing guidance and training and setting standards. we are also interacts with the federal government. i think the secretary state director can play a really big role in helping locals so let me

brag about our current state. mike put together on his website an faq of things that people have heard on this -- mistruths and then putting the troops right below them. which was great about that was for county clerk in kentucky can ask questions and you may be able to answer some. but maybe you cannot and you can say go check out this website. the look there and then come back if you have any questions and i can talk about that locally. that has been a good resource for locals to use. federal officials can do the same thing from their level. i thought that was a great thing to explain. another thing that happened is many of our legislators are bringing county clerk to testify during informational hearings. we have a part-time legislature for -- so for the rest of the

year, they hear topics can do deeper dives and things they cannot do in the heat of the section. our clicks have come to talk about our risk limiting program and gave feedback about how the primary went and what they hope for the general. this served as an opportunity for legislators to ask about this. like "i heard this", can you tell me if it was true or false? i think the cybersecurity, before the 2016 election, we had such silos that election officers did not often have appropriate security clearance to find out what was happening in their own state. the feds could maybe talk to the teach security officer but that person could not share it with the secretary of state or a local official that we heard about this threat and a receipt because they did not have proper security. . he solves that problem -- we

solved that problem. that coordination did not exist eight years ago. it is really important because it is a team effort. it happens because one county or when state impacts everybody else because of the perception of a problem within an election which impacts the trust folks have all kinds of other jurisdictions. >> thank you for that. >> yes. i agree. the biggest challenge that we are facing right now, and we the election, is misinformation and disinformation in pennsylvania. we have really seen an uptick recently. a lot of it is related to mail in voting. the fact that we do not have pre-canvassing in pennsylvania. in the commonwealth, election officials are only able to start

opening mailing or absentee balance at 7:00 a.m. on election day. this is the same time that they are running an election -- 13 our election day at the polls from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. that is why it is hard for us to count because during those 13 hours, that is when voters can start scanning them but they cannot release results until 8:00 p.m. on election night. going through all those balance, we have one performing ballot requests -- we have 1.4 million ballot requests. it takes time to count all of those and manage an election. every opportunity i get, i am telling the in the public and the legislature, anyone who would listen, that is why when people always say why does it

take so long for pennsylvania to have, it is because we do not have pre-election day and pre-canvassing. one thing that we support with -- what many house support -- what many support is two weeks of pecans has not passed. this is why folks like florida can have results on election night. this is something we are continuing to advocate for. as this is knowing, that is an opportunity for people to spread misinformation and disinformation about the voting process. we are seeing this already. as i am trying to manage updates about the count, this -- we see people saying there is something nefarious happening. but is not. it is important we are not rushing the vote and that counties are doing their job.

two makes were every eligible vote is counted. that is one thing we are seeing in the trend of misinformation. there was also misinformation about the balance going out without -- ballots going out without verifying id. if a voter does not provide their ideas or their last four digits of their social security, the county sends it out but the voter has six days to present identification. one thing we are doing is we see these trends. we are having media education briefings with local and national media to help the others nation and make sure they have truthful information from the source. we are working with fact checkers like reuters and ap. we are referring all of these trends. we also have a good feedback loop with our federal partners. we have report -- we report

misinformation and disinformation to social media companies. we also have trainings with department of homeland security cisa, with the 67 counties on misinformation and bad ballots. the main thing is we are really utilizing our social media platforms, our platform as far as media education, just so the 8.8 million registered voters in pennsylvania actually have the accurate information and they can go to us in the department for the trusted source of information. >> thank you both for sharing this. it is good to hear that the coordination -- hear about the coordination. the other thing you both raised in your introductions is what is sadly on and lots of americans's

vines. the rise of political threats and violence. both associated with elections but also just associated with our civic lives. we saw certainly the attack of speaker pelosi's husband recently and we know of threats that have been made to elected officials, elections officials, poll workers. we talked that sheep both talks about -- you both talks about what secretaries of state are doing to make sure that folks can vote safely at the coordination you are doing at the state level and current level with law enforcement partners. both to make sure the voting process is safe and that the county and canvassing process is safe. but also, address, if you would, what this threat of violence means for our elections going forward and how you will have to

deal with it. sorry, can you start, secretary chapman? >> this is a perfect segue from what we were just talking about because the misinformation and disinformation you'll see threats to election workers at the state level and local -- fuels the threats we see to election workers at the state level and local level. we coordinate with our state and federal partners, as i mentioned before, when we get any incoming into our office, we forward it to state and federal partners. they investigate that. we refer it and encourage our counties to do the same thing. we are monitoring the situation as voting is happening right now. especially at drop boxes. we actually updated our voter intimidation guided in pennsylvania. this was to include that voter

intimidation is not only a legal in state and federal law but that also extends to drop boxes and is a new trend everybody has seen. luckily, we have not seen any intimidation like arizona but it is something we arm monitoring and we added that to our voter intimidation guidance. we are pushing out our hot line encouraging voters. of course if you are in imminent threat for danger, call 911. but we are pushing out our hotline to ensure people can call us and report these incidents -- instances. we are not wasting any time. as soon as something comes in, we are reporting it directly to state and federal. those tabletop exercises that we have had a mentioned are really critical to ensure that counties have protection they need.

