Why we shouldn’t take election security for granted
Think from KERA
KERA
4.7 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2024
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s Election Day, and the votes are being tabulated. So how can we know the counts are accurate and the data is safe? Derek Tisler, counsel in the elections and government program at the nonpartisan Brennan Center, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss election tabulation and security, why we might not know the official winner on election night, and what makes new technology so effective in counting votes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You may have heard conspiracy theories about large numbers of non-citizens or otherwise ineligible people casting votes in U.S. elections. |
| 0:18.4 | To be clear, there is no substantial evidence of this. There are lots |
| 0:22.1 | of safeguards in place all over the country to ensure the people who vote are legally entitled to do |
| 0:27.3 | so. But we should also be clear on this. There are some real and valid concerns about election |
| 0:33.3 | security in this country. From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. I'm Chris Boyd. For one thing, a lot of |
| 0:40.4 | jurisdictions are relying on old or outdated voting technology. How outdated you ask? Some elections |
| 0:47.2 | administrators have turned to eBay to buy replacement parts for machines no longer in production. |
| 0:53.0 | And many places are using systems that could be vulnerable to hackers looking to stir up trouble. It's a big enough concern that the nonpartisan law and policy institute the Brennan Center for Justice has issued a list of recommendations for election security. And today we're going to talk about how to get them done with Derek Tisler, who is counsel in the Elections and Government program at the Brennan Center. |
| 1:14.2 | Derek, welcome to think. |
| 1:15.9 | Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. |
| 1:17.7 | Since I just mentioned this common concern many Americans have that non-citizens are voting in large numbers in many places, I should ask whether this is something that Brennan Center has looked into. |
| 1:27.6 | Like, are you confident that voter fraud is not something we broadly need to be worried about right now? |
| 1:34.5 | We are confident about this. So this is something that the Brennan Center has looked into. |
| 1:39.2 | This is something that, you know, numerous other organizations, academics, election experts, whoever it is, |
| 1:47.0 | have looked into this issue. And they have found over and over that non-citizen voting is |
| 1:52.2 | extraordinarily rare, like fractions of a percent across, you know, a huge span of elections. |
| 2:00.9 | And the reason for that is for federal elections, it is illegal for non-citizens to vote in that process. |
| 2:07.2 | And all states have multiple systems in place to make sure that only eligible voters are registering and that only eligible voters are able to cast a ballot. |
| 2:17.7 | Okay. |
| 2:18.5 | How does rampant conspiracy theory around voting of this kind in the absence of evidence |
| 2:25.1 | create its own set of problems? |
| 2:28.5 | Well, there are a number of problems that can come with this. |
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