11/30/16 11/30/16 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracacy now! >> we are standing up for a voting system that we deserve, that we can have confidence in, that has integrity and security, and that we know is not subject to tampering, malfeasance, hacking, and so on. so we are standing up to say that we deserve in this election -- and in every election. amy: inside the recount.

today we speak with former green party presidential candidate jill stein, who is pushing for recounts in three states -- wisconsin, pennsylvania, and michigan. donald trump's narrow victories in these states secured his election, but could a recount put hillary clinton into the white house? we will also speak with cyber security and private -- privacy researcher bruce schneier on why is subject to hackers. and we will speak with lawrence lessig on the electoral college and why they should choose clinton over trump. all of that and more, c coming . welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. president-elect donald trump has announced a handful of new cabinet picks. on t tuesday, hehe named billioe steven mnuchin to be treasury secretary. mnuchin has deep ties on wall

street, including working as a partner for goldman sachs, where his father also worked. mnuchin's hedge fund also played a role in the housing crisis, after it scooped up the failing california bank indymac in 2008. under mnuchin's ownership, indymac foreclosed on thousands of families, particularly elderly residents trapped in reverse mortgages. he was accused of running a foreclosure machine. the bank, which was renamed onewest, was also accused of racially discriminatory lending practices. in 2015, mnuchin sold the bank for $3.4 billion -- $1.8 billion more than he bought it for. trump has also reportedly picked billionaire private-equity investor wilbur ross to be commerce secretary. ross specializes in flipping bankrupt companies for profit, often buying the u.s. companies at low prices and then selling them to overseas investors.

he and his companies have sometimes shipped jobs and fafactories overseas -- practics donald trump has railed against. meanwhile, donald trump has picked george w. bush's former labor secretary elaine chao to be transportation secretary. chao is the wife of senate majority leader mitch mcconnell of kentucky, and immigrated to the united states from taiwan when she was eight years old. she has been a fixture in washington, d.c., for more than 20 years. trump also named seema verma to be administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services. verma has worked closely with vice-president elect mike pence, and her health policy firm helped design indiana's medicaid expansion under the affordable care act. trump has still not announced his pick for secretary of state, although, he did dine with former republican presidential nominee mitt romney tuesday night in new york city.. other possible candidates for secretary of state include former new york city mayor rudolph giuliani, retired

general david the tray u us forr u.s. ambasassador to the unitetd nanations john bolton. donald trump also sparked controversy on tuesday when he made unconstitutional proposals two in a single tweet, writing -- "nobody should be allowed to burn the american flag -- if they do, there must be consequences -- perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!" the supreme court has ruled twice that flag burning is protected under the first amendment. the suprpreme court has alsoso d it's unconstitutional to strip people of citizenship for most crimes, including desertion. in a 1958 ruling supreme court , justice earl warren wrote -- "the deprivation of citizenship is not a weapon that the government may use to express its displeasure at a citizen's conduct, however reprehensible that conduct may be." thousands of fast food workers home care and child care

, providers, janitors, airport workers, and uber drivers rallied in 340 cities across the united states tuesday for a national day of action to demand a minimum wage of $15 a hour. in new york city, about two dozen people were arrested. this is hector figueroa, president of 32bj service employees international union. >> after the outcome of f this last election, it is even more importantly raise our voices and we fight for our rights. it was economics. it was the rising income inequality striking workers that election.mplicated unless we address this problem, we are going to see our country suffer. we are here to give workers a raise is now. thetime to win a union in workplace is now. we're not going to stop. amy: in texas, their brown has been released from federal prison after spinning four

years behind bars related to the hacking of stratfor, which exposed how the firm spied on activists on behalf of corporations. in 2014, he pled guilty to charges of transmitting threats, accessory to a cyber attack,k, d obstruction of justice. supporters say brown has been unfairly targeted for investigating the highly secretive world of private and military contractors. at one point, there brown faced 100 years in prison before pleading guilty to lesser charges. earlier this year, he won the national magazine award for prison columns for a series of columns he wrote for the intercept. in kashmir, indian officials say independence rebels attacked an indian army base tuesday, killing at least seven indian soldiers. officials say at least three shmiri rebels were killed during the attack. e disputed territory has been rocked by protests sinince july when indian security forces killed a prominent kashmiri independence leader. at least 80 kashmiris have been killed by indian security forces

during the ongoing protests. in brazil, up to 10,000 people protested tuesday against austerity ahead of a senate vote in which lawmakers approved measures to impose a strict cap on federal spending. leftist opposition lawmakers say the legislation will destroy education and health programs. the vote to approve the constitutional amendmentnt is a victory for brazilian president michel temer, who took power after the impeacachment of dilma rousseff in a process she and others have called a coup. a grououp of women from the caravan of central american mothers of missing migrants are traversing mexico in search of their children, who went missing as they y attempted d to cross e country y to rea the unitedd states. the international crisis group says tens of thousands of central american migrants fleeing violence in their home countries go missing each year in mexico. caravan organinizers say they found at least 265 missing children over the 12 years they have been organizing the caravan. this is anita zelaya, from el salvador, who has been looking for her son n sie 2002.