one great thing the dhs's cisa does is go out to counties at their request and do physical security assessments. quite a few counties have taken them up on that offer. they have had physical security. they get recommendations as far as what they can do to shore up their security, where their machines are stored or what have you. counties have made adjustments to shore up that security based on what dhs is recommending. >> we are in uncharted waters with this. you mentioned the attack on speaker pelosi's husband. we have the neighborhood for justice kavanaugh looking for him. a couple years ago we had the shooting at republicans practicing for the congressional baseball game and went back to

than congresswoman giffords. we didn't have to worry about this in the election space, this level, the severity of violence. but the good news is it is happening while there is a good level of cooperation among federal, state and local with intelligence gathering coming out of the 2016 election. it is unusual. traditionally we had these electioneering free zones to protect folks who went in so they couldn't be intimidated or put under any duress or undue influence. and those were restrictions of a few hundred feet or so around the polling place. with people along to share their views, but when it rises to a level of intimidation or harassment, that's where your first amendment rights stops. in somebody else's right to be

able to vote without all of that steps in so we have to adapt that because their advance of election day. kentucky we just added a few early voting days. on the drop boxes. what's extraordinary about the drop boxes is i think something like eight states use them prior to the 2020 election. we have always had drop boxes. blue boxes that the usps sick or on the side. -- sticker on the side. now these are more official secure drop boxes. we know if someone's going there they have a ballot and are voting which has created an opportunity for bad actors prayed you have to provide that and we have to figure out how to use those existing laws and adapt to provide that safeguard prayed for folks who are worried about things like that, you can bring them to buildings.

they have more security. you can ask or mail things. there are ways to handle this. it's unfortunately have to live in this kind of world but in many ways we have to pay attention and see what's going on. we may have to do a little bit of that as well. my hope is that this will be that some of these safeguards will enforce a good election. we talk about these things there's always this balance. i week reading a bit of a self filling prophecy prayed we think it's risen to a serious threat. that we will run the risk of giving someone the idea they might not otherwise have had. and we need to make sure voters and election administrators can put those protections in place. it's a serious threat hopefully wake up the day of the election saying we did all of that preparation and it paid off and wait good clean election day. the of the thing i would like to note.

setting aside the resource challenge of putting law enforcement beside dropbox, that in courage victim intimidation folks don't necessarily want to have law enforcement there either. it is providing this proper balance where people feel comfortable casting their vote. that folks can exercise their first amendment rights in a way that safe and secure and that we can conduct this election the way we need to and the person about the most votes wins. >> i appreciate that from both of you. i want to shift topics slightly and one of you i think sector chapman you mentioned this at the top as well talking about so-called insider threats and folks may not know what we mean by that. we know that in particular partisan organizations and actors, but others have been for

instance aggressively recruiting those who may be conspiracy theorists are election deniers to serve in official capacities, this is sort of separate from poll workers and election officials but from poll workers and poll watchers, but in the official capacities on county commissions, election boards where these are folks that have sort of official powers over election and we know at the same time those folks are recruiting or trying to recruit sort of the everyday person, a poll worker to help administer and election in the same vein and then we also know there sort of a separate lane for partisan poll watchers that are a sensibly recruited by political parties as part of transparency measures that we know there are some the various actors again trying to

use that process to sort of recruit folks who have a particular view about elections and in many cases these organizations are priming them with some information we talked about. and sort of giving them the theory that they might have some additional powers that they don't have. for instance in arizona i know a story came out where john eastman who folks might know as a former attorney for the former president and is also being investigated by the january 6 committee in his role in advising president trump on ways to overturn the 2020 election braided we know he was encouraging folks in this vein to take some actions that may end up, we hope not, but potentially disrupting voting or provoking some confrontations the don't have to happen. in that context of what's happening, i wonder in general what to do people need to know

