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ation and research , discussing election integrity and a recent survey about voter confidence. david, good morning. guest: thank you, great to be here. host: thank you for joining us. remind viewers of your work and the mission at the center free election innovation and research. guest: sure. we are a 501(c)(3) see nonpartisan nonprofit, center for election innovation and research was founded in 2016 and works to support election officials all over the country, red and blue states, democrats and republicans, to manage elections that voters should trust and do trust, and, of course, that is a big issue now. particularly with trusting part. even over the course of the past two decades, our elections are more secure and transparence than ever before -- transparent than ever before. host: how is the center funded? guest: we are nonprofit, so we

are funded by donations across the country. host: getting to this poll, i will show an ap article about it, it was published on tuesday, and it shows that relatively few republicans are confident that votes will be counted accurately during the 2024 presidential election. here is a breakdown of those poll results. the question, again, is how many u.s. adults are highly confident that 2024 both will be counted accurately, so even among all adults, only 44%, less than half, but 71% of democrats, 24% of independents, 22% of republicans, so not even a quarter of republicans and independents. how concerning is this partisan divide that you see in this

poll? guest: both the overall numbers and partisan divide are concerning, not just as a snapshot of where we are right now, and it is important to recognize that as we sit here today, we are merely 1000 days since the november 2020 election. during that time, well over 60 courts have considered claims that there were significant problems at the elections, and all were rejected at courts, included by trump appointed attorneys. 1000 days after the election, there has not been a shred of evidence accepted by any court in the u.s. that demonstrates any kind of significant problems or fraud. yet, these doubts persist. we just heard the national republican party chairman express the same concerns that, we know there are problems in 2020. that is false. in 2020, we had the highest turnout in american history somehow during a global

pandemic, and election officials met the challenge. it was one of the great success stories in american history, not because of the outcome but because the process worked so well. during that time, we were able to have more pre-election mitigation that clarified the rules before the election. we have more paper ballots that could be audited and verified, and we had more audits than ever before, and we had more postelection litigation to confirm the results. the 2020 election was the most secure presidential election the u.s. has ever had. 2024 will be even better. host: i want to let our viewers know they can go ahead and start calling in if you have any questions for david about election integrity or want to weigh in on the topic. again, democrats, (202)-748-8000 . republicans, (202)-748-8001. independence, -- independents, (202)-748-8002.

you can also send a text message, (202)-748-8003, or send us a tweet at --@cspanwj. you can find us on all of our social medias. we will get you in just a moment. david, let's talk about the roots. we have talked about this partisan divide. republicans are about three times more likely than democrats to say they do not think they are going to trust the 2024 election results. what are the root causes and is it fixable? guest: it is fixable. it will take time and will not be fixable right away. in the past, we have always seen a slight partisan differential and voter confidence after the election, with the winning, party be more confident than the losing one. we have seen that consistently. the overall level of confidence in the country was always relatively high. what we have seen differently in

this cycle is that the losing presidential candidate not only refused to accept the will of the people but continued to spread lies. and for those people who are in media bubbles, consuming that toxic combination of falsehoods, it sinks in overtime, and they really understood that. in 2000, we did not have that problem, in 2004, we do not have that problem, subsequently because up until 2020, the losing candidate accepted the wills of the voters, even those that are close, like in 1960, so we are seen the constant drumbeat of lies really affect the confidence of voters. that is a troubling thing because it is not just that people think that one election was stolen, but we are seeing that eventually, all people believe they are stolen and elections don't have any meaning whatsoever. that is dangerous.