>> i am hopeful i'm going to find m my son alivive. there is so much i injustice a d i, ass a motheher, and notot okh the fact o our children are massacred a and victimsms of all that happepens to themem on the journey. i do not agree.. we know t that, sadly, mexexicos lolooking forr lifife inn pathsf death.h. it i is a journey o of kidnappia roroute of mugugging and ratated sadly, a route of extortion. unfortununately, our children ne still didisappeared. amy: in canada, prime minister justin trudeau has approved two major pipelines -- kinder morgan's $5 billion trans mountain pipeline and the $7.5-billion enbridgdge line 3 pipeline. the trans mountain pipeline would carry oil from the alberta tar sands to a port in vancouver.r. the enbridge line 3 3 pipeline would carry tar sands oil from alberta, across the u.s.-canadian border, to a terminal in superior, wiscscons.

both pipelines face massive resistance from canadian first nations, who held a ceremony tuesday in which more nations signed on to a treaty declaring they would fight all new tar sands infrastructure. 112 canadian first nations and some u.s. native american tribes of now signed the continent-wide treaty alliance against tar sands expansion, including the standing rock sioux tribe in north dakota and the white earth nation in minnesota. in washington, d.c., former vice president al gore has spoken out against another pipeline, the $3.8 billion dakota a access pipepeline, , while speaking ate "n"new york times" global lead'' collective confeference. >> the massive investment in thesee pipeline infrastructure projects will be amortized over 50 to 75 years, and we need that capital to flow into renewables. this standing rock project is an atrocity. it is an absolute atrocity.

i wish t that president obama would step in before there is more violence out t there againt those -- they call themselves water protectors. this is an embarrassment to our country. all of those promises have been broken for so long, using water cannons and suffers into butchers. that is inhumane. amy: this comes as the coral l f australia's great barrieier reef has experienced i it's worstst die-off on r record, a as a rest ofofarmer oceaean water r due to climimate change. scientists s say bleaching has killed two-thirds of the c coral onon the 430-mile northern streh in only nine months. this is terry hughes, of the austraralian research council. >> what we have seen, three bleaching events. the first was in 1998, the second in 2002, and the third one this most recent summer in 2016. this one is by far the most extreme. we have seen three of these events now, with just one degree

of global warming. so two degrees of global warming, which is the international targets, is going to be a a very challenging place for the great barrier reef. amy: in tennessee at least three , people have died and hundreds of homes were destroyed after a wildfire tore through the resort towns near the great smoky mountains. as many as 14,000 people fled monday and tuesday as 90-mile-per-hour wind gusts pushed the fires into the towns. this is the mayor of sevier county, larry waters. >> we continue to learn devastating news about the magnitude of the losses thatat e are experiencing in the community in sevier county. i have now been able to confirm the loss of three lives in sevier county. we are deeply saddened by these losses, and we extend our prayers to the family -- families of all of them. we do not have information to release at this time regarding identities, as we are awaiting

notification of next of kin. amy: this comes as early this morning, a tornado killed three people after it tore through a mobile home park in alabama, and critically injured four children after hitting a daycare center. in south carolina, a judge is permitting dylann n roof to represent himself at h his own trial, which opened monday in charleston. prosecutors say roof opened fire at emanuel ame church in charleston, south carolina, in june 2015, killing nine black worshipers, including the pastor clementa pinckney. roof is pleading not guilty. he embraced white supremacist views and was shown in photographs posing with the confederatate flag andnd a pist. in arizona, a 36-year-old guatememalan woman has died in e custody of immigration and customs enforcement, after she suffered a series of seizures while being detained at the eloy detention center. raquel hildago had been held at eloy since november 13 after

u.s. border patrol agents captured her as she tried to cross the u.s.-mexico border. she died after being rushed to a nearby hospital sunday. at least 15 people have died while confined at the for-profit eloy detention center since 2003, which is run by corrections corporation of america, or cca, which recently changed itits name to corecivic. and former black panther sundiata acoli has been denied release by the new jersey state parole board after more than 40 years in prison. he first became eligible for parole in 1992, and turns 80 years old in january. he was convicted of killing a state trooper during a shootout 1973 on the new jersey turnpike, along with fellow panthers zayd malik shakur, who was also killed, and assata shakur, who has said she was shot by police while she had both arms in the air. shakur later escaped to cuba, where she has political asylylu.

