The Truth About Election Administration

Summary

Episode Summary: The Truth About Election Administration

Podcast: Is This Really Legal?
Host: Liz Oyer
Guest: Stephen Richer
Date: August 6, 2026
Episode Theme:
This episode delves into the complex and contentious world of U.S. election administration, focusing on the law, recent changes, and ongoing challenges. With former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer offering candid insights from his frontline experience, the conversation addresses misinformation, new federal pressures, and what Americans can do to ensure free and fair elections in November.

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Main Topics & Insights

1. Personal Experience Under Fire

[03:11 - 14:50]

• Liz introduces Stephen Richer, laying out his credentials and his experiences in Maricopa County, AZ, during some of the most heated and controversial elections in recent memory.
• Stephen reflects on the historic context of election integrity in America, noting advances since the 1960s but explaining that recent cycles have rekindled doubt and danger:
  • “...the narrative has been anything but [confidence] over the past six, 10 years, which has really been one that questions almost every single election.” ([04:57])
  • Pressure and threats are real, not just “a political game,” with thousands of aggressive emails, confrontations at voting sites, and even violence and doxxing targeting administrators and their families.
• Notable moment: Richer copes with the strain by joking about hair loss:
  • “...there was lots of commentary on that. But, yes, I did have much more hair, and I also had lower blood pressure. But now my life is in many ways much easier and much more glorious.” ([09:05])

2. Partisan and Decentralized Election Administration

[09:54 - 12:13]

• The U.S. features a highly decentralized election system, with many chief administrators—such as county recorders—being elected and partisan, a rarity among democracies.
• Defenders say bipartisan requirements at polling sites serve as an inherent check, e.g.:
  • “...no jurisdiction in the United States is administered solely by Republicans or solely by Democrats...For a lot of the operations, such as removing a ballot from a mail ballot envelope, it has to be a bipartisan team...” ([10:20])
• Richer’s view: Ideally, these roles would be appointed and professional, but that’s unlikely to change soon.

3. The Toll of Misinformation

[12:22 - 16:10]

• Misinformation deeply affects both voters and officials, with election workers bearing the brunt.
• Richer shares how conspiracy theories and hostility impacted his family, and how he became for the first time a witness and a victim in criminal matters due to threats and harassment.
• Liz’s validation: “...you really sacrificed a lot to preserve our free and fair elections, and we all owe you a debt of gratitude across the political spectrum.” ([14:50])
• Richer defines the real battle as “a war on truth and process and rule of law.” ([15:00])

4. Structural and Legal Foundations of U.S. Elections

[20:01 - 22:54]

• Host and guest discuss: The president’s push for federal action via executive order and legislation is unprecedented.
  • “...under the Constitution, the president has no role in elections. He has no legal authority to make rules for elections.” ([20:01])
• Richer clarifies: Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution gives the states (and Congress, to a limited degree) the authority over election law. The president’s recent executive orders and legislative proposals (Save America Act) step outside this traditional structure.
  • Key federal laws have focused, historically, on expanding and protecting access, not restricting it.

5. The Mail-In Voting Debate

[22:54 - 29:04]

• The episode explains the stakes of mail voting and what proposed changes would do.
• President’s March executive order:
  • Attempts to restrict mail voting and involve the USPS in voter screening, both unprecedented moves.
  • Major logistical and legal obstacles make these changes very unlikely to take effect before the November elections.
  • Richer: “...the window of fraud...is far, far, far, far outweighed by the convenience and accessibility that Americans have enjoyed and...embrace.” ([26:48])
• Advice for voters: Expect mail voting to remain available, as courts have repeatedly blocked these executive orders. ([28:50–29:04])

6. Voter ID and the Save America Act

[30:25 - 36:58]

• Save America Act: Seeks to require documentary proof of citizenship and tighter voter ID measures nationwide.
• Concerns:
  • Could kill online registration, disproportionately burdening less affluent, less mobile Americans.
  • Would require immediate implementation, risking “chaos” for local officials (echoed by the conservative Washington Examiner).
  • Election officials value steady “rules of the game”—last-minute changes threaten basic administration and trust.

7. The Non-Citizen Voting Narrative

[36:58 - 41:02]

• The Administration claims hundreds of thousands of noncitizens are voting—is this credible?
• Richer’s take: Empirically false; states and independent investigations consistently find only a few accidental registrations—almost never deliberate fraud on any meaningful scale.
  • Quote: “Are there non citizens who have registered? Yes. Are there non citizens who have voted? Yes. Is it a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent? Yes.” ([37:31])

8. Justice Department Requests for Voter Rolls

[41:02 - 45:42]

• The DOJ has demanded full voter registration data (including private info) from states. Most states have refused and have won every court case so far.
• Richer: No historical precedent or clear rationale for the federal government demanding this data, which is managed at local and state levels.
  • Possible motives: centralized federal voter file, noncitizen investigations, or general data aggregation, but “the simple answer is I don’t know.” ([43:57])
• Memorable lighter moment:
  • “Is that really a business you want to be in? I mean, look at me, you know, look at my hair thing.” ([45:42])

9. Final Confidence and Advice for November

[46:15 - 50:21]