that is what our adversaries, like china and russia, tried to get people in democracies to believe, and they failed generally, but now we are seeing it domestically work, which weakens american democracy. host: we are already getting lots of calls, again, talking this morning with david becker of the center for election innovation and research. let's get to some of those calls now. first up is rhonda in jersey shore, new jersey, democratic line. what is your question or comment? caller: good morning, america. my comment is about the supreme court ruling, where the trump administration and his cronies were trying to get the supreme court to allow states to overturn a newly elected electoral college to put in who they want to be president, and

all of that is squashed, and we have major new stations out here actually promoting these lies. you know, this whole thing about hunter biden is a lie, and the whistleblower is the actual culprit of dealing with the chinese. it is like trump gets to go out here and continue to live, and is never held accountable, not even by the local news stations. fox news, newsmax, thank god we shut down american news in new jersey, they cannot even go through files. we shut them down, but newsmax and fox news, after being sued for billions of dollars, they still continue to do it, and it is terrifyingly. host: rhonda, we get your point,

let's give david a chance to address this. guest: thank you. rhonda is talking about a recent supreme court decision called moore versus harper, out of north carolina, about the statewide redistricting, the supreme court ruled the legislature violated the state constitution in north carolina with a particular map. and the question posed was whether the state legislature was not subject to the checks and balances we learned about in elementary school and on schoolhouse rock, and they could do whatever they want. this is a radical theory called the independent state legislature theory. rhonda is right, it was promoted by supporters of the former president in the aftermath of the 2020 election to try to tell legislators that they could ignore the will of the people and appoint electors however they wanted, even if it was against what the people voted. what the supreme court said, and it was important in terms of establishing the guardrails for 2024 and onward, and a 6:3 vote,

said, no, that is not the case. state legislators are still subject to the checks and balances of their state court system and constitutions and estate executive, and if a losing candidate comes to the united states supreme court to expect that the united states supreme court is going to allow a state to anoint the loser as the winner of the presidential election after the u.s. supreme court said, do not bother, we will not do that. host: our next caller is in mississippi, james on the independent line. caller: i wanted to know, sir, about electoral college votes. why did the republican party insist on something that is

being disingenuous with voters? why is it that they do not understand that the popular vote is more important to them then the way they have the system set up now? that means they don't have to work hard to prove a point to the american people that their policy is right, so they do not want to have one vote, give every person one vote, so why is it that they keep saying that it is something illegal and then said, they don't show president trump's investigation, if they don't show it in front of the court to let the american people see it, i am not going to vote because i want -- even president biden. if he gets indicted and the american people need to see it, they joked about january 6 on

they had the investigation, and everything that those people said ended on january 6 retained to the conversation we are having -- pertained to the conversation you're are having, all those people said were republicans. how is it that the republican party can say some kind of scam when all it did was the administration and most of the party, he hides them. these people are not republican. we need to see more of these people, the whistleblowers or the people making these statements against him, we need to hear. the media never puts these people on. they never tell you these are republicans. they always did away with the democrats. they have two whistleblowers and the republican party gets president biden, and we found

that one was a crook. nobody is talking about that. host: james, we got your point. i think he is talking about the fact that perhaps transparency could help? he mentioned january 6. a lot of the people who testified to the january 6 committee were fellow republicans who were criticizing trump. i think he was talking about that partisanship. what are your thoughts? guest: it is true that if you look at the january 6 committee and a lot of the testimony being sought by the special counsel, it is almost entirely republicans who were testifying with factual information about what occurred. it probably also brings up a point about the electoral college which, of course, there is an active discussion going on and disagreements about whether the electoral college system we have, which only affects the presidential election, which, of course, says the electoral votes as determined by the states

decide the presidency, not the overall popular vote. whether it is a good or bad idea , and a lot of us have strong opinions on that, it is enshrined in the u.s. constitution as part of a compromise that was accepted a long, long time ago, and in order to change it, it would likely require a constitutional amendment. if the system we have, there are rules of elections that exist all across the country before the election. some of us like them and some of us do not like others, and that might differ depending upon what party you belong to or what state you live in, but they are set. i the time election day starts, we know what the rules are and we play by them. you cannot complain about the rules after the election if you do not win the election. if you have used the best field-goal kicker in the league, you cannot complain that you lost by couple of points.

you know the rules, they were clarified before the 2020 election, and those rules apply to the election. it is important. in the past, we have always had candidates who accepted that. host: we should point out, there is controversy with the popular vote and the electoral college have two different results, but in the 2020 election, biden both won the popular vote and the other touro vote, so that particular circumstance, they both lined up. guest: the 2020 presidential election was decided by the widest margin of any election in the 21st century where barack obama was not on the ballot, to put that into context. president biden won by over 7 million popular votes across the country, he won the electoral college by a relative landslide, close to it president trump won in 2016 with over 300 electoral votes in 2020, so it was not a particularly close election in terms of recent history.