about the actual danger that this dynamic poses and what systems are in place internally to try and ensure that is you said the final election results are the will of the people but also the folks that are working on our elections are about the purpose that you want them set about. >> you used the word transparency which is on the most important principles on part which we build our elections. we recognize that elections have important outcomes, different the local parties, different ideologies have different perspectives on who wins and loses. so in america what we've done to try and address the concerns is to kind of bake it in. we want applicable parties and activists be playing a role in our elections even if they are

not elected but most polling places you have a relatively equal number of folks from the republican side and democratic side. to sort of -- the engagement process is usually bipartisan. you can have poll watchers which is someone who will watch the voting in most states it requires level of training so the person knows what they are seeing. you can also observe the ballot count and the election night thereafter count. so people can have confidence in the hope someone will go back and say i know we didn't like who one or we didn't like the outcome but it was fair. so we build all of that in. unfortunately that transparency opens the doors that bad actors can take advantage of. that's why we have to have safeguards like registration meaning you can to show up and say, poll watchers. there's no jurisdiction, usually after register in advance. so we know who's there and most

jurisdictions there's a requirement of some level of training so if there isn't one, i know the governor vetoed a bill that would've opened up the polling places to more poll watching but without the training and decided that is a reason for vetoing the vote which was correct. we shouldn't have people there without that level of training. again talking earlier with the dropbox. we want to make sure the voters can go in and you can see someone if someone is aggressive or intimidating voters should feel comfortable reporting that as well as the folks, that's part of their job as well. to be on the lookout for that and make sure people can vote in private and feel comfortable about that outcome. there are a lot of groups, phone number that they had, others have call in numbers people can use on social media trend report things. we can work through that. but it is disappointing that some of these systems and structures we set up to provide

that safeguard are being taken advantage of a little bit. but the flipside is we saw in 2020 republican secretary of state who voted for the republican president stand up to that president on the phone in a heated moment. we saw michigan, a lot of pressure on certification and folks doing that as well. there's so many instances of that happening. it became newsworthy and 2020 and it will become newsworthy and 2022, but hopefully we'll all be people doing the right jobs. and when they don't we have laws on the books that we can pursue and prosecute when people aren't doing their jobs and that's where the courts play big role. >> secretary chapman. >> i wanted to address the question from the perspective of insider threat. there's always been a risk of insider threats, but it's

something we are definitely taking a look at and making sure that counties have training for it because insider threats could be intentional, a poll worker or election worker that intentionally wants to disrupt the electoral process or it could be unintentional. so it could be an election official that might not have adequate training or someone who may click on a fishing email accidentally thinking it's a legitimate email and then open their county to a cybersecurity threat. we are really making sure that counties have the ability to spot those issues. we have joint exercises. making sure that any unintentional threat is addressed and that counties have the training to spot something like that. so that's something we've extensively done. as far as poll watchers and authorized representatives. in pennsylvania poll watchers of

the ones who can be inside the polling place on election day and authorized representatives are those that can view the canvas or counting of ballots. as secretary grayson mentioned they have to be, they have to apply for this in advance of election day with the county. they are bipartisan so it is a transparent process. but there are rules and regulations as far as what they can and cannot do. inside the polling place or while there observing the canvas. and if these poll watchers are authorized representatives to find what they are supposed to do, if they defy the law or the policies the county is set up, a county election directors have the ability to remove them. but it's one thing that's important is these individuals also taken oath of office. the same one i took when i was sworn in as secretary to uphold the u.s. constitution, uphold

the pennsylvania constitution and so we take that very seriously and they do have the ability to address and remove them from a situation that maybe harmful to the electoral process. >> thank you for that. just one particular follow-up because the one instance that i know we've done a lot of work on is taking a look at election certification issues. so similarly you have folks on these county boards, canvassing boards. but we know when we've seen instances from recent elections, even from primaries where officials have refused to certify election results based on nothing more than unproven false allegations in many senses. the first question here just as a baseline matter isn't that ultimately illegal to not

certified? and the second question is what can we do about that. are there other consequences that we can talk about when officials refuse to fill those roles and other ways we can get perhaps federal law enforcement to step in. secretary chapman: a recent example in pennsylvania after the primary election. as far as how the certification process works in pennsylvania, the counties canvas the votes, they count them and they are required to certify their results up to 20 days after the election. and then i certify the results. so we have two certifications. county level in the secretary of state level. what happened in the primary election was there was a court case around undated ballots.