acoli is one of at least 15 former members of the black panther party who are still in prison. his lawyers plan to appeal the decision.. and those are some of the headlines. this is dedemocracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. former presidential candidate jill stetein is contntinuing her efforts to force recounts in three states -- wisconsin, pennsylvania, and michigan. but on tuesday, the effort faced a setback as a wisconsin judge refused to order a statewide hand recount. instead, the judge ruled that each of the state's 72 county clerks can decide on their own how to carry out the recount. donald trump beat hillary clinton by less than 30,000 votes out of 2.8 m million cast. the result was even closer in michigan, where trump won by just 12,000 votes. dr. stein is expected to file paperwork in michigan by today's deadline requesting a recount there. more than 130,000 people have

donated more than $6.5 million to stein's efforts. that is nearly double how much stein raised during her presidential effort. trump has dismissed the recount efforts. in a statement, he said -- "this is a scam by the green party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what jill stein is doing." however, in another tweet, trump did claim that millions of people illegally voted in the november 8 election. in a tweet sent out on sunday trump wrote -- , "in addition to winning the electoral college in a landslide, i won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." he offered no evidence to back up his claim. while donald trump did win the electoral college, democratic nominee hillary clinton's lead in the popular vote has now reached well over 2 million and is expected to grow to 2.5 million. to talk more about the recount efforts, we are joined by former green party presidential nominee

jill stein. she is joining us from boston. welcome back to democracy now! efforts,t your recount why you hahave decided to o go s route. >> thank you and good to be with you this morning, amy. coming out of this s very divise ,nd bitter and painful election you know, confidence of americans in our voting system, in our election system, our political system -- really come across the board, confidence in american institutions is really at rock-bottom lowow. accordining to a "new yorkrk ti" poll, 80% of americans, more than 80%, said they were disgusted by the election. it is really important that we be able to improve our election system and our political system as a base come a point of

departure, for i improving all f the other things that are meltining down around us. health care system, our jobs, our climate, the endless wars that are making us less secure and so on. we need to start by verifying our votes and ensuring that this is a democracy that we can work with. donald trump himself said that it was a rigged election. in ways that he probably did not understand. but theree was enormous resonane with what he said about it being a rigged election. when bernie sanders talked about it being a rigged economy, there was enormous resonance with that. this isn't something we can just walk away y and sweep under the rug. remember, in this election, most people were voting against the candidate that they liliked the least or they were most afraid of, rather than for their values or for their vision of a better future. so i think there is widespread

soul-searching and discontent about this election we have come out of. i think it is a really positive step that people decided, this is where we're going to start, by ensuring we can have confidence in the vote count. this is not about attempting to help one candidate or hurt another candidate. this is about helping voters restore confidence that we are properly and securely recording the vote, and counting them. and we know these voting machines are subject to machine error, human error, tampering, you name it. these machines, when they are locked into, produce all kinds of -- when they are looked into, prododuce a all kinds of p prob. you can't know unless you look. amy: can you respond to the wisconsin judge, and what this means, handing it off to the locacal voting precincts? >> what the judge said was that

hand-counted would be the gold standard, and that was the best way to restore confididence in e vote. but he -- i am told, this is secondhand -- what i undnderstad is he acknowledged the wiscoconn law did d not enable himo orordr that. so he gave it, shall we say, moral authority to do the hand count, but felt he c could not actually order the hand count. so it will be up to the county clerks in the county election departments, and we will be working with them and encouraging them to do the right thing. now, the good news is, in the state of michigan where we are formally filing today, we have already had an informal heads up that they expect to go forward with a statewide hand count. amy: are you going to be moving forward on michigan today? >> yes, we are.

we will be paying the filing fee and moving forward. another very difficult challenge to the campaign is that the state of wisconsin raised the cost. it was going to be $1.1 million, and in the night before we learn -- the night before last, we learned it i is going to b be $5 million. which i think underscores there someththing wrong with this picture. not only that our votes are being recorded on machines that are wide open, in invitation to and machinee human error, not only that our votes are not being properly safeguarded, but then in addition, if we want to have reassurance, if we want to verify the vote, we, the citizens, have to raise millions of dollars in order just grew