we are a very closely divided election, certainly not like the election in 2000, where one state was decided by 137 votes, or where one state slipping could have changed the outcome. host: let's go to tim in fairview, pennsylvania. republican line. caller: yeah, i think the reason we are having this discussion at all is because of the 2020 election. it never really was trashed out in the courts. i remember rudy giuliani when he was on the case before he was taken off of it. he had over 1000 affidavits from coworkers, republicans and democrats that sell all sorts of irregularities, and they were never allowed to be heard, such as the truck driver who publicly came out and said he drove a truck load of ballots in the

middle of the night that night from new york to lancaster, pennsylvania, and there was a wonderfully researched book called "rigged," which documented thousands of footnotes about the irregularities of the election, and there was a wonderful film where they used pings off of cell phones, the same used to locate missing persons, of people going back and forth in private homes to drop boxes, dozens and dozens of times of mailboxes. the gateway does wonderful reporting, and i see many of the films they have on cameras on drop boxes -- host: 10, i am going to stop you there because i know david wants to respond. tim represents a lot of people who have believed misinformation

about the election, can you respond? guest: i think this is a great example of how all of us, regardless of who we support in the presidential election or which party we belong to, we have to get out of our media bubbles, the bubbles which feed us media which makes us feel better about things and look for media that challenges this. i try to do that on a regular basis. the simple facts are this. i know there are people who disagree, but these facts have been established over time. all of the so-called affidavits and so-called evidence was considered either over 60 courts, including trump appointed judges. on christmas eve of 2020, i tweeted out several of the quotes from these trump judges in pennsylvania, georgia and wisconsin, who looked at the evidence, all of it proposed. and found nothing there. most of it was either misconceptions, people misunderstanding what was happening, some of it was highly

questionable as to whether or not it was truthful. all of the evidence was considered and it demonstrated very little. there's no point in debunking all of the things because they have been multiple times and there are still resilient lies, but the truck driver that was investigated fully and determined that the truck driver was likely untruthful. it was debunked by law enforcement officials. the issues that were raised in the so-called documentary that was just mentioned, the makers of that documentary have just been sued this past week i the state of georgia because georgia would not -- georgia asked for all of the evidence they had so they could investigated, and the makers of the documentary, months and months later, refused to give the evidence. please rake out of your media bubbles and look at some of the evidence out there. the courts, including trump appointed judges reviewed everything and determined the 2020 election was secure and

decided properly. host: i am pulling up in atlanta journal constitution journal article, and that republican secretary of state, the georgia state election board sued the organization behind that documentary, filed in fulton county, georgia, because they said that documentary made allegations, but the people behind the documentary did not provide that evidence after months of requests. i also want to bring up an article by ndc news because that last caller mentioned rudy giuliani. it says this article is from july 7, so both of these articles are recent. it says the disciplinary board for the d.c. bar association recommended friday that former trump attorney rudy giuliani be stripped of his law license over reckless fraud claims after the 2020 election. the panel announced its findings

in a 38 page decision centered on a postelection lawsuit giuliani filed in the effort to dismiss thousands of votes in pennsylvania, won by president joe biden. "esther giuliani's efforts to -- mr. giuliani's efforts to undermine the 2020 election has helped to destabilize our democracy. his malicious and meritless claims have done lasting damage." again, not only has rudy giuliani been accused of spreading misinformation, but he is facing disciplinary action for it. guest: if i may, do not have to just trust the courts to tell you that all of these things are lies. these people have admitted they are lies when they are put under oath, rudy giuliani famously said this is not a fraud case, when questioned under oath, sidney powell basically said in

a defamation case, and nobody reasonably expected that what i was saying was the truth. these are republicans asking for this information for the makers of the documentary, republicans, the georgia secretary of state, and it is unfortunate that the lies are persistent, despite the fact that courts, other republicans and conservatives, have debunked them in the system. host: let's go back to the phone lines, jay, waldorf, maryland, democratic line. caller: yeah, your guest there is valuable. trump -- you may have mentioned this, trump is one of the main reasons why his unprecedented presidency, you know, the reason why a lot of this is happening, the voter confidence and things. the lies are just incredible. fact checking both republicans