legally cast ballots from eligible voters are a voter failed to write the data on there. and there were three counties that refused to count those ballots. so we decided we pursued litigation to order them to count them and there's ongoing litigation about that right now. so we are awaiting a decision from the state supreme court. but i think one thing that's important is we expect counties to follow our guidance. if there is a court case that comes down it's his counter these ballots, don't count these ballots based on the merits of the case we medially send in email, update guidance to counties so they have clarity on what to do. so that's a thing we expect to do. if they do not and we evaluate our options and some of those options may include litigation as was done in the primary. but we do every attempt to make sure the counties know what the

law is, the election code says. what orders say, what guidance is. there are situations where that happens and we experience that in the primary election. >> i think what secretary cap described, the more traditional problems we have with certification, the litigation took care of or maybe because of litigation there was some uncertainty. that was the more traditional kind of recertification challenges we used to have. where we have seen a little bit in a couple of other states like new mexico for example there was a county with no evidence, no litigation on their own said we do not trust the outcome and we will not certified. that's when the state stepped in and the secretary of state, i forget who the actual plaintiff was but someone stepped in from the government and said no, you do have to certify, there is

nothing that allows you to not certified. it is no law, there is nothing. there's no court order. you have to certify. the judge agreed and issued an order and the ball just to certify the race. -- issued an order to certify the race. and they did. if we do have folks coming in and saying i don't trust those machines, they are dominion or whatever. i wanted to be hand counted. some of these things we are hearing that our misinformation or disinformation. the courts can step in and force these actors. you have to do your job. it may not be criminal to not do your job, but a court can order you to do it and then if you don't do it then you are running into contempt issues and things like that. our courts have done a pretty

good job. we can disagree on some interpretations on some of these rules but on some things they are clear-cut. you have to certify. there's no reason why you can't. folks usually want -- do not want to defy a court order like that. hopefully we won't have too many situations like that but the courts are our ally in this situation and the facts are clear. in elections, the sec. described it for pennsylvania, that's a fairly normal system. some states like kentucky it's the state board of elections that does the certification. not just the secretary of state. but the description in pennsylvania is pretty accurate and the courts will step in and make sure people follow the law. >> absolutely paid thank you so much. another question for you all switching gears. the basis of our discussion is

that we really needed and are happy to hear from two bipartisan voices who have been outspoken as you all have on the ways to protect our elections. you certainly have extensive histories which i didn't go to in the beginning. i was so excited to dive into the discussion but certainly you have 20 plus years of experience in secretary chapman we know both from your work before assuming office as an advocate at a leadership conference and other locations. going back to your days at howard law. i'm curious as we look beyond this election, we are hoping everything goes well paid all of our preparations to prepare and make sure you are ready. hopefully the doomsday scenarios don't come to pass. looking long-term for the future

of our election but also the future of the health of our democracy we really think it's important that we have a basis from which folks from whatever side of the aisle or no side can agree on the manner in which we should conduct our elections, our civic discourse. some of this we talked about, whether it be issuing political violence or making sure all votes are counted. -- skewing -- eschewing political violence or making sure votes are counted. what are the ways you see us going forward collectively? if you were building scaffolding for a basis of bipartisan cooperation on elections, what are things you would want folks to be thinking about and agreeing to? i know that's a big question. starting with secretary grayson this time. sec. grayson: a bill pending

before congress looks like it has a chance to pass with the electoral count act. this is not the most profound election reform change, but it is a reaction to the january 6 -- what happened on january 6. some of the confusion so because of the problems of existing electoral count act and people trying to take advantage of that confusion of that archaic law. the senate has a bill that received overwhelming support in committee, not just token bipartisanship but everybody but i think one member voted for. i was with public and leader mcconnell at a business roundtable prayed i got a chance to ask questions so i asked of the likelihood of passage and he felt confident that something would pass and it would look similar to what the senate has done which has that support. that's an important signal to the country because of congress

were to pass that on a bipartisan way we have the senate if they get anything through that's not reconciliation has to be bipartisan bread -- bipartisan. that would help. that would leave some of the concerns and put us in a better position for 2024. i'm sure we will have a heated presidential election regardless of who the candidates are braden i hope that really comes to pass because that kind of signaling is important and doing it in a bipartisan manner. i really appreciate what my former colleagues, secretary chapman and others across the country in a bipartisan manner have been talking about these issues as well as local election administrators of all political stripes continuing to be public with their concerns with being transparent about the process works. also if we have another election