nice the vote, in order to havee assurancnce -- to scrutinize the vovote, in order to have assurance. there are enormous hurdleses to doing this. part of our intent is not only to reassure the american people that we can have confidence in this boat or to find problems if there are problems, as the system is e extremely vulnerable to, but we want to move forward and build this movement for verified voting for r election integrity -- whwhich was really 2000 fourf the recount. for example, in 2004, the city of toledo, largely the communities of color, filed for a recocount because they felt le their votes were not eating properly counted and respected -- were not being properly counted and respected. when they did a hand recount, 90,000 votes that had not been

counted simply because the voting counting machines, so-called optical scanners, haddad is calibrated. so they were not quite at the proper angle that they could actualally see the vote anand ct the e vote. there are innumerable cases where would we look, we find problems. it is important to look. it also important for us to change the way we do this. and to get rid of these elecectronic voting machines, which are in invitation to trouble. amy: we're going to be speaking with bruce schneier in a moment about hacking. the new york magazine said hillary clinton faced -- received 7% fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. but i want to ask you about a petition posted on the website of margaret flowers, the former maryland green party candidate for senate.

the petition is titled green speak out on recount and our commitment to an independent party. it says in part -- the decision to pursue a recount was not made in a democratic or a strategic way, nor did it respect the established decision making processes and structures of the green party of the united states. this recount does not address the disenfranchisement of voters. it recounts votes that were already counted rather than restoring the suffrage of voters who were prevented from voting." the petition was signed by several chronic green party members and supporters, including margaret flowers, your former advisor kevin b, green party vice presidential candidate rosa clemente, and feel it's of prize-winning journalist chris hedges. your running mate did not sign the petition, but h has come out against the recount. to respond to this criticism? >> yes. the green party has many things to do and many people are not enthusiastic about verified

voting, about election integrity . the green party has a broad set of commitment, including commit -- continuing thehe momentum and grasassroots organizing that cae out of the campaign. i am grateful that many people are continuing to do that and that is their priority. i, myself, have great ambivalence about moving forward with thihis. in 2006, iran for secretary of state here in my home state of massachusetts. i had a long-standing commitment to voting integrity. it is not just counting votes in getting rid of the very problematic vovoting machines. it i is also ensuring that every american has a constitutional right to vote. donald trump said the opposite of what has happened. the problem is not that people were voting illegally, but rather that people were stripped from the voter rolls through things like interstate

crosscheck,k, also through the e .f voterer id that is not addressed in this case, but this case is a launching pad for a broader agendada that includes ensuring that we have a democratic right to vote, a constitutional right to vote, ensuring that we have open debates so that voters can acactually be informed and empowered to make wise choices. and another priority is to enending fear-based voting t thh rank choice votining like the state of maine just past, which means you can go into the voting booth and rank your choices knowing your first choice will be, if it loses, will be reassigned to yourur seconond choice. this is part of a critical voting agenda, as well as getttting rid of the electoral college. so there are many things that need to be done. ththis is the point of departure that allows us green to lead the

way forward in a critical and immediate needs. amy: dr. jill stein, some of the criticism, even within your own party, though you have a right to ask for this on your own, has been your only choosing states -- wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan -- were hillary clinton lost, not those estates where she won. they are sayining you are servig ththe very party that you are so fiercely critical of during the campaign. >> and i remain fiercely critical of that party. amy: they are joining you in this, is that right, andnd supportingng your call for recount? >> not a coordinated way.. we stepped up to the plate because theyey have not. they did not express their support until the deadline had passed for filing in wisconsin. our lawyers are communicatitingo that t they do not legally get n each other's way, but we're otherwise not coordinating.

i have been committed to this issue for many years. so for me, this is kind of like breathing. it is something that would have been virtually impossible fofore not to do. throughout the campaign when i was asked whether i would stand up and call for a recount if there was cause to be concerned about the reliabilility and the credibility of the vote, i was said, yeyes, i would, and it had nothing to do with who won. you may recall that michigan did not actually -- was not decided as a trump state until we hadad already announced that we would recount ing a michigan. it could have gone to hillary clinton. we still would have challenged it. amy: what about those who are saying you're using this as a fundraising device? you have almost raised -- and did it surprise you -- then you

raised in your entire campaign for this recount, and ultimately, you may use these for local green party candidate -- >> know, we will not do that. rules s require that a recount e funded by a dedicated recount account in the medic and only be used for that.t. it would be great to have access to that money, but we don't have access to that money. since wisconsin raised d the pre tag on us, there is nono way tht it will be residual money. this is all going into the recount. funded by small donors. this is a grassroots movement all across america. 140,000 -- yes, i was flabbergasted because we launched this the day beforere ththanksgiviving. who in their right mind was going to be paying attention to the call for a recount and fundraising over the thanksgiving weekend? that is exactly what h happened because peopople are starving fr something positive to d do to actually begin to take back this

promise of democracy. amy: is that all small donors? >> yes, it is. we are f following campaign for oure laws, as if campaign. so the average donation is $45. one half of 1% of donors contribute it more than $101000 will stop the absolute maximum is the maximum you can contribute for a political campaign, which is $2700. there is no deep account here for the caucus. amy: monday night i was at the free library in philadelphia interviewing bernie sanders and i askeked him about your recount efforts. sen. sanders: i think what most people expect -- it touches us. all that they are doing is what happens all the time, nothing new about that. recounts take place when i was elected mayor. right now in north carolina, republican governor who appears to be losing once a recount. not a new idea.