• Will elections be fair in November?
  • Richer: “Yes, I do. I have great confidence still in the median election administrator. I have great confidence still in the federal and state judiciary in not buying into any of this.” ([46:15])
• The main wild card is whether the federal government might interfere during live election administration, e.g., by seizing ballots or equipment.
• Advice to citizens:
  • Stay informed—consult mainstream news, your local election office, and court records.
  • Get involved as an election worker or poll watcher; transparency is key.
  • Maintain the presumption of good faith unless proven otherwise in a court of law:
    • “...the presumption should be that they won until you prove otherwise in a court of law.” ([49:01])

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Notable Quotes & Light Moments

• Stephen Richer, on personal and systemic resilience:
  • “That has downstream effects, that a lot of people think that it’s all just a political game... but for the people who administer elections... it leads to confrontation... it translated to millions of dollars in... securing our facility in Maricopa county...” ([04:57])
• On misinformation:
  • “You now have the ability to create your own media ecosystem. And then I think the news media ecosystem realizes that appeals to emotional outrage play very well.” ([16:10])
• On bipartisan administration:
  • “...almost all state law requires that there's more than one party at a voting location.” ([10:20])
• On conspiracy and resilience:
  • “My value add...was maybe being as the shield that took as much of that as possible to allow the normal election workers to continue doing their job.” ([12:38])
• On future risks:
  • “I think the wild cards leading up to this election are...will the federal government act on election day while the election is in process?” ([46:15])
• Lighthearted take on toll of the job:
  • “If that’s the worst that comes out of this, then so be it. That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for Team America.” ([09:05])
  • “Is that really a business you want to be in? I mean, look at me, you know, look at my hair thing.” ([45:42])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Personal attacks and toll on election officials: [03:56–14:50]
• Partisan, decentralized U.S. election system explained: [09:54–12:13]
• Origin and impact of misinformation: [15:00–17:54]
• Legal framework for elections & recent federal attempts: [20:01–22:54]
• The future of mail-in voting: [22:54–29:04]
• Save America Act and implementation chaos: [30:25–36:58]
• Noncitizen voting myth: [36:58–41:02]
• DOJ requests for voter rolls: [41:02–45:42]
• Confidence in November elections & citizen advice: [46:15–50:21]

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Engaging Takeaways

• Despite recent tumult, election administrators remain committed and competent.
• Most federal actions to restrict or centralize elections lack both precedent and meaningful legal or practical groundwork.
• Fears about noncitizen voting are vastly overblown, with actual instances negligible compared to total turnout.
• The fundamental check on misinformation is local-level engagement and transparency.
• The process is always improving—Americans should stay informed, involved, and vigilant but retain confidence in the institutions.

Final words from Stephen Richer:
“I still have confidence. And if you have any questions, go find, find me, find an election administrator. Let’s knock those questions out. Let’s not feed doubts, and then let’s move forward with the rules of the game set.” ([49:24])

Transcript

[A]

Voter registration is processed at the local level. And a lot of these states have alleged that it would be unlawful for them to share that information with the federal government. So the federal government has sued. The Department of Justice is O for 20 in those in that every single federal district court judge who has ruled on this has ruled in favor of the states.

[B]

Welcome to Is this Really Legal? I'm your host, Liz Oyer. Today we are going to be talking about the very timely, very important topic of elections. As of today, we are just three months out from the midterm elections, and yet there is still so much uncertainty about what November's elections might look like. Many of us are wondering if we'll still be able to vote by mail or if we'll have to show documents to vote or if our votes will actually be counted. It is not normal and frankly, not comfortable to have so much uncertainty so close to an election. But I've got an incredible guest today who is going to walk us through all of it and make sure we are prepared to cast our ballots in November and to help our fellow citizens do the same. Stephen Richer was the county recorder for Maricopa county, Arizona, from 2020 until 2024. The county recorder is the chief official responsible for administering and overseeing elections. And Maricopa county is the largest county in Arizona where over 60% of its population lives. So this is a really important job. Stephen held this job during a time of unprecedented challenges to election integrity in Arizona and elsewhere. He was responsible for defending his county's elections against claims of fraud. Following the 2020 and 2022 elections, he emerged as a model of integrity under pressure and a true champion of democracy during that incredibly trying time. Stephen is now a senior practice fellow at the Ashe center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a legal fellow at the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy center for Constitutional Studies. Steven Richer, welcome to Is this Really Legal?

[A]

Thank you very much. That's a high bar. I'm supposed to make everyone feel confident about the voting process. So I certainly didn't achieve that in Arizona, but we very much tried.

[B]

Well, you know what, Steven? I have learned that people do tend to feel more confident when they feel empowered with information. So if the most you can do for us today is give us factual information that we can rely on both to, you know, make sure that we are able to vote ourselves and also to refute misinformation that may be coming from others in our lives, that would be incredibly helpful and valuable.

[A]

That sounds great and the, The. The great thing is that you're more empowered than ever as an individual voter just because of the way in which we now administer our elections, that almost every single state allows no excuse early voting. Almost every sing allows you to vote by mail without an excuse. And so we can get into all of that, but there are things that you can think about, do that are available to hopefully put some of that discomfort at rest.