and democrats, with people like david k johnson, republican, have checked right trump said during his president, and there were tons of thousands of lies. so, yeah, that is one of the major reasons why. what we need is for c-span to find a republican guy to see what this gentleman is saying. the problem is, of course, the extreme republicans, now you republicans and people in charge now, those in the house, their attitude is if there is a democratic idea about a nonpartisan commission to investigate election fraud, if it is a democratic idea, it is probably a scam. so if you are a republican i go for that, then they are going to penalize you for doing that. anyway, i will hang up. keep up the great work. guest: thanks. yeah, there have been a lot of

republican and conservative reviews of the election. the best one is one called lost, not stolen, which you can found that -- find that lostnots tolen.org. and there are a number of people, like those who campaigned for george w. bush, and others like mitt romney, people like wish appointed judges, j michael looted -- bush appointed judges like j michael, and they came to the same conclusions that trump appointed judges did and others did, that there is no evidence that election was stolen whatsoever and it was secure. i wrote a book called "the big truth" that outlines a lot of the facts around the 2020 election cycle, and the fact that in many ways, the claims made about election fraud are slandering the men and women who run elections all over, republicans and democrats, who give up their time and are not

recognized often further work. they do not get rich and famous from this work, but they did a remarkable job under incredible stress, and their work withstood the scrutiny that came after the 2020 election and continues to withstand scrutiny. one of the other notable things is there have been lies spread by the losing presidential candidate in 2020, one of the most prominent was that mail balloting is not secure. it is, and not only is it secure, but it used to be promoted primarily by republicans. republicans use this to great effect in states like arizona, utah, nevada, and many other states, where republicans promoted the idea of mail-in voting, if you think about who is most likely to vote by mail, it tends to be people who are older and own property. publicans believed they were predominantly their voters. we have seen for the first time ever, a shift because of the lies spread about mail-in

voting, where democrats now vote more by mail than republicans do, and now you are seeing campaigns like evan or youngkin in virginia, this past week, where he is trying to encourages republican voters to come out early and vote by mail after all of that disinformation that is incentivize that -- that is incentivized that. host: caller: good morning thank you for c-span. i used to be a poll worker myself. i stopped that after the pandemic. hopefully, i will be back soon. i will be 70 in a few months. i am independent and they asked me when i signed up, we need to know which party you prefer. i said to tell you the truth, i preferred the left.

however, when it comes to city council, i vote republican every time for city council because i don't want an all democratic city council. because of that, i was smashed up with a republican poll worker. they are the most respectable and honest people. all of my poll workers, it doesn't matter. i never had an ounce of trouble for any of them. when it comes to president donald trump let me say this. i don't hate that guy one bit. i think he would be a great, fantastic president on reality tv. but he doesn't have the skill to

be a real president. i don't want him to go to prison. i just want them to live their lives somewhere else. i do believe that the poll workers are the most honest people i have ever met. guest: i am so glad he called. thank you for that and thank you for your services a poll worker. it highlights the fact that every election we've had relies on thousands of volunteers who give up their time and get paid little for this to work very long hours and they work across party lines. to give voice to all american voters. it's one of the most inspiring things i've ever seen. i have been in thousands of poll

places with poll workers. it is something that should be celebrated. it's one of the reasons to push back on stolen elections. they are trying to get you to believe that these americans have conspired to steal elections from the american people. that is a slander. people like mike and the other volunteer poll workers deserve better than that. i hope mike that you'll continue to volunteer and recruit others in your community. if you want to understand the checks and balances and how it's impossible to steal an election. volunteered to be a poll worker. it's a great way to see it from the inside. host: what are some best

practices or recommendations that you think could help. we have talked about even most poll facilities have republicans and democrats monitoring how ballots are cast. how they are counted. even in states like georgia where republicans are in charge. you still have people who believe the election was stolen. what is the solution? guest: we have to state the facts. the poll workers come from both parties. they are out there to volunteer and help, not just to steal an election. even if one were caught, they are observers all over the country representing both parties and campaigns. they watch every aspect of the process.