i will to you why it is touching a nerve. it is not because i believe that it is going to reverse the results. i don't think that is the case. people, especially with all of attacks one of websites and so forth, are really wondering whether when they vote, if their vote is legitimate. like, have the russians interfered in this? which takes us to another issue. and i would not have said this a few years ago, but i will say it tonight. i was researching this. in canada, they still do their voting with paper ballots. and maybe it takes next are our or two to get the results out to the media, but they manage to survive. i think we should go back to paper ballots. lock them up -- [applause] sen. sanders: i think what this is about is touching on that issue and trying to see if the

results end up being significantly different than what were announced on election night. any code that was bernie s sders monday night. jill stein, your response? >> h he is absolutely righght. this should be built into our election system. we should not be voting on these very tamper-friendly, air prproe machines in the first place. we should be voting on paper ballots that can be counted byy these optical scanners, but they have to be checked with automatic audits. this should be built in restaurants that shohould be pat of that -- rereassurance.. and whenever raises are very close, there should be an automatic recount. when there are suggeststions of foul play or irregularities, there should be a recount, like in the demococratic party priri. bernie sanders should have been the beneficiary of aa recount ad a potential challenge because of

the stripping of voter r rolls n brooklyn, the failure to count hundreds of thousands of votes in california -- this is not holding the democratic party accountable to the same standards that we are looking at in three republican victory states. the reason we are looking in those states is because you want to look at state that meet the criteria for high potential, high likelihood for having had error. that means the razor thin margins, the results when opposite of what was anticipated, and they have some kind of a built in vulnerability . it happened the three most significant states were those three. we did not know which way michigan was going to go, but it turned out to the republican. but if we have findings, then we have a case to go into many more states. including democratic states. amy: finally, jill stein, are you somewhat disconcerted by not having the full support of the green party, in particular, your vice presidential candidate,

running mate, who said on cnn it is potentially -- the recounts are potentntially a dangerouous move? >> you know, the green party is you have a lot of opinions and a lot of people are very well informed and very passionate. wewe don't often do t things ine green party that we have uniform consensus on. so i think as we go forward, there will be more room for dialogue. i think as we begin to see results that action translate into a more secure voting system, that mines will change. the greens arare very fococusedn economic justice, racial justice, climate justice, you name it. for many greens, especially y fr newer r greens, like twhirl integrity has not been a priority. i think for many people, it is a learning asked area and it is a dialogue.

-- expererience and it is a dialogue. i think it is great many people are continuing to do the other work, just very important. amy: i want to thank you for being with us, dr. jill stein, the 2016 and 2012 presidential nominee of the green party leading the effort for an , election recount in three states. later in this show, we will be speaking with bruce schneier on why our voting system is portable to hackers. first, lawrence lessig will join us to talk about why he feels the electoral college should choose alert clinton over donald trump. we will be back with them in a moment. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. a shout out to the students who are watching democracy now! today in studio from sharpton

high school in houston, texas, and the borough of manhattan community college here in new york city. as we continue to talk about u.s. election system, we turn now to lawrence lessig, who sparked a debate over the electoral college with his recent op-ed headlined, , "the constitution lets the electoral college choose the winner. they should choose clinton." he writes -- electors to apply, in hamilton's words, 'a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice' -- and then decide. the constitution says nothing about 'winner take all.' it says nothing to suggest that electors' freedom should be constrained in any way. instead, their wisdom -- about whether to overrule 'the people' or not -- was to be free of political control yet guided by democratic values. they were to be citizens exercising judgment, not cogs turning a wheel." the electors will meet on december 19. lawrence lessig is joining us

now, harvard professor who briefly ran for the democratic nomination for president in 2015 and author of "republic, lost: , how money corrupts congress -- and a plan to stop it." thank you for joining us from amsterdam, where you are right now. why don't you lay out what you are calling for. >> as you described in summarizing the op-ed, , the framers meant for t the electors to exercise judgment. and a judgment which is really asking the question, should we overrule with the people have done? there are some cases where i think they plainly should overrule with the people of done. for example, if the candidate is a crazy person or turns out not to be qualified or is a criminal. those would did -- those would be good reasons to overrule. in this case, there is no reason for the electors to overrule the popular choice. the popular choice by more than 2 million votes is a completely qualified candidate for president, and a principle that