[B]

Great. Yeah. So, Stephen, free and fair elections are something that most of us, many of us, or if not most of us in this country, have taken for granted for most of our lives. We go to our polling place on election day, we cast our ballot, we get a cute little sticker, and then we go on with our day and don't really give it a lot of thought. But in recent years, misinformation about election elections has become a major theme in our politics. And it's really dangerous because it undermines confidence in our elections, and it's also dangerous for people involved in administering elections like you were. So I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to share your personal story about how you became a victim of a misinformation campaign that was really quite damaging to you and your family.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I think that narrative that you set out is certainly true of our generation, but it's important to keep in mind that that wasn't true of previous generations in the United States. This country has a rich history of both voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement, but that really, over the last 50 years, we have made immense improvements such that Liz and I and others growing up could take that for granted. And it wasn't something that we thought about. And that's. And so I agree with that characterization, with that caveat, that, of course, the 1960s weren't all that long ago in which a substantial portion of, especially the American south was. Was effectively disenfranchised.

[B]

And so, yeah, that's a really important point. That's a really good point. And I'm speaking from my experience of privilege living in Washington, D.C. where it's made very easy to vote. You're absolutely right that it has not always been easy for everyone in this country to vote. But for many of us in recent years, it's not something that we've had to think a lot about till the last couple of election cycles.

[A]

But you and I, we cast our first ballots in the 2000s. And so, you know, I agree with that assessment. Broadly speaking. Now, are there always instances? Yes. And the good thing news is, is That I think the trajectory with a few dips here and there continues to be one that is more accessible and we can be more confident in the election results. Now, as you suggested, the narrative has been anything but that over the past six, 10 years, which has really been one that questions almost every single election. From the LA mayoral race, there was lots of claims of fraud to the recent Virginia redistricting race. And one of the messages that I like to leave people with is that that has downstream effects, that a lot of people think that it's all just a political game and this is simply one more political ball to be throwing around and pointing fingers at the other side. But for the people who administer elections, at best it translates to thousands more emails questioning the integrity of the results or sort of pointedly accusing election workers of various misdeeds. If it gets uglier, then it leads to confrontation at voting locations. It leads to some churches or synagogues not wanting to open up their facilities for election Day Tuesday. And then of course, it translated in 2021 and in subsequent years into either violent act, violent threats, which of course takes a toll on individuals, including many of the people that I worked with and my family. And then it also translates to millions of dollars in that we spent millions of dollars securing our facility in Maricopa county between 2021 and 2024. And so there is societal deadlight, deadweight loss. There is human hardship. And it's not just a game for politicians to play.

[B]

And this is not people in Washington largely who are experiencing this. I mean, election administration, it's decentralized. So you were one of many thousands of election administrators around the country who are feeling this type of pressure in different places. Is that right?

[A]

That's absolutely right. And I think we often think about the Secretaries of State or the heads of large election jurisdictions like Los Angeles county or Harris county or Maricopa County. But the reality is, is that the median election administrator who's top of the office is working in an office that's pretty small, that just has a few people in it. And I heard Tom Hicks, former Commissioner of the Federal Elections Assistance Commission, say yesterday that that profile is usually a 55 year old woman with about 2 years of college education and not accessed great physical security, cyber security and other personnel resources. And so, yeah, it's not just. Again, it's not, maybe I made for an easy punching bag because I come from a background where I guess I can handle that a little bit better. But for a lot of people who are both the chief elections officer and for people who are just working the election, this can turn their lives upside down, and they don't necessarily have the resources to deal with it. I mean, we're talking, like, people getting in your face. We're talking people pushing you. We're talking about people doxxing you online. We're talking about people you. Trying to get you fired from different situations. And I just. It really. My time there showed me many wonderful things and many wonderful people who work hard for little pay, who are committed to the American experiment. But it also showed a lot of ugliness among our fellow Americans.

[B]

Can I ask you, did you have more hair before you took that job?

[A]

Wow, you're going to go there. I think you've probably seen that evolution even a little bit.

[B]

I've seen some pictures online, so just wondering.

[A]

Yeah, so, you know, I used to have this robust red hair, and it was. It was always unkempt because I don't really comb my hair. Some people online would say, do you comb your hair with a. With a balloon, you know, generating that static electricity? And then it decreased and it decreased. And then, you know, at the polite suggestion of some of my Internet followers, I finally went ahead and just shaved it because, yeah, let's just say that there was lots of commentary on that. But, yes, I did have much more hair, and I also had lower blood pressure. But now my life is in many ways much easier and much more glorious. And so if that's the worst that comes out of this, then so be it. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for Team America.

[B]

The universe gave you a makeover, Stephen. So let me ask you about your position as county recorder. I was interested to discover that it is actually an elected partisan position. You were elected as a Republican to administer the elections for the county. Why is that, and do you think that is a good model, the idea that this is a partisan elected position?