if you remember in 2020 in detroit there was a ryan outside of accounting center where supporters of tromp were banging on the doors and windows threatening poll workers. they wanted and so they could observe. there were 200 observers in that room. that is important and it's fantastic that we have that level of transparency. election practitioners practice extreme transparency. they have shown them their machines, their processes, that has not been enough. people are still consuming the lies. there disappointed by the

election. what's wrong is that there are grifters making money off of that disappointment and trying to convince people that they should be angry and convince people they should be diluted about the election by putting money in these grifters pockets. that's why this is still going on. host: let's go to the republican line. nelson is calling from hollywood, florida. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call can you hear me ok? host: absolutely. caller: mr. becker, one of the things that have not been mentioned. i am 74 years old and i tried to vote in vietnam but i was too young. i've taken the civic duty of

voting seriously. i have always trusted the results of all of those elections except for the last one. because there were several states of violated their own state constitutions in their own election laws in regards to the particular election. when you do that there seems to be a nation of laws. the excuse was covid. however, the result is what we have now. i am not convinced. i want to believe what you are stating and i am not convinced that the elections came out appropriately and honestly because once you start violating your state constitution and changing the rules in the middle

of the game. you don't know what the real results can be and what can actually happen. host: before david response to you. what could convince you? in every state where the argument you are making was made there were lawsuits filed that made that argument in the court said no. the protocols were followed, the election was done according to each state's laws where there were challenges made. what could convince you or help you have confidence that nothing that was done negatively affected or alter the outcome of the election? caller: i don't believe you could ever convince me 100% that election came out fairly. what my concern is, what

happened in 2020 with states violating their own laws never happens again so in the future i can have total confidence into what is going on. host: we will let david take it from here. guest: thank you for your service to our country as well. this is a talking point that's used by many that there is a violation of laws and all these other states. i understand your concerned and deep disappointment but it's simply not true. in every single election there is some deviation from the law through litigation. we had more litigation before the election that ever before.

seven out of eight of those cases. where decided for republicans. the people in charge of the laws , the pennsylvania legislature was controlled by republicans. the entire state of georgia was controlled by republicans, the wisconsin election commission was appointed by republican legislature. there were some changes like every election in terms of clarifying what was going on. they were all litigated pre-election. the united states supreme court heard a lawsuit that made this exact claim brought by ken

paxton in 2020 and rejected. they cited there is nothing there for them to review. this is a common talking p oint. that's just as invalid as saying florida violated their loss in 2000 when they cited the rule that the vote count was appropriate and george bush won by 537 votes. the 2020 election was more secure, transparent and verified that any other election before. the entire state of pennsylvania had non-paper ballots they could not be audited because there were paper ballots. in 2020 the entire state was paper ballots that could be

validated. georgia validated their votes by hand. host: let's go to massachusetts. william is on the independent line. caller: good morning everybody. host: good morning go ahead william. caller: i was listening to what you said about mail-in votes. i know 38 states check signatures but 19 don't. isn't it disingenuous to say they're not? guest: every single state validates every single mail-in ballot twice. once when the ballot is requested.

whether it is requested for each election, thus validated at that point and when it comes in again it's validated by signature or drivers license to confirm it was the voter themselves to cast it. it's a multiple check process. if someone was committing fraud by submitting a ballot that was not theirs, it would be discovered because some of those individuals who had a ballot cast for them would come in and try to vote. that is captured by election officials. that is something we have a good handle on. we've been doing mail-in voting since the civil war. the ability to validate these posts is strong. host: the next caller is my on the democratic line. caller: i am trying to

understand to this day how money became the driving factor in election. i remember when the supreme court made that decision as far as corporations being able to contribute and become part of the voting process. from then on, it seemed like money was the driving force for all elections. people were bought and paid for by corporations. i think the supreme court came up with something like that, corporations are people too. i don't feel like my vote means that things would put up against the money that is being poured