should be a fundamental principle in our democracy. the principle of one person, one vote says of the vote of every american should count equally. and if it does, hillary clinton should be the president of the united states. amy: so explain the electoral college. explain how it works, what electors will be d doing on december 19 and what you feel they should all stop. >> the electoral college is a group of electors elected in the state who will meet in the states on december 19 and cast their ballots for who they believe should be president, who they believe should be vice president. those ballots get transmitted to washington and they are opened in washington in the senate and the results are read. now, their decision of the exercise on december 19 is a decision of judgment. they are to be people who reflected on all of the issues presented and have to make a decision. and that decision, i think, should be guided by the principles we should all take as uncontested.

and that uncontested principle, the idea that vote should count equally, that everybody's vote should count equally in the united states, should have an overwhelming influence on their decision. and what they should do, in my view, is to say, state laws that tell me i have to vote for the winner, even though the "loser" might have gotten 40% of the vote, should not constrain me so that i have to go against this fundamental idea of equality. so i think they should vote in a way that respects the actual winner in this election and make hillary clinton the next president. amy: what does it mean for the electors not to vote the way their state did, but the way the nation d did? what are the rules? >> first of all, they don't have to vote the way the nation did necessarily. they could vote the way a significant proportion of their state did. in michigan, if donald trump is

found to be the winner by some 10,000 votes out of 4.5 million cast, with the michigan electors could say, ok, i'm going to vote in a way that reflects michigan. so half of michigan was essentially for clinton and half for trump. maybe one more for trump than clinton. that division goes against the laws of the state of michigan that say they have to allocate the electors vote to the winner -- all of the electors votes to the winner. my point -- this is increasingly uncontested among scholars -- winner take all the is not exist in the constitution. it is a restriction imposed on the electors by the states. the electors are people were supposed to exercise judgment, that restriction is the flaw which ought to be resisted. so they should vote reflecting the votes of the people in their state. if they did, i think that would be enough to make it so the winner in january will be

hillary clinton. amy: i interviewed bernie sanders on monday night in philadelphia. i asked him about the electoral college. sen. sanders: i think it is an archaic concept. i think nobody -- i'm in, nobody voted for the electors. 99.9% of the people don't even know who they are. they voted for hillary clinton or donald trump and their obligation i is to support the candidate that the people in the state voted for. amy: he says they ought to vote for the way t their statete wen. >> i think the archaic idea is actually winner take all. person, onee of one vote is a principle that was introduced as a fundamental principle in american law in 1962. long after states admitted one person, one vote. 50 is ago, the state of delaware said, winner take all seems to us to be inconsistent with your

principle of one person, one vote, so which should stand in which should fall? the supreme court ducked that issue. i believe if you believe in equality, we should not be giving so much deference to winner take all that was born at the time slavery reined in the united states. we ought to be respecting the principle of equality. under that principle, we should get as close to respecting equal votes with every citizen as we can given our constitutional structure. i think if we did that, the will of the people would not be overturned. it has only happened twice before. only twice has the electoral college voted against the theidate who had won popular vote. once in 1881 grover cleveland have the election stolen from him by tammany hall in new york, and once in 2000 where most people think the election was essentially a tie and they went with electoral colollege. those tita president should not be enough to overwhelm the

fundamental president of the quality that ought to define how our democratic system works. the principal says hillary clinton is our president. amy: one rebuttal was that electors are simply un-vetted party loyalists are ill-equipped to make the i independent -- to make independent judgments. your respoponse? >> it is true. we don't know who they are. i'm not asking them to make it based on her own presidents. i'm asking them to r recognize a principlple that should be commn to allll of us.. and that principle is the principle of equality. if it turned o out the candidide was insane or the candidate was a criminal, we would also be calling on them, these people we don't know, to o make a judgment as the framers of the cotitution e expected they would, not to ratify the choicis ofof the people for that candidate.e. the electoral college is a project that c calls on theirir judgment. if we don't like it, we can talk about how to eliminate it. i'm not quite convinced we

should eliminate it completely. i think it is important have a final check be some of the other than the suprememe court. they given it is there, we should take it seriously. and taking it seriously says they should exercise their judgment according to the moral values, principles thahat are pt of our constitutional tradition today. and those principles they equality. amy: donald trump tweeted, albeit in 2012 -- do you agree? >> in the case that he was talking about, he expected that barack obama was going to lose the popupular vote. he s said it was a disisaster fr democracy is that happen. absolutely it is. but that is just one and a long list of things that donald trump has said that at one point i agreed with him and then he changed his view and now i don't agree with them anymore. it is a lot of fun to review those and i just blogged about a

