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>> On multiple fronts, the
Trump administration is

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going hard against
noncitizen voting ahead of

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the midterms. There's the
work with the U.S. Postal

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Service to send out mail in
ballots only to voters on

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state citizenship lists.
There's a purported U.S.

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Census Bureau report
claiming that 500

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noncitizens voted in
Wisconsin in the 2020

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election, and a new
Department of Homeland

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Security investigative
surge in states including

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Wisconsin, to prosecute
noncitizen voting. And yet,

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Wisconsin election
officials describe

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noncitizen voting as
vanishingly rare because

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it's already illegal.
What's going on? We turn to

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Marquette University
professor of political

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Science Philip Rocco. And
thanks very much for being

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here.
>> Good to be with you.

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>> So as to that question,
what is going on?

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>> Well, I think what we're
seeing is a kind of

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multilayered effort by the
Trump administration to

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kind of do January 6th
every day to keep alive the

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myth that there's
widespread noncitizen

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voting to kind of
delegitimize elections. And

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it's not just kind of one
instrument or one tool that

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they're using to do this.
There's using information

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from the Census Bureau,
using enforcement power

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from DHS, and using in a in
a really irregular way. The

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Postal Service, in an
attempt to to gatekeep who

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votes. And so I think what
that tells us is that the

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administration is really
hedging its bets, both on

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what strategies it thinks
it's going to be successful

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with, but also what the
outcome, in a way, of all

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of these strategies is
going to be. And they're

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kind of setting up, I think,
some opportunities for

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themselves. If one of the
strategies doesn't work out,

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that they can sort of fall
back on another.

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>> Should ordinary voters
be concerned about all of

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this?
>> Well, I think.

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>> It's important to
distinguish being concerned

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from being vigilant and
aware of what the facts on

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the ground are, right?
State and local officials

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are the people who are
responsible for

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administering elections in
the United States. The

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white House is explicitly
not an entity that is

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allowed to do that. The
federal government is is

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allowed in in very limited
instances, to play a role

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in election administration,
but not the things that are

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happening now. And so the
information on on how

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elections are going to run,
how they're going to work

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comes from state and local
officials. And in a way,

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that's the important. Those
are the important people to,

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to be listening to and to
make a plan to vote is, is

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really important. So I
think to be aware, to be

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vigilant, but not to be
sort of dismayed simply by

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looking at what's happening
in Washington, but knowing

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that that that the
authority at the state and

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local level.
>> So the Census Bureau

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report showed 24,000
noncitizens voted

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nationwide in 2020, and 500
in Wisconsin. What was your

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reaction when you saw that
Census Bureau report?

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>> Well.
>> My reaction was that it

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didn't show that at all. We,
the Census Bureau's own

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research has time and time
again done record matching

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studies of this kind and
found false positives. In

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other words, purported
matches that weren't

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matches at all between two
different lists of of

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individuals in excess of 6%
of the sample. And what we

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see here is a number of
people who are alleged to

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be non-citizen voters. That
is far smaller than that.

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And so really, you can't
distinguish what the Census

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Bureau, if indeed the
Census Bureau did this

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research, which is in doubt
itself, found from no

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statistical evidence at all.
>> So there's also the

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process being developed by
the Postal Service to send

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ballots and envelopes with
barcodes showing recipients

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are on state citizenship
lists. I know Wisconsin

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officials say the new
system is nowhere near

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ready, in ballots are
already being sent out.

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Will this disrupt the
midterm elections?

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Potentially including in
Wisconsin?

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>> Well, I think.
>> That if the courts are

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not successful in stopping
this process from going

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forward, and I think we
have some indications to

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think that it's going to be
difficult for the Postal

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Service to to play this
role, if not legally, then

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certainly operationally, it
it is a really heavy

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operational lift that they
are trying to pull off in a

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very short amount of time.
But I do worry about chaos

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and I worry about it not
only because that that's

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what might play out, but
also because how the the

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appearance or image of
chaos can make it

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potentially easier for the
Trump administration after

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the fact. To say that this
wasn't a legitimate

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election. And it's very
similar to somebody

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lighting a house on fire
and then, you know, saying,

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oh, well, this is a this is
a terrible situation when

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when they themselves have
caused it.

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>> There's the new
investigation into states,

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including Wisconsin, on the
part of the Department of

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Homeland Security, as we
mentioned. What do you know

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about that and what
investigators will be

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looking at? And what's your
reaction to that?

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>> Well, I think.
>> We don't know very much

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about that effort at this
time. It certainly seems to

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be an indication that the
Trump administration, which

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has lost time and time
again in federal court

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cases, trying to force
states to produce

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information that is
protected, information

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about individual voters,
personal details, the Trump

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administration doesn't seem
abandoning that effort,

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simply because courts have
said that it's illegal.

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They are now going to use
seemingly every tool in

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their toolkit to try to
intimidate state officials

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into giving them what they
want. It's kind of an

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extortionary activity, but
we don't really know

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exactly what these
officials are going to be

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looking for and what that
looks like, but I think

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it's, you know, another
part of this multi-layered

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strategy that we're seeing,
which indicates to me that

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the administration doesn't
seem interested in giving

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up.
>> All right. We leave it

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there. Philip Rocco thank
you so much.

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>> Thank you.
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