[A]

Yeah, this is very unusual to the United States. If you ask people from other countries how they administer their elections, they'll say it's largely done at the federal election level and it's done by unelected bureaucrats. And I think to a lot of Americans, that makes sense because they liken this process to a referee. But I would say that that analogy isn't quite accurate because there's no discretion involved in here for the most part. And some of that partisan tension actually maybe adds to the system. So defenders of the current system would say, yes, we elect partisans to many of these positions throughout the United States because guess what? All people have partisan bias, so it's better just to be forthcoming about that. And then we bake into the system, this bipartisan tension where no jurisdiction in the United States is administered solely by Republicans or solely by Democrats. Even at voting locations. Almost all state law requires that there's more than one party at a voting location. For a lot of the operations, such as removing a ballot from a mail ballot envelope, it has to be a bipartisan team for adjudicating ballots, which is looking at stray marks. It has to be a Republican and a Democrat sitting together. And so, yeah, I understand why that could, prima facie, raise some concern, but I do think that we've accounted for that. Now, if I were designing a system, I got to be honest, I would say let's make it an appointed position where we can get somebody who's demonstrated hopefully great skill with just being able to execute on processes and has removed himself a bit from the political process. I don't know that that will change anytime soon, but the majority of election officials, chief election officials in the United States, are elected officers.

[B]

You actually faced some of your greatest challenges from fellow Republicans during your tenure.

[A]

You were really, I say almost all.

[B]

Yeah, okay, yeah, well, why don't I let you explain what happened? I mean, you know, you were caught in the middle of a contested election for governor in 20, too, and you and your family really suffered as a result of being in the crosshairs there.

[A]

Yeah, it really started on the night following the November 3, 2020 presidential election, when Alex Jones, who's a conspiracy theorist who had stories about the Sandy Hook shooting and just says a lot of reprehensible things, and a number of high profile Arizona Republicans grabbed their guns, grabbed their flags, and made their way down to the Maricopa county tabulation facility, which was far less secure in those days, and pressed up against the glass and started shouting at the temporary election workers who were working through the night to do their task. And it just, it revealed to me that this was a beast of a different nature than some of the political tit for tat games, some of which I'd engaged, that were pretty standard course for elected politics, for partisan politics. And it ultimately turned into something that was very ugly, that was very animating. And, you know, a lot of that was directed at me, and a lot of it spilled over to my family members. And it was a far from pleasant experience. But I thought my value add to the office was maybe being as the shield that took as much of that as possible to allow the normal election Workers to continue doing their job. I will say I didn't block everything by any stretch of the imagination. I took a lot of incoming, and I think I handled it well for the most part. But there was definitely some days when I just didn't want to get out of bed. There were some days when it impacted my wife's professional career. There were some days when I just was thinking about the life choices that I'd made. And then I got to play a lot of different parts in the criminal justice process. That was my first time ever being a victim. It was my first time ever being a witness in a criminal matter. And, yeah, that was not something I expected to do.

[B]

Well, you really sacrificed a lot to preserve our free and fair elections, and we all owe you a debt of gratitude across the political spectrum. So thank you for that.

[A]

Thank you. You know, I would say just on that point, it's a little bit. I view the free and fair elections question as a proxy war or as a front on the war that you've been fighting, which is more a war on truth and process and rule of law. Because really, what these people were asking us to do was to ignore the facts, ignore the court cases, and just take matters into our own hands. And to me, setting aside the questions of representative governance, that was just so anathema to how I viewed American government as a government of process and law. And the people that I'd affiliated with were saying we should just throw that out. And I think that you've been saying we shouldn't just throw out everything and sort of the structures that we've built up in some of the domains in which you've worked and now comment on.

[B]

Yeah, I agree with how you've put it, the war on truth and facts. What do you think is at the root of so much misinformation and disinformation taking hold?

[A]

Yeah, I think scholars of this will tell you that this is by no means novel. And they'll say they'll point to yellow journalism. They'll point to Soviet Russia, party magazines. Perhaps that's true. I'm not a scholar of those areas. But I would say social media has amplified everything. I would say extreme partisanship has amplified everything. And that when you're with your side, no matter what, you filter out everything that conflicts with that. And you now have the ability to create your own media ecosystem. And then I think the news media ecosystem realizes that appeals to emotional outrage play very well. And the idea that an election is stolen from you is something that is emotionally captivating and so I think that generates a lot of interest and then a lot of traffic. And then the way that media works these days, it gets re upped and it's re upped. And then the other challenge is that some of this stuff is so easy to come up with in terms of alleging it, and then it's quite painstaking to go through the process of debunking some of it. And so it felt like we were often fighting from behind.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well, do you have any advice for, you know, ordinary Americans who don't have a huge platform to help combat misinformation? And relatedly, do you have any advice for those of us who read stuff and aren't sure what we can trust or believe?

[A]

I think that the mainstream media, for all of its faults, still holds itself to core journalistic principles of calling sources, fact checking, and acknowledging when they get things wrong. And so I think those are good places to start. If you have particular questions, please reach out to your local election office. I've never met an election official who is just like, gosh, I just don't want to even talk to these people. I definitely don't want to answer questions. And so a lot of things that seems, I don't know, maybe unusual or even suspicious at first has a ready, readily available answer, but oftentimes these people don't have the biggest platforms. Again, I just described some of the, the demographics and some of the jurisdictions that are out there. These people aren't getting millions of tweets on, on social media or follows on social media. And then, as unsexy as it may be, but this is in your domain. And so look to court cases, I mean, that really is sort of one of the last places where facts and law really matter. And you can get in trouble if you don't represent the facts correctly. And at the same time that some of these people would be barking about the most outlandish theories of Venezuela stealing our elections. The vast majority of the court filings they made were more like minute technical challenges. You can see the rebukes that they got from almost everyone on the federal judiciary, no matter what their legal philosophy is and no matter which president they were appointed by. And so I find that really telling. And then the last bit of advice is, I'm honest, honor bound to say this, but is get involved. As an election worker, you're part of the process. You're complicit now with us if you're an election worker, and then if not that, then as a partisan poll observer, those are important. Again, I talked about that sort of partisan tension that's baked into elections. That's only present if there are observers from the Republican Party, Democratic Party, independents who are there.