bunch of those were he was thing we ought to have a revolution if the popular voice, the popular choice is not elected as president. i would rather have a 37 electors votes for hillary clinton and have a revolution, but either way, i think the popular choice in this case ought to be president of the united states. amy: lawrence lessig, there's the concerns of the election was held under the current electoral system that you change it after the fact would be improper. your response? >> i agree it is improper, but i'm not changing anything. if the constitution says they're supposed to exercise judgment -- which is what i think the right interpretation of their power is -- and i'm saying, what are the values that ought to inform the judgment? the value of equality, the value of one person, one vote, was given'twas more than 50 years ago as a central part of our constitutional tradition. under that principle, we ought to be applying the same standard today that i would have said we shshould look at -- apply a year ago.o. we made a mistake in 2001 we allowed d that decision about to

shouldld be president, bubush ve , be decided about for the supreme court. this is the product of a radically unequal weight o of -- way of allocating votes. it is a fractition of the way yo the votes in people in wyoming and other states compared to california. we should be l looking at that d saying, does it make sense he aske? if they look a at the results in sightt is a reason to disqualify the winner of a popopular ecection, we would actually have esidentialal campaigign cited sosomething more than just an dollllar of their time in 10 states in the u.s.s. we would have presidential campaigns focused d on a broad swath ofof americans to convince them to support the candidate. amy: finally, professor, your harvard law professor. i would ask about a totally different issue. controversy sparked tuesday when he made tita unconstitutional proposals in a

single tweet. he tweeted -- nobody should be allowed to , perhapserican flag loss of citizenship or a year in jail." the supreme court has ruled it is unconstitutional to strip people of citizenship for most crimes, quitting desertion. earl warren wrote in 1958, the deprivation of citizenship is not a weapon that the government may use to express its citizens conductct, however reprprensible ththat conduct mamay be. what are y your thououghts, prprofessor? >> i think there''s potentially loopholele presidedent's becomig more and more like vlaladimir putin everery day. those arare exactly the rules in russia. you u can be thrown in jail, loe your citizenship in russia. but it is absolutely unconstitutionalal to imagagine either of those t two penalaltis for r exercisising free speech y j justice scalia,a,

would be e turning in his grave now to imamagine the r republicn presidential candidate for presidenent or president-e-elect tatalking abt t doing someththig like throwowing somebody in joee for flag burning. he joined the flagag burning opinion which s said it was a protected firstt amendment expressisive activivity. amamy: i want to thank you for joining us, professor lawrence lessig. professor lawrence lessig is a professor at harvard law school and the author of "republic, lost: how money corrupts congress -- and a plan to stop it." we will link to your op-ed in the "washingngton post" is "the constitution lets the electoral college choose thehe winner. they should choose clinton." when we come back, we will talk hacking with bruce schneier. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democrcracynow.o.org, the war ad peace report. i'm amy goodman. elections will be hacked. that is the title of a recent times" by ouryork next guest the leading cyber

security privacy researcher bruce schneier. he warns -- "our newly computerized voting systems are vulnerable to attack by both individual hackers and government-sponsored cyber warriors. it is only a matter of time before such an attack happens." is a --bruce schneier security technologist. he's the e author of "data a and goliath: the hidden battles to cocollect your data and control your world." talk about your concerns today in the aftermath of the 2016 election. >> a lot of our voting machines are basically computers. especially computers without any paper audit trail or horrible to hacking -- vulnerable to hacking and errors in ways that cannot be corrected. my worry is we're going to happen election n where there is credible evividence of a hack ad we're literally not going to know the actual results and have no way to figure it out. and that, right now, , will be

disaster for our system. amy: your concern is we're going to have an election. do you think we had one? >> my guess is no. it is interesting to watch these three states. amy: you mean pennsylvania,, wisconsin, and michigan? >> yes, those three states. there a are anomalilies in the results that seem to correlate with voting m machine types. that is a red flag for hacking. and something we should look at and we should definitely research. my guess is it isn't. my guess is there some confounding variable that the machine type is correlated to demographic in some way, but we don't actually know until we do the research. my worry right now is the recount. that process was designed decades ago. countntingout -- ballots slower. it did not mean looking at the voting machines for forensic evidence of hacking. i'm not concerned after t this -