into these candidates. it's hard to understand because i remember a lot of time. i am 80 years old, i remember a time where i felt my vote did count. i remember a time when republicans or democrats could talk to each other. they exchanged ideas and one side could take the other side's meaning. right now. it is like a war between voters. i remember when people enjoyed folks. host: we have your point and he brings a good thing i wanted to talk about. even though more republicans say

they don't have confidence there are almost 30% of democrats that expressed the same concern but it seems when they express they don't have confidence it is for different reasons. the color we have from california identified himself as a democrat and he's worried about the integrity of the election. guest: often we lump all of these numbers together. the concern republicans have which might be focused on alleged fraud even if it didn't occur for the concern democrats have which is the ranking of the system through money or voter suppression are very different concerns. they can't be lumped in together. this

and every vote matters, even if the margin is large, you are sending a message to the candidate who wins, that your voice was heard, they will have to listen to you. host: i pulled up an article in

the new jersey monitor, it says in recent years, u.s. politics has been consumed bipartisan fights over state election policies. a new study is causing a stir by finding that state legislators change election laws, both that tighten rules and loosen rules, have almost no impact on which side wins. a very interesting study. go back to the phone lines. this is roy in woodstock, georgia, republican line. caller: two things, and the 2016 election, there was one democrat that challenged the election. but because a senator would not sign off on it, biden would not

allow it. in the 2020 election, there were several congressmen that were going to challenged the election, and at least six senators willing to sign off on it. what happened was the insurrection. it is stuff to that process from taking place. i am in georgia, i know during the recount, they did not verify many of those signatures. mail-in ballot duties -- mail-in ballots have been going on for a long time. during the recount in georgia, there was an agreement, i think it was stacey abrams, that the signatures would not be verified. in addition to that, the fbi weighed in on this last election. hunter biden's laptop, the fda -- fbi was paying social media outlets for misinformation.

all of this has been verified. even the durham report talks about the fbi and what they did against donald trump. this deep state is deep. for a congressman to come on and talk about the deep state, we should note that something is wrong. giuliani, many of the things he brought, they did not go before the court. the change for the election process was not litigated prior to the election, it was after. those states changed their rules -- host: i'm going to stop you there, because some folks have already mentioned some of that. guest: you can see how resilient some of these narratives are. it is unfortunate, every single clarification of these rules that needed to be done were done before the election.

from hundreds of cases that were brought before the courts before election day, 87% were ruled in favor of republicans. it is really important to note that in 2016 in georgia, president trump one in georgia, ballots could not be recounted, they only had digital ballots. that is not a secure system, the georgia legislature, led by republicans, moved georgia to verifiable paper in 2020. that was very successful and they deserve a lot of credit. it was the reason we could verify the outcome of the election. please look at the georgia secretary of state of sight, listen to the statements and reports put out in that office. those male in pallets were absolutely verified for signatures, the ballots were

recounted twice after the initial count. i think to the point about the alleged interference with the election, there is concern on the alleged interference in 2020. , they are concerned about the fbi interference in the james comey letter in 2016. the fact is that voters went to the ballot box. regardless of what disinformation they were consuming. and they cast their ballots. those ballots were counted. any claim that interference makes an election invalid in 26 teen or 2020, it is really a delegitimization of a process from hundreds of thousands of americans across the country to make sure the ballots are counted.

mary on the independent line. >> i have been in the u.s. for years, i have been watching carefully what is going on. i think what has not been addressed is the ballot harvesting. what really concerns me about that, is that gradually, over many years, loss have been changed in california to make it easier for people to vote. for instance, we have so many homeless people, they don't even have to have an address because it is supposed to make it favor for these people to vote.

gradually, one by one, laws have been relaxed. we cannot ask people if they are citizens. that is against the law. but getting back to the ballot harvesting, some of the states had razor thin margins and we had to wait for weeks to hear what the outcome was. i think there are so many volunteers that were democrats far more than the republicans, and they would go to homeless encampments and go to nursing homes and help -- and help is an inverted comment here -- help people to vote. since these homeless people don't even have to have an address, how can their votes be verified? i remember the pallets of boxes

that would show up at the last minute and the whole election would be changed. i will specify i'm not a trump supporter. if it is trump and biden, i will not vote at all. there's got to be something better. i would like to see a strong conservative candidate, a moderate, to run against whoever the democrat is going to be. host: we appreciate your call. let's let david respond. guest: there's a couple of things to discuss. first of all, this term ballot harvesting, when an individual is empowered to return more than just their own ballot. it is outlined in most states outside of family -- outlawed in most states outside of family.