[B]

Great. Well, that's great advice, Stephen. Thank you. I want to ask you about some of the things that many Americans are reading about in the news right now. Election oversight has been a major focus for our current president. He's issued two executive orders seeking to rewrite the rules for federal elections. He's been pushing legislation that would create new voter registration and identification requirements. He's seeking to limit the use of mail in ballots. The Justice Department is trying to force states to hand over their voter registration rules to the federal government. And all of this is really unprecedented because under the Constitution, the president has no role in elections. He has no legal authority to make rules for elections. Can you explain who is supposed to make the rules for elections in our country and how they historically have been administered?

[A]

That's a correct characterization. And I think that you could have gone on even longer in terms of the different attempts by this administration to inject itself into election administration. I mean, it was about two or three weeks ago that the President gave a address from the Oval Office that was heralded by Senator Bernie Moreno as the most important Oval Office address since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And what was it about? It was about something that he continues to talk about, which is election administration, particular past elections, but also playing into future elections. And so you're right that this is without legal basis. The Article 1, Section 4 of the United States Constitution very clearly delegates authority for election law to the states, for election administration to the states, but also a role for the Congress. And the Congress has exercised that authority with some discretion and has only passed really a very few pieces of significant legislation. The National Voting Rights act of 1965, National Voter Registration act of 1993, the Help America Vote act of 2002, following the Bush v. Gore election, and the UOCAVA for Uniform form and overseas Voters. And so beyond that, almost all of this has been delegated to the states. And that's something that has really been championed, especially by the Republican Party. And if you'll Remember back to 2021, when Democrats in Congress wanted to put forward HR1, the for the people act that would mandate certain things like a, a minimum number of early voting days, same day voter registration, Republicans throughout the United States screamed bloody murder because this was seen as one of the last vestiges of federalism where states really are in control. President Trump has definitely turned that on his head. And many Republicans downstream of him are also singing a very different tune these days.

[B]

It seems like a lot of the legislation we've seen in the past has been intended to make it easier to vote, not to make it harder to vote. But a lot of the things that we're seeing coming from this administration are things that would make it more challenging, challenging for many Americans to exercise their right to vote. And one of those things is mail in voting. I mean, you know, where I live in Washington D.C. everybody gets a ballot sent to them by mail. And you have the option of voting by mail or in person. And it's very, very easy. And I think a lot of Americans have come to rely on mail in voting. But in March, the President signed an executive order that would limit the ability to vote by mail. Can you talk about what that executive order would do and why it's significant and whether it's legal?

[A]

Yeah. So there's two important parts to this, which is the substance over which you can have a legitimate public policy debate, and there's the process. And just to hit that process component real quickly again, which is that the President is trying to do this through executive order. I think it was March 25, 2026 that he signed the second executive order on election and administration. And again, that's just, that's so unprecedented and so far it has lost on every single level in our different levels of federal courts. And so that's one component of it. Now turning to the substance, yes. I think 36 states now have no excuse mail voting. The western states in particular are very keen on mail voting, perhaps because of our spread out nature. Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, all of us have 75% plus of our returns come from mail ballots. And so just the stakes on this are immense for many states. If you were to do away with mail voting, then all of those states would have to basically rebuild their election infrastructure in a matter of weeks. What the President's executive order tries to do is it, among other things, tries to limit the amount of mail voting that can be done. In some iterations of his ideas. It would say that mail voting is only if you have an excuse or if it's for limited number of people like military and overseas in other parts of some of the ideas that he's put forward, he would inject the United States Post office into monitoring who gets a mail ballot in that all election jurisdictions would have to send to the USPS before the election. Exactly. The people who are going to receive a ballot. In the past, the USPS has just been a mail carrier, and election officials assemble the mail ballot, they assess the eligibility of the voter, and they send that out and then the USPS returns it if the person returns about. But the USPS would also have a screening opportunity to take mail ballots out of the system on the way back. So certainly one piece of what's going on here that's then combined with also components of mail voting that are present in the Save America act that the Congress has talked a lot about. But the President has been consistent, if nothing else, on the idea of mail voting. And the irony is not lost on me that he himself is a male voter as somebody who is registered in Florida and votes by mail there, as he has in the past few presidential elections as well.

[B]

Well, are there legitimate objections to mail voting as a way to, you know, cast a ballot? Is there an actual substantive concern that we should have that it allows people to vote who aren't entitled to or other other types of concerns?

