Nick: The lie that former
president trump won the 2020
election has played out again
and again in Republican
primaries for statewide office.
From senate to governor to
secretary of state.
Now reporting by politico
details the efforts by the
Republican party on the local
level to challenge and
potentially overturn future
elections.
William is back to explain.
William: It's called the
precinct strategy where
partisans are recrewed to be
pollworkers on election day at
different polling stations.
They'll look for fraud and if
they believe they find it
they'll call into a network of
Republican attorneys who are
primed to file lawsuits to block
the vote counts.
A story out in politico today
details how this effort is
already under way in Michigan
and it's being led by the
Republican national committee.
This idea, putting partisan
actors into what are supposed to
be nonpartisan roles, has been
promoted on the right for
months, amplified by former
trump adviser Steve Bannon.
>> The establishment signaled
nothing puts the fear of god
into them more than the precinct
strategy.
William: It's also backed by
former president trump who
continues to lie about the
results of the last election.
In February he urged his
supporters to become precinct
committee members to, quote,
take back our great country from
the ground up.
To help us understand this
strategy and what it means for
elections and for our democracy,
I'm joined again by Rick Hasen,
a law professor at university of
California Irvine and author of
the new book "Cheap speech: How
partisanship destroys sphree
speech."
Rick: Even though we hold
national elections every four
year we don't conduct a single
election we conduct 10,000
different elections.
Everything is hyper localized.
So while there's been a lot of
focus on secretary of state
races and on governors, really
the line workers, people who
check you in at the polling
place, take your ballot, maybe
scan it into a machine, it's
down to that level where we see
people who have embraced the big
lie being recruited by one of
the political parties to come in
and serve not as a poll watcher,
which we've seen a lot of in the
past, someone observing what's
going on in the polling place
and maybe reporting to their
party but a poll worker.
Somebody who should be having
allegiance to the election body
that is actually running the
election, but who is now being
told they should be reporting
what they see via an app to a
political party.
William: As politico detailed,
they heard types of meetings
planning to train these
motivated pollworkers, as you
say, different from poll
monitors, to call Republican
lawyers if they see something
On election day.
Is that legal?
Rick: First, because we're
talking about this decentralized
system, every state has their
own rules as to what pollworkers
are allowed to do.
And so I'm sure that in many
states, to communicating outside
the chain of command, that is,
if you see a problem at the
polling place you should go to
your supervisor, going instead
to the outside could be ground
for the person to be let go.
I don't think it would be
unreasonable for a -- an
election official to say if you
have a problem tell me and we'll
deal with it.
You can always talk about the
issue later.
I'm concerned that this strategy
of going outside could create
Kay ys at the polling places.
Could lead to disenfranchisement
of workers who might be
challenged for reasons unrelated
to their qualifications.
Maybe they don't speak English
well or have an accent and
they're being called a
noncitizen for no good reason.
Ultimately I'm worried that this
could create the grounds for a
legislature to try and say that
the election was not fairly run
and try make some kind of change
to election results down the
line.
William: Meaning if they can --
if partisan pollworkers can
create enough smoke in a couple
of different precincts on
election day, we know that
according to the politico piece
that the G.O.P. Is trying to
find a network of district
attorneys who are simp at the
took this cause as well that
then the legislature might step
in and do something nor drastic?
Rick: Right.
You may remember part of the
2020 strategy trump and his
allies were going through to try
to steal the 2020 election was
to say that there was a failed
election, there was so much
fraud or problems with how the
election was won, we don't know
who won the state of Arizona.
Let the Arizona legislature come
in and pick its own winner.
Send in an alternate slate of
electors.
This is something we'll hear
from the January 6 committee
coming up late they are month.
You can imagine a similar
strategy next time.
Lots of smoke.
Lots of unsubstantiated claims
of fraud or problems and the
legislature uses it as a flimsy
excuse to try to overturn
voters' will.
William: In the politico piece,
several Republican officials
working on this strategy say
this is not nefarious.
This is just us trying to offset
population of pollworkers in
cities like Detroit or
Philadelphia and we're just
trying to balance the scales
here.
It's nothing to worry about.
What do you make of that
argument?
Rick: If all that's going on
here is the Republican party is
recruiting workers to work in
heavily democratic areas like
Philadelphia or Detroit, I don't
think there's anything wrong
with that.
We need more pollworkers.
The problem is people are being
recruited based on the idea that
they're going to be looking for
this fraud.
Fraud is quite rare in American
elections.
But people believe the false
claims from 2020 that the last
election was stolen.
They're being put into area
where they're being told, and we
just heard Mo brooks say this
yesterday, that fraud happens in
democratic areas.
They're being primed to believe
it's Democrats, people of color,
poor people who are stealing
votes.
And so if you go in with that
attitude as opposed to I'm going
to go in and help our dmok stoi
assure that all eligible voters
and only eligible voters can
cast a ballot that will be
fairly counted, then you're in
trouble.
Then you don't have a system
where the process is timing to
work in the right way.
William: Rick Hasen, U.C.
Irvine, always good to see you.
Thank you for being here.