there is a documentary that alleged ballot harvesting. that has been completely debunked, including by republicans in states like georgia. there is a lawsuit pending for defamation by one of the individuals who was returning ballots he was legally entitled to return for him and his family members. ballot harvesting is really not affecting elections. california was decided if i recall by more than 3 million votes in the presidential election. i seriously doubt there are more than 3 million homeless people in california. i want to highlight again, it has been almost 1000 days since the november 2020 election. the court has welcomed legitimate, nonfrivolous lawsuits with evidence that come

down. lawsuits in georgia and arizona and many other states, republican law enforcement have begged for information, for evidence from people who made claims that they prefer to put on social media rather than have scrutinized in the courts. none of them has come forward. absolutely you ask if someone is a citizen. every single voter registration application in the united states requires people to sign under penalty of perjury that they are american citizens, and there have been prosecutions and even deportations of individuals who claimed otherwise, so that is on every single voter registration application in the united states. a federally enforceable law under penalty of perjury that someone state their legal status in the united states. host: i think some people might be confused. there are some local municipalities that let noncitizens vote in local

elections but not in federal elections. guest: there are a couple. there are very, very few. there are noncitizens who go to school so they are allowed to vote in a school board elections. they main -- they maintain separate lists entirely. those listed do not apply to federal elections. any election on the federal level is only open to citizens. host: mary is our next caller, mary in auburn, new york, democratic line. caller: hello. good morning. you keep claiming that there is no voter fraud. is it not against the law to go into nursing homes and get votes from people who don't even know who their family is? there is voters where they use an address where no address exists.

more than one ballot was sent into many homes and used. they cannot prove because there's no name on a ballot, who they voted for, so that right there proves -- and these people have been caught and arrested for doing so, so, yes, there was voter fraud. i will wait for your reply. thank you. host: -- guest: i never said there was no voter fraud. there absolutely is some voter fraud. the amount of voter fraud in any united states election is not zero, but it's not much more than zero. there are a few dozen cases nationally that are prosecuted, and that is appropriate. again, this shows the resilience

of disinformation. the nursing home allegations by the republican legislature, they were found to be debunked. there is the allegation that people who did not know what they were doing were voting. that was a highly partisan effort led by trump supporters. the allegation that people are voting from places that don't exist, which again, goes on social media, but when they are asked to put it in court, they will not bring it to court because then they are subject to the rules of the court. there was an allegation in arizona about people not existing at the addresses or addresses not being residential. every single one of them was debunked. this is a common refrain we hear. we can see how much it has sunk in with the american people, and unfortunately, it is playing on again, severe disappointment. i understand wanting a different candidate to win. all of us have been in that situation.

in the past there have been cases, if it senator mccain in 2008, senator romney in 2012, realizing they needed to do what was best for the country, and in fact -- we did not have that in 2020. in fact, the candidate raised money -- the losing candidate raised money. the idea he raised millions of dollars just in november 2020 just off of those lies, but when he had an opportunity to spend that money to generate proof of possible fraud, he could have had full statewide recounts. that was his right. all he needed to do was pay for it. it would have cost less than 1/10 of the money he raised. he declined statewide recounts in all of the states in which

they were eligible, and i think that speaks volumes as to how much his campaign that the allegations were real. host: we have to leave it there. that is david becker, co-author of a book titled "the big truth: upholding democracy in the age of the big lie." thank you for joining us. guest: thank you for having me. host: one of the topics a lot of states are dealing with is abortion and i want to show you an article from "the des moines register" about a recent six-week abortion ban signed in the state also known as the fetal heartbeat law. the article says standing on stage in front of a crowd of 2000 evangelical christians, governor kim reynolds signed a law friday immediately banning the vast majority of board -- of abortions in iowa.