[A]

I think in the, in the noise, in the static, in the minutia, that yes, you can make some legitimate public policy arguments against male voting. For instance, though I don't think that this is an argument that Republicans are making. But if you, you send mail ballots to a household, it is far easier for one member of the household to pressure other members of the household into voting a certain way. And then it's easier to commit garden variety types of fraud, whether it's having a residence in multiple jurisdictions and sending back ballots for both of those jurisdictions. If you don't need to be present on election Day. It's easier to send in a ballot for your child who went away to college, and then you fill out the ballot and you put it in the envelope and you know what your kid's signature looks like, so you sign it. And those things do exist and we can have legitimate public policy conversations about them. What we've decided, and I think correctly, is that the window of fraud, of opportunity for fraud that is open by mail ballots is far, far, far, far outweighed by the convenience and accessibility that Americans have enjoyed and in every single state continue to embrace. And I think that that's only going to be more and more prevalent as more states in the post Covid era have sort of become attuned to the benefits of mail voting. There's a lot that has been done over the last even just 10 years to secure mail voting. Improvements in signature verification, improvements in ballot tracking, improvements in being able to cancel mail ballot packets that go out, improvements in identifying where Registered voters are. And so yeah, it's a little bit of a work in process and it is not perfect. But I have yet to see anything on a national level or on a statewide level that has really called into doubt the results of an election because of mail ballots.

[B]

Do you think that voters should be able to expect that they'll be able to vote by mail in November? I mean, for someone who was able to vote by mail during the last election, can they expect that they will still be able to cast their ballot by mail this November?

[A]

I think almost certainly. I think that the President's efforts are very likely to fail, whether it's his executive orders or the Save America Act. And then I just don't see how they could possibly be implemented, even something like getting the United States Post Office involved. These are systems that have been cobbled together by different jurisdictions over 30 years. In Arizona, we've had no excuse mid mail voting since the mid 2000 decade. So about 2006, and really that's been built up. And now you're going to want to inject the post office into overseeing mailboats from 150 million-plus Americans who will be participating. I don't think that that's anything that you could do overnight. I think that there would be real concerns and I think there would be immediate legal challenges. And I suspect that anyone with a clear mind about this at all would say, Mr. President, maybe we can look at this for a future cycle where we can have this conversation about mail voting and it can be readily implementable. That being said, the President is clearly frustrated. He's mad that the Congress hasn't delivered on this front. And so you can see him using the Executive order and the federal bureaucracy as his outlet.

[B]

So he's also been pushing Congress to an act, a bill called the Save America act, which you have mentioned. And there have been a couple of different iterations of this bill. Can you just briefly outline what the current version of the bill would do? What are the significant changes that would take place if the bill passes?

[A]

So this bill does touch on mail voting in some iterations. It's been massaged quite a few times, but it's been called at different points the SAVE act, the Save America act, the Make Elections Great Again Act. But right now we're dealing with the Save America Act Act. And so far the Republican majority in the United States Senate has been unwilling to undo the filibuster to move this forward. And so I don't think it's going to be in play for the midterm election. But at its core it has two components, which is documented proof of citizenship and voter identification at the voting locations. So documented proof of citizenship, Citizenship, you must be a United States citizen to participate in a federal election. That's long been true. It's true of every single state. There are only a handful, maybe I think three cities that allow you to vote in a city election if you are a lawful non citizen resident. But you can pretty much discount that because you must be a United States citizen. Now under federal law law, the requirement for that has been attestation that you are a United States citizen. This again gets back to sort of the, the trade off between access and fraud. A number of states, Arizona included, ask you for documented proof of citizenship. And most of the states do that by simply checking the motor vehicle division to see if you already have proof of citizenship on file there. Because now many mo motor vehicle divisions make you show either a birth certificate or a passport when you get your driver's license. And so they say, okay, do you have it on file there? Great. And if not, then you need to come in and you need to give us a copy. Now what the Save America act in its current iteration would do would say no matter what, you have to go to the registrar and you have to show your birth certificate or your passport. And there's a lot of questions about how who has those documents. But one of the things that's less discussed is that this would kill online voter registration. And that's key for the vast majority of states because they take that information through the Internet. They can check to see if you already have documented proof of citizenship on file file, and then they can log you right there. If you have to start showing up to your registrar, oh my goodness, that's going to be a lot of unhappy Americans, not to mention the Americans who are going to have to find their birth certificate, make sure it has the last name that they still have, or find their passport. And only about 55% of Americans have the passport, which is disproportionately coastal, disproportionately educated, disproportionately affluent. And so I think that the, this plays out with a lot of different dynamics. And then the other one, as far as proof of identity, this is when you've, you've already registered, but you're showing up at a voting location and you have to prove who you are. The President wants that done in a certain way. He also wants that applied to mail ballots such that you would have to maybe provide photo id even within the mail ballot, which would be technically challenging. And so I think that, that some of these concepts are again, legitimate public policy conversations that can happen. The implementation of this is just, is ugly. And I think the details of this are quite problematic. And so this is actually legislation that I do not support in its current iteration.

