WEBVTT

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fronts, the Trump administration is going hard against non-citizen voting ahead of the

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midterms.

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There's the work with the U.S. Postal Service to send out mail-in ballots only to voters

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on state citizenship lists.

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There's a purported U.S. Census Bureau report claiming that 500 non-citizen voted in Wisconsin

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in the 2020 election, and a new Department of Homeland Security investigative surge in

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states, including Wisconsin, to prosecute non-citizen voting.

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And yet, Wisconsin election officials describe non-citizen voting as vanishingly rare, because

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it's already illegal.

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What's going on?

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We turn to Marquette University Professor of Political Science, Philip Rocco.

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And thanks very much for being here.

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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 multi-layer effort by the Trump administration

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to kind of do January 6th every day, to keep alive the myth that there's widespread

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non-citizen voting, to kind of delegitimize elections.

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And it's not just kind of one instrument or one tool that they're using to do this.

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They're using information from the Census Bureau, using enforcement power from DHS,

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and using in a really irregular way the postal service in an attempt to gatekeep who votes.

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And so I think what that tells us is that the administration is really hedging its bets,

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both on what strategies it thinks it's going to be successful with, but also what the outcome

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in a way of all of these strategies is going to be.

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And they're kind of setting up, I think, some opportunities for themselves if one of the

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strategies doesn't work out that they can sort of fall back on another.

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Should ordinary voters be concerned about all of this?

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Well, I think it's important to distinguish being concerned from being vigilant and aware

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of what the facts on the ground are.

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State and local officials are the people who are responsible for administering elections

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in the United States.

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The White House is explicitly not an entity that is allowed to do that.

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The federal government is allowed in very limited instances to play a role in election

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administration, but not the things that are happening now.

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And so the information on how elections are going to run, how they're going to work comes

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from state and local officials.

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And in a way, those are the important people to be listening to and to make a plan to

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vote is really important.

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So I think to be aware, to be vigilant, but not to be sort of dismayed simply by looking

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at what's happening in Washington, but knowing that the authority rests at the state and

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local level.

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So the Census Bureau report showed 24,000 non-citizens voted nationwide in 2020 and 500

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in Wisconsin.

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What was your reaction when you saw that Census Bureau report?

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Well, my reaction was that it didn't show that at all.

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The Census Bureau's own research has time and time again done record matching studies

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of this kind and found false positives.

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In other words, purported matches that weren't matches at all between two different lists

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of individuals in excess of 6 percent of the sample.

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And what we see here is a number of people who are alleged to be non-citizen voters that

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is far smaller than that.

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

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did this research, which is in doubt itself, found from no statistical evidence at all.

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So there's also the process being developed by the Postal Service to send ballots and

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envelopes with barcodes showing recipients are on state citizenship lists.

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I know Wisconsin officials say the new system is nowhere near ready and ballots are already

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being sent out.

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So this disrupts the midterm elections potentially, including in Wisconsin.

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Well, I think that if the courts are not successful in stopping this process from going forward.

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And I think we have some indications to think that it's going to be difficult for the Postal

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Service to play this role.

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If not legally, then certainly operationally, it is a really heavy operational lift that

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they are trying to pull off in a very short amount of time.

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But I do worry about chaos.

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And I worry about it not only because that's what might play out, but also because how the

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appearance or image of chaos can make it potentially easier for the Trump administration

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after the fact to say that this wasn't a legitimate election, and it's very similar

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to somebody lighting a house on fire and then saying, oh, wow, this is a terrible

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situation when they themselves have caused it.

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There's the new investigation into states, including Wisconsin, on the part of the Department

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of Homeland Security, as we mentioned.

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What do you know about that and what investigators will be looking at and what's your reaction

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to that?

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Well, I think we don't know very much about that effort at this time.

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It certainly seems to be an indication that the Trump administration, which has lost time

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and time again in federal court cases, trying to force states to produce information that

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is protected information about individual voters' personal details.

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The Trump administration doesn't seem to be interested in abandoning that effort simply

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because courts have said that it's illegal.

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They are now going to use seemingly every tool in their toolkit to try to intimidate state

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officials into giving them what they want.

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It's kind of an extortionary activity.

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But we don't really know exactly what these officials are going to be looking for and

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what that looks like.

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But I think it's another part of this multilayered strategy that we're seeing, which indicates

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to me that the administration doesn't seem interested in giving up.

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All right.

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We leave it there.

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Philip Rocha, thank you so much.

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Thank you.

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That was beautiful, bringing it all the way around.

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Yeah.

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Is that okay?

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I feel like sometimes it's hard to know if you're saying anything at all.

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Or nothing.

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Yeah.

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No, it was really good.

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It was super clear, and like I said, you started with the multilayered effort and ended

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with it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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The other thing is it's like, obviously, we need to be on alert, but also it's like being

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freaked out.

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Yeah.

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I tried to strike a balance with like, listen to what St. local officials are saying.

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That's the main thing.

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Yeah.

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Hopefully that.

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It did.

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It did.

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It was hysterical, either.

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You know, it's just an interesting mix.

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Oh, we're in concerns, but yeah, Stairs doesn't help anybody.

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So anyway, thank you so much for getting to take care.

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Thank you.

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Have a good weekend.

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Bye.