JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump and his allies continue to sow doubt in the electoral process,
at times questioning the intentions of the election administrators and poll workers.
Yesterday, William Brangham spoke to election officials across the nation, both Democrats
and Republicans, about their work and why they are confident in the integrity of the
2020 election.
BENJAMIN HOVLAND, Vice Chair, U.S. Election Assistance Commission: My name is Ben Hovland.
I'm chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which is a federal agency dedicated
to studying best practices in election administration.
As far as everyone who works in the space, everyone who's a committed professional to
elections, this was the safest election we have ever had and the most secure election
we have ever had.
NATALIE ADONA, Assistant Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters, Nevada County: My name is Natalie
Adona. I am the assistant clerk-recorder and assistant registrar of voters for the county
of Nevada.
The one thing that we all have in common is that we care really deeply about democracy
and making democracy work. If we need to, for example, register a voter, it does not
matter what that voter's opinion is about politics. What we care about is, is the person
qualified to register to vote?
REYNALDO VALENZUELA, Director of Election Services, Maricopa County: My name is Reynaldo
Valenzuela. I am the co-director for Maricopa County, and I oversee early voting and election
services.
We're agnostic to the political party when you go through these doors. And we couldn't
do it without having that kind of commitment from our staff that knows that this is important
work to do.
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER, New Mexico Secretary of State: My name is Maggie Toulouse Oliver,
New Mexico's secretary of state and president of NASS.
If you see a state election official who is of one party or the other, and you see the
outcome for the candidate of the other party, the same at the county level, that just goes
to show you, when it comes to these jobs, that nonpartisan attitude of making sure that
outcomes are accurate and that votes are counted and counted fairly is absolutely essential.
LAURI EALOM, Democratic Director, Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners: My name is
Lauri Ealom, and I'm the Democratic director at the Kansas City Board of Elections.
I don't know that any of us signed up to risk our lives for people to vote. It made me feel
really good when I looked in the distance down past the train tracks, and I could see
200-plus cars of COVID-positive people that we were ensuring would vote. I realized that
what we were doing was huge. It was -- it's a part of history.
JAMES YOUNG, Regional Sales Manager, Inclusion Solutions: My name is James Young. I'm a regional
manager for Inclusion Solutions.
Previously, I served as elections administrator in Louisville, Kentucky, and a special assistant
to the Kentucky secretary of state.
Part of what I do today is, I travel the country full-time. I work with election administrators.
This idea that ballots are showing up in the back alley at 4:00 a.m. is very insulting
to the integrity of not just these career professionals, but also to the poll workers
that oversee the process.
BENJAMIN HOVLAND: When you look at the way our election system is designed, all of the
pieces of it have checks and balances, have bipartisan teams of Republicans and Democrats
working together to ensure that the process is fair and accurate.
If there's any credibility, any facts to these allegations, we should see that. But it needs
to be presented in the appropriate place, in a court of law, where a fair arbiter can
make that decision. And we just haven't seen anything that rises to any level of real concern.
REYNALDO VALENZUELA: Arizona has a hand-count audit. We looked at over 47,311, to be exact,
ovals. We went from arrows to ovals, our new ballots, but 47,311, and not one had a discrepancy.
That's amazing. And that's a large volume.
So that, in and of itself, at least gives us the confidence that we have checks and
balances. So, somebody that says, I don't believe, we have the data.
NATALIE ADONA: We just want people to vote. It doesn't matter to me what your political
leaning is vs. somebody else. What I just want you to do is vote.
I have nothing but the utmost and deepest respect for people's political leanings and
their beliefs. The question is, do people believe that I find that important? I hope
so.
MAGGIE TOULOUSE OLIVER: I think, like any election, there were hiccups. There were issues
that came up. That's not unusual.
But I think, given all of the threats to this election, whether it be from the cybersecurity
point of view, to just the fact of COVID-19 and its spread, and all of the hurdles that
that erected, the fact that you had a smooth-flowing election process on Election Day, that you
had record numbers of Americans turning out to vote, that, in and of itself, demonstrates
the fact that the election ran just about as well as it possibly ever could.
JAMES YOUNG: It's important to remember, I'm a registered Republican. I voted a certain
way that may not be reflective of the outcome of the election. That doesn't mean the process
should be burned to the ground and that we should question the individuals who counted
the actual ballots.
LAURI EALOM: I get choked up talking about it, because this was really important. And
my team really stood for something. I'm proud to be a part of this team. At least I know
that, for a time in my life, I truly lived with a real purpose.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, Judy, that is just a cross-section of the tens of thousands of
people who work every single year in every single election, to try to make sure our elections
are safe and fair and transparent and as equate as possible.
And, as you mentioned, I talked to all of those people yesterday. And we reached out
to them today since this news that Senator Lindsey Graham might have been contacting
election officials, and in one case might have suggested to one official that he toss
out certain mail-in ballots.
And all of them expressed or many of them expressed a concern that any political pressure
was being exerted on secretaries of state in a study, especially because these people
are already facing these bogus allegations that they're part of some massive conspiracy.
Many of them are receiving death threats and violent e-mails and things like that. And
the secretary of state from New Mexico, who you heard and hear, Mary (sic) Toulouse, Mary
(sic) Toulouse Oliver, said, if these accusations are true that mail-in ballots were being encouraged
to be tossed out, she called that, if that was true, disenfranchisement at its worst
-- Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: William, so glad to hear from all of these election officials, as you say,
across party lines and around the country.
William Brangham, we thank you.