[B]

There was a very interesting editorial in a very conservative newspaper called the Washington examiner. And the Washington examiner has supported the Save America act on the substance. I mean, they've said that this is good policy, but they ran an editorial this week that said essentially that this should not be implemented right now because the way the statute is written would make it effective immediately. There's no like two year or five year rollout period. It takes effect immediately. And they said essentially that would be chaos and it would potentially jeopardize the ability to ability of all of these local jurisdictions across the country to administer elections in accordance with law. So even if the changes are sound from a policy perspective, it is too late to try to cram this through before the midterm election. And can you talk about what it would look like for local election officials like your former colleagues to have to implement something on this scale between now and November?

[A]

You've got it. And I think you know the answer. The answer is chaos. And you said at the outset constancy, I think was the word that you used. And if there's one thing that election administrators like, it's constancy and it's knowing the rules of the game well in advance. Election administrators. Yeah. We have opinions on public policy as far as elections, how they should be administered, but for the most part, we just like knowing what the rules are, having certainty and being able to plan well in advance. In fact, this is such an ingrained principle in election administration that there's even a legal doctrine called the Purcell Principle that was actually named after my predecessor. It's a U.S. supreme Court doctrine case and it's that you should be wary about litigation that could cause changes in administration in the immediate lead up to a major election. And I would say the same should be true regarding the passage of new federal legislation, an executive order, or even new state law. This is not the time. Ballots go out very soon under federal law uniform and overseas ballots have to go out 45 days before the election. So just the notion that this could be implemented successfully without just madness, I think at this point is quite fanciful.

[B]

The policy rationale that we keep hearing from the current administration for many of these proposed changes are that non citizens are voting in our Elections illegally. And the Department of Homeland Security recently said that more than 250,000 non citizens were illegally legally registered to vote in just four states in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada. It did not explain where this number came from. I'm wondering, do you think that's a real number? And is non citizen voting a real problem in this country?

[A]

So no and no. I don't think that this real number, all four of those states have written back and they've said, hey, show us your homework. How are you arriving at that number? Number? What data were you even using? Because we didn't give you our data. And why is that so important? Because there's lots of people who have the same name and the same birth date and you didn't have access to the last four of their Social Security. You didn't have access to their driver's license. And this is coming from people like the Secretary of State of, excuse me, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, who is a Republican, who is very keen on making sure that non citizens don't participate. And then the other thing is, it's just wildly inconsistent with what past investigations by the states themselves have found. And they've been using increasingly tools that are made available by this administration at the federal level, and then they've been using tools that they have at the state level to do affirmative investigations of their voter rolls for non citizens. And I made a list of those. It's over at Declare News is where I put it in up. And you can see that most of these come back and they find, yeah, you know, like a hundred or something of non citizens who are on the voter rolls. And they have a handful who have voted in past elections, but that's out of sometimes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 million registered voters. And so it's always important to keep that context. Are there non citizens who have registered? Yes. Are there non citizens who have voted? Yes. Is it a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent? Yes. Now, unfortunately, one slight outlier recently popped up in the state of New Jersey. And they said we had about 6,000 noncitizens who were on our voting rolls, 400 of whom had participated in the past election. Now, those numbers compared to what the Department of Homeland Security is now suggesting, but they're still way more significant than any study that has been done in the past. And this was the result not of a bunch of non citizens who had gotten it into their heads and said, we're going to get around this process so that we can unlawfully vote in these elections. This is the product of a software glitch that took non citizens who were at the Motor Vehicle Division checking a box that they weren't citizens and somehow that switch aired and got switched into citizenship instead. And then because New Jersey is an automatic voter registration state, those voter registration forms were processed and those people were on the rolls, the vast majority of whom did not vote. And again, important context. New Jersey has about 7 million registered voters, about 5 million of whom participated in the last presidential election. And then the last piece of this is a piece that's near and dear hopefully to your heart part, which is criminal prosecution. And the reality is that Director Patel of the FBI recently got really excited when he posted about 4 non citizens that the FBI was prosecuting. And again, yes, those cases exist and yes, if the FBI allocates enough resources to finding these, they will find more. But keep in mind that in the 2020 presidential election there were about 160 million votes count cast. So four should be measured against that.

[B]

Yeah, my math, I'm not going to try to do that math on the fly, but it sounds like a very small percentage. Stephen, I want to ask you about these requests that the Justice Department have been making to states across the country for their voter roles. Right. What exactly is the Justice Department asking the states to turn down over and why if you don't?

[A]

So the vast majority of voter registration information is actually public. So in most states you can go and you can say I want to know what Steven's registered as and they can tell you that I'm a registered Republican in Arizona. They can tell you my registered address, they can tell you which elections I've voted in in the past. They can tell you how I voted in terms of of if I voted by mail or if I voted in person. They can't tell you for whom I voted for, but they can tell you a lot of stuff. Now the stuff that is not public information is some of that sensitive information like the last four of my Social Security number, my driver's license, 10 digit driver's license, my signature. And some of that stuff's important for doing what we call the hard matching of matching different files. So if there's another Steven Richer out there, there, etc. Etc. Etc. What the federal government wants and it has never said why is it wants all of the information doesn't want just the public information. It wants that full complete information with the driver's license, with the Social Security number, with the birth date, with the signature. And again, it doesn't it hasn't said why, because the federal government doesn't have a role in voter registration. The voter registration is processed at the local level, usually a county, oftentimes a city or a township, and then it's kept at the state level for a statewide voter registration database. But there is no obligation to share that with the federal government. That's never been requested in the past. And a lot of these states have alleged that it would be unlawful for them to share that information with the federal government. And so the federal government has sued, I think about 30 some states, all the states that have said said no thanks in some capacity. And it has so far gotten rulings on about, I think 20 of those. And the federal government, the Department of Justice is O for 20 in those in that every single federal district court judge who has ruled on this has ruled in favor of the states saying either no, this isn't required, or to surrender, this would actually be unlikely, lawful.