, this is odd but having an election with both parties winning and losing and people coming to grips and realizing that's the system. sometimes you get to be happy with the result and sometimes you won't be. the last general election i saw, to friends of mine were running against each other. it was a close race enter member on election night explaining to one here are the rules, they trusted me to explain the rules, here's the outcomes and here's what can happen. i was really proud of that and i think there were so many really good actors in election administration and if the public were to see the hearts and the brains of the folks doing this, they are getting a chance to see more of that, that will increase the confidence that folks have. i would start with that reform. i moderated a panel where you were speaking a couple months ago on this in d.c. so i really

hope that does pass. that would be a nice boost as we go into a presidential cycle. >> secretary chapman. sec. chapman: first and foremost, elections of the local funded. that should be the first priority on a bipartisan basis is to make sure that elections are fully funded from federal dollars and state dollars. we noticed there was an influx of funding in 2020 because of the covid pandemic, because a lot of states were implementing mail-in voting for the first time. we also saw outside funding come in from third-party organizations. that has since been banned in pennsylvania. but the state has appropriated $45 million on an annual basis to counties so they have additional funding for elections. what it's not enough.

we need to make sure we are also having robust consistent funding from the federal level because counties need to be able to plan. a lot of counties use that third-party funding the tane through with that cares act funding in 2020 to buy new equipment and in pennsylvania we were implement in mail-in voting for the first time because our law passed in 2019. so they bought machinery. they bought male openers, but everything ages. so counties need to make sure they are planning to have enough funding to hire enough staff, to make sure they are counting votes and just making sure that there election operation run smoothly. fully funding elections is important and counties are really doing more work with less funds which is something that ics problematic and we need to get ahead of that issue. also counties will have to replace their voting systems. voting systems age as well.

we did replacement in 2019 before the 2020 election. everything that's a machine or system has an end of its useful life. we are in the process of replacing our state voter registration system right now that it will have to be replaced in future years to come. that's number one. risk limiting audits. we haven't talked much about that. i think that's a place where we can get some bipartisan support on risk limiting audits of the best, they are the gold standard for election audits and this election, pennsylvania will be in amending a postelection, precertification risk limiting audit where all 67 counties are expected to conduct this risk limiting audits. it enhances confidence in the electoral system and uses statistics to ensure the outcome is accurate.

we all want to make sure that that is true. so i think having this. in other states and also enshrined in legislation moving forward is going to go a long way as i mentioned before, we need pre-canvassing. we need print -- pre-canvassing in pennsylvania. our commissioners and associations in pennsylvania support republican and democrats. at this point, everybody realizes the problem. -- as long as people are using mail-in voting -- unless we have the campus. -- unless we campus. --canvas.

sec. grayson: i agree with all three of those. in kentucky, we deal with mail-in voting. we give individuals the right to send in their ballot early if they need to. -- but those are great proposals there. mr. roberts: that is great we are getting together already. one small question i know we are coming close to time, but we talked about this a little bit. in terms of what to expect on election night areas we've gotten questions about that. and we've talked about ways you can and cannot pre-campus. and timing -- pre-campus --pre -canvas

-- what are ways that secretary of state and other officials and those in the group are getting together to think about how we organize trusted voices to be putting out the same kind of vestige to boost -- message to boost -- when results come out -- and are there other actual pieces for either of you. sec. chapman: i can start. it's hard to estimate when we will have results but we know it will take a wild. while. we do not have the rates -- we have lower turnout rates at this time. it is hard because you have

nothing to compare it to. we only have 20 midterms to compare. but we do know with the volume -- we only have 2018 midterms to compare. but we do know with the volume -- we are meeting voters where they are. -- on social media and twitter putting information about the voting process. this year, we included postelection -- committee and letting them know it takes time. let's let election officials count every vote. and we want to counter this disinformation that happened. we are seeing it percolate in the media around while it takes time for us to have our result. we have meetings with organizations as well to ensure

that they can report things to us. that we have a feedback loop also. they are pushing information to ensure voters that every vote was counted. that is the message we will be carrying and delivering to voters after the election. sec. grayson: for people like me that are no longer busy on election day. i want to encourage everyone to be engaged with your local media. on election night for example i will be in the studio for kentucky television station a statewide pbs at work -- network. that allows analysis to explain that expectations for when results will come in. if

there are problems i will be there to provide commentary about if there is an alarm or if this is normal. i think it is something for past election administrators to stand with the current and they will be really busy during the lead up through election day area and this process. mr. roberts: awesome. i really appreciate this discussion. i hope that people see the great work going on. i want to thank you all in our audience for joining us today. for more information, and to get more information about what we are doing in our upcoming events on our website ww. american progress.org. and i want to thank secretary grayson and secretary chapman for joining us in this conversation. and for addressing these issues

together. i know that we will work together on the list that you all took down. and we are working on our list as well. so stay tuned. thank you all for joining us and have a fantastic day. vote ple vote. >> this election day november 8, the control in power of congress is at stake. will republicans retake the house? can democrats regain presence in the house? watch events as they happened on tv on c-span now at. pp. find our election page at c-span.org/campaign 2022. ♪ anuncer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more, including

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