i'm not convinced after this research we will know more. amy: i want to turn to comments by alex halderman, director of university of michigan's center for computer security and society, and one of the leading computer scientists and election lawyers calling for a recount. he indicated a hack of the vote was "plausible" but went on to emphasize -- "the only way to know whether a cyber attack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence, paper ballots, and voting equipment in critical states like wiscoconsin, michigan, , ad pennnnsylvania."." your thoughts? >> he is 100% correct. that is the only way to know. when there are paper ballots, and optptical scan machine realy vote on paper in a paper ballot isis your backup, you can look t that paper. that will give you the actual vote. in states i don't have that, that are just touch screen machines like atm machines, there is no way to figure out original voter intent. dylan thing you can do is forensically analyze the machines, the network, and while that may lead to o evidence of

hacking, he won't tell you what the original votes are. that process can take weeks, it can take months. it is not a process we are ready for. we expecect the winner now. amy: in wisconsin, clinton received 7% votes less on t thoe relying on voting g machines thn those using optical scanners and paper ballots. that was a piece in "new york magazine." your thoughts? >> that is exactly correct. that is the red flag that could indicate hacking. it could indndicate other thing, too. there was a complex post on 538.com that look at that data and had a theory was demographics, that was the deciding factor and not hacking. that could be t true, too. we have a problem right here. elections serve two purposes. the first is to choooose the winner. the second is to convince e the loser. the losing side e has to believe

the election is fair, otherwise it is not lelegitimate. things like this do legitimatize the election. that is why we need to investigate them and come upup withth the actual answer. if there was hacking when you -- we need to know about it, if there wasn't, we need to know about it. i made an important point. there needs to be rules in place before him because now when the election is over, that -- battle lines are drawn. trump ursus clinton. you're going to pick the process that has your side win. t itnd this a month, i would be easy to come up with aa set of rules for everyone to agree on. we need the rules in place before we vote when we do not know which way the hacking or the demographics or the miscount might go. amy: i want to turn to report by "rolling stotone" investigative reporter greg palast. reporting from ohio just before the election earlier this month, palast spoke to elecection law atattorney r robert fitrtrakis t

problems with the e voting machchines. we hear fifirst from fitrakis. >> machines nonow can actuallyy tatake a balallot i image in the sequenence of every siningle one cast to eleliminate fraudud if somebody tempers with the paper ballots. >> there's only one problem -- >> they decided to turn off the machine.e. >> repreresenting democrat and republicans. auaudit protecection fctctions e literally been shut off. >> they bought state-of-the-art agreement and turn off the security. amy: bruce schneier, your response? >> it is hard to know how bad that is. photographing the paper and the paper still exist, then we're ok. if the photograph is j just a backup of the paper. if the paper is deststroyed, thn that is an absolute disaster. without knowing more, i can't tell. something else product that is

important that we cannot lose sight of the real issue here, which is not the hacking in those three states, but the voter suppression everywhere. and whether it is voter id requirements or closing polling places in poor neighborhoods or reducing early voting or purging voter rolls -- there is a concerted effort in the u.s. deny people the right to vote. i thinknk that is the real issu. and that has probably caused a lot more discrepancy in the vote versus the will of the people than machines -- even though machines can be a disaster. amy: we spoke to michael isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for yahoo news. he was looking at reports that hackers outside the u.s. infiltrated two state election databases. this is what he had to say about vulnerabilities in the voting infrastructure here. >> in 40 states, we optical scan , voting in which there are backup a paper ballots so there is a safety net. but there are points of vulnerable -- folder ability.

in six states, there are electronic voting machines that are vulnerable that could be tampered with. there's internet voting for overseas ballots and military baballots 33 states. amy: bruce schneier? >> he is exactly correct. olderare three areas of ability to worry about. the first is the voting rolls, if someone c can hack those rols and change them or delete them, they could cause real problems on election day. the second is the machihines. yes, optical scscan machines are the most secure and the s safes. there's a paper ballot you fill in old and it is processed in the paper is your backup most of the thirird area of vulnerabiliy is the tabulation of the counting. we do not talk about that much but after everyone votes, there's a system of and celebrating all of those results from every machine higher and higher into a single state revolt -- result.

rise three areas are all for hacking, not just from foreign powers, but from hackers everywhere. these are not things that only ththe purview of nationstates -- are computer systems are so vulnerable that even amateurs can in some case do it. amy: bruce schneier, thank for being with us, security tetechnologistst. we will link to your piece in the "new york times" is headlined "american elections will be hacked." he's the author of "data and goliath: the hidden battles to collect your data and control your world." that does it for our broroadcas. we hope if you're in the area december 5 in new york city for our 20 the anniversary celebration. you can visit democracynow.org for details. we have a job opening, democracy now! hiring a senior tv producer and looking for interns and f

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