[B]

What could they possibly be seeking to do with that information? I understand that they're not getting it from the states that are challenging it, but I think there are some states who have turned it over voluntarily. What are they doing with that information?

[A]

The simple answer is I don't know. The speculation is that they're building a master voter registration file such that the federal government could be in the business of administering elections, or they're going to use that to identify registered voters in different states that they're going to say are improperly or unlawfully registered, or they're using that information to assist in their pursuit of non citizens who are allegedly, allegedly registered. Or it's just collecting data. And I guess there's some precedent for that in that when the Doge operation was in full swing, they know we know that they liked collecting data and aggregating it into more shared federal resources. None of this would change that the states and the counties are the ones who determine the eligibility of an individual voter. None of this would change the fact that it's the states and the counties who set the rules and the laws. And none of this would change the fact that it's the counties and the local jurisdictions that do the actual administration. Unless something really changes and all of a sudden the Department of Homeland Security is saying, you know what, local official, you're out. Give us the keys to the tabulation machine and we're running the show now. I hope we're not there yet. That would be very surprising to me. Maybe I lack the imagination, but I think the federal government lacks the resources and the training to do that. I would also set. As somebody who just lived through five years of that. Is that really a business you want to be in? I mean, look at me, you know, look at my hair thing.

[B]

Again, it all comes back to the hairline.

[A]

And Pete Hegseth and others. No, not Pete Hegseth, sorry, Director Mullen and others. Some of them have, you know, still robust hairlines. So, you know, why would you subject yourself to that?

[B]

Yeah, you're right. Well, Stephen, last question. I want to ask questions you and it's a two parter. Do you think that we are going to have fair elections in November and what can we, the citizens, do to try to help make sure we are able to cast our votes?

[A]

Yes, I do. I have great confidence still in the median election administrator. I have great confidence still in the federal and state judiciary in not buying into any of the this. I know that people make their criticisms of the judiciary, but never has the judiciary indulged any of the fanciful, stolen election claims. Never did they, you know, call into question the 2020 election. State courts as well have consistently ruled in favor of the real facts and the real law here. And so I think that supports the system. I think the wild cards leading up to this election are the main one is will the federal government act on election day while the election is in process. So I think we can take it for granted that some politicians will do some barking after the election. And you know what? It's not right. It shouldn't be done. But we've kind of gotten used to it and we've gotten pretty good at defending elections that have already been administered. I think the thing that would throw us for a loop is what if the federal government, some entity within the federal government, seizes tabulation equipment during the election or seizes ballots that haven't yet been tabulated. So sort of like what happened in Fulton county, where earlier this year they executed a warrant and took a bunch of materials pertaining to the 2020 election out of Fulton County. Well, what if they did that during the live election? And I think that would be a very challenging situation as far as what you can do do you can voice that this is unacceptable, that this has always been done by local election administrators. They've always followed state law that there's a process for making election challenges. And Quite frankly, the 2024 election was, by all reports, a very successful, smooth election that the president did not challenge after the election results that about 77% of Americans had a high level of confidence in the administration of and so all of this barking and all these allegations of mass error and mass fraud are a little bit mystifying to me as to how that changed over the last 16 months. And so I would say, you know, what worked well in 2024, we should keep improving. We can keep having public policy conversations. But there is no basis for broadly calling into doubt at this point the American election infrastructure and the people who win. I think the presumption should be that they won until you prove otherwise in a court of law.

[B]

Well, Stephen, I hope that everyone who has listened to this conversation takes some reassurance from your prediction that things are likely to be okay. And I hope that everyone who's been listening feels more prepared to go out and make your voice heard at the polls in November. Thank you so much for your time, Stephen. If something does go horribly wrong in November, we're definitely going to have you back on the podcast.

[A]

Come call me and be like, you know what? What was all that? We're going to be okay. You know, you, you're, you're not imaginative enough. And then I can say, you know what? I was wrong. And I will say, like, never in a million years would you have what I have guessed that the FBI was going to execute a warrant in 2026 for ballots pertaining to the 2020 election. I wouldn't have guessed that. So, you know, take this all with a grain of salt. You know, I haven't seen the betting on Kalshi or on, on Poly Market on whether or not the election will be disrupted. I hope that they don't have that particular prediction market, but I still have confidence. And if you have any questions, go find, find me, find an election administrator. Let's knock those questions out. Let's not need doubts, and then let's move forward with the rules of the game set. And you know what? Just like we all had to learn growing up, sometimes you lose in sports and it's not the end end, but you need to be able to accept it.

[B]

That's great advice, Stephen. Spoken like a true American and somebody

[A]

who has lost in sports before.

[B]

Thank you, Stephen, for your time. And thank you to everybody who tuned into this episode of Is this Really Legal.