the law, which took effect immediately, prohibits nearly all abortions after doctors detect cardiac activity in the embryo, which can occur about six weeks into a pregnancy. there are narrowly defined exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, and cases of medical emergency. let's watch a portion of governor reynolds' remarks before that bill signing. governor reynolds: the work we have done together from the state house to the public square is making a difference, but as you all know, our work is not done. as we gather here today at this very moment, the abortion industry is in the court trying to prevent this law from taking effect and stop once again, the will of the people. passing this legislation by even a wider margin this time sends an unmistakable message. [applause]

iowa's 2018 heart team -- heartbeat law was not a hypothetical. it was not an empty gesture, and it was not a mistake. it was an ironclad commitment to the smallest and most vulnerable among us. all life is precious and worthy of the protection of our laws. [applause] host: again, that was iowa governor kim reynolds, her remarks right before signing a six-week abortion ban and also many of the nation's governors did gather for an annual meeting of the national governors association where many of them mentioned the issues they are facing in the various states, so i want to show another video,

this one is of utah governor spencer cox. he's the incoming chair of the national governors association. he joined us yesterday and spoke about bringing state issues to the forefront despite the political divide and misinformation at the national level. governor cox: if you look back to the founding of our country, the states were set up to be a coequal branch to the federal government. i certainly think that over time, the federal government has gotten much more powerful than the states, so the states rights piece is very important. we work diligently with our fellow governors to push back on that. that is an area where you will often see some bipartisan agreement on making sure that they have the ability to make certain decisions. when it comes to conspiracy

theories, certainly on social media, it has gotten easier for conspiracy theories to kind of take root. those are things we are constantly battling. i have always said i thought by the time i got governor, i would be included in these conspiracies, but maybe that is a second term thing. i don't know. i need to ask governor murphy. sadly, there are some things, again, that over time we have seen are true, so finding truth today i think is really difficult because there are -- there's no source of truth, right? the media is more dispersed than ever before. social media is more dispersed than ever before. it is so much easier now to only hear things i want to hear instead of other voices i can just mute or block anyone who disagrees with me. i think that is what is dangerous. i think it is important we learn what the other side thinks and why they think it.

the closer we get, the more cognizant we are a people who are different than us, the easier it is for us to find common ground. that is what we are encouraging people to do, turn off the conspiracies, get to know your neighbors, get to know people who are different than you, and that is how we can get back to governing again and actually solving some of the biggest policy issues we have in our country. host: again, that was utah governor cox, the incoming chair of the national governors association. again, our question is for you this morning. what is a top issue facing your state? tell us what you think elected officials are doing to address it. again, democrats, your line is (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002.

also, you can text message us, (202) 748-8003. if you are sending us a tweet or any post on social media, make sure you say what state you live in. i'm already seeing some of your responses there. we will get to them in just a moment. first up is steve in sun city, california, republican line. what is the top issue they are in california? -- there in california? caller: i'm a social studies teacher. one of the issues is reparations. california wants to give $229,000 a year to blacks, black americans that can trace their ancestry to slavery. i'm totally against that. you have plenty of -- california did not have anything to do with

slavery at all. three quarters of the south never owned slaves. like i told my 12 graders, i said, how is it proper to force people to pay for all slavery? white people of the south when three quarters of them did not own slaves, 100 70 years later to contemporary people in america, white people specifically, not to mention what about the blacks that own slaves? what about the merit -- what about the american indian slaves? do they get a pass to be politically correct? just does not make any sense to me, but these wacko liberals out here just want to tax and spend and regulate in the name of political correctness, and it is very unfortunate to live under. host: all right, i appreciate your call this morning. our next caller is stephen in parkland springs, florida,

democratic line. go ahead. [indiscernible] caller: i think we have lost -- caller: [indiscernible] host: i think we have lost stephen. let's go to your next call. caller: the top issue is gerrymandering. host: why do you think that is a problem? caller: just the likes of jim jordan. the fact that he has been voted in is proof of gerrymandering. guest: let's go to --host: let's go to another issue brought up at the national governors association annual meeting in atlantic city, new jersey.