support for conversations live comes from the gertrude j sant endowment the james h olav family endowment and the sydney and helen s friedman endowment and from viewers like you thank you good evening and welcome to conversations live on wpsu i'm ann danahee election day is less than two weeks away and this year's presidential election is already bringing voters out to cast their ballots tonight we'll talk about how mail-in voting and drop boxes will affect the election the impact of the kova 19 pandemic how legal challenges could play out and issues that are important to pennsylvania voters joining us to talk about all of that and to take your calls are terry madonna director of the franklin and marshall college poll and director of the center for politics and public affairs at franklin and marshall college and candace watts smith associate professor of political science and african american studies at penn state smith is a host of democracy works a podcast from the mccourtney institute for democracy at penn state and wpsu you too can join tonight's conversation whether you're watching us on air or online or listening to us on the radio we want to hear your questions our toll-free number is 1-800-543-8242 our email address is connect wpsu.org terry madonna and candace wattsmith thank you so much for joining us thanks for having us thanks man it's good to see you again election day is not even here yet but more than 1.3 million pennsylvania voters have already cast mail-in ballots of course we know a lot of that has to do with kova 19 the pandemic that we're dealing with and we've also seen a change in voting laws in pennsylvania terry what do you make of that when you look at the number of people who are already casting ballots well if remember back on june 2nd in in the primary elections 1.5 million pennsylvania voters cast their ballots by mail-in or absentee uh many experts thought that might double double for the general election and uh there isn't any doubt at all that far more democrats are voting by mail-in and absentee than republicans far more republicans are voting in person and so that could lead to some very interesting ballot counting on november 3 meaning the ballots that get counted in person might might indicate that donald trump is ahead in the polls but then secondly we aren't going to know no the results until at least three days after the november third general election because the pennsylvania supreme court has allowed counties to have three extra days during the election week to count the mail-in ballots but there is partisan differences here by about three to one democrats are doing the mail-in as opposed to voting in person with far more as i indicated before republicans casting votes in person so a long way to go in this and who knows if we even know at the end of uh election week who carried the state of pennsylvania right canada's like terry said more democrats are casting their ballots by mail-in votes than republicans and how people vote has already become a political issue was that surprising at all to just see how you vote not actually who you're voting for but how you vote become a political issue sure it seems like it wouldn't given that we're in a pandemic we we might think that reasonable people might respond similarly but in the realm of politics it's almost it's never like that um there's a political scientist liliana mason who shows that partisanship is becoming very very much essential to people's identity so in addition to kind of the political things that we do voting our uh uh the way that we evaluate the president is bleeding into things around like how do we evaluate what's going on with covid how severe is it what businesses do we want to shop at what neighborhoods do we want to live in so it's not surprising given the extent to which partisanship is becoming core to the way people think about themselves well with that in mind and questions about how people can vote we're just going to take a minute to look at a video explaining mail-in voting and this is by votes pa and it talks about how you can do a mail-in vote when your voted ballot is delivered to a secure location authorized by the county board of election it gets checked in just like you check in at a polling place if you vote in person remember you can only return your own ballot and it must be sealed in both the inner secrecy envelope and the completed and signed outer return envelope first an election worker scans the barcode on the outside of the return envelope this barcode is unique to each voter and makes it quick and accurate to verify that the ballot mailed to you has been received and is not a duplicate of another ballot next the election worker checks that you have signed the declaration on the return envelope your signature is an important part of the process so be sure to sign the back of the return envelope before you submit your ballot it's important to meet the deadline too your ballot must be delivered to a secure location authorized by the county board of election by 8 pm on election day if your ballot is received after the deadline it can't be counted once election workers are sure that your ballot envelope is signed and has arrived on time and that you haven't already voted your voter record is marked to show that your ballot was received and checked in this check helps ensure that each voter only votes once if you put your email address on your ballot request form you will get email updates you can check the status of your mail-in or absentee ballot anytime by visiting votespa.com mail ballot status so a little bit of information there for people who are considering the mail-in ballot and terry it's actually there was a court decision there was a pennsylvania supreme court and then the u.s supreme court upheld that decision that the state can count ballots that come in up to three days after the election is that right that that that's correct then the other there are a couple of important things here number one remember the mail-in ballots must be in the inner envelope the secure envelope if indeed it's just in the ballot is is called the naked ballot you got to love that expression don't you but if if your ballot is not in the inter-envelope which is supposed to go in the outer envelope and it's just the outer envelope then the vote will not be counted uh and so that that that that's important as well and we have yet not heard from the pennsylvania from the we expect the decision any day from the court the supreme court about the signatures right now there's the argument that this signature that you put on your ballot which was just reported on in that video has to match the signature on file you know with the registration you know in in with the voter registration people and imagine if they have this for some time and people's signatures change i would i would be really surprised if the court decides that county officials can check the ballots and reject them if the signature isn't the same it doesn't look like the one that they have on file right it's kind of surprising or maybe i shouldn't be surprised that we have these new laws to try to make it easier for people to vote candace yet is getting tied up in court was that surprising to you i think that it's really important for us to keep in mind how important voting is and what that when something is important then people want to fight over it and so we're in a situation where people are noting and noticing that there are more people who want to be involved and that can change the the balance of power so it's not surprising in so far as we're living in a society that is really polarized and that there are um folks who want to maintain any modicum of power that they have um the political resources um and say so so it's it's not surprising in so far as historically speaking voting rights and voter suppression have been just part of the american story and landscape we have a our first caller and so we have a call from julie and kane hi julie thank you for calling and what's your question see we have julie from kane hi julie are you there yes i am hi hi thanks for calling what's your question well my question is i thought there were pennsylvania constitutional amendments to be considered on the ballot but they weren't on the right end ballot so does that mean that right in voters can't vote on the constitutional amendments or are they i know that they're heard thanks for that great question uh terry can you help out with that i know that there are constitutional amendments coming up in the not in this election but in the upcoming election looking at future elections this this election are we looking at any yeah yeah i don't i don't think there are any uh maybe candice knows i i just didn't uh see any when i looked at the ballot uh constitutional issues i didn't see any ballot questions so to speak at all and uh you know obviously i think there probably will be some in the future dealing with how elections are conducted in the state that's for sure there are a number of uh ballot measures in allegheny and philadelphia county specific to yeah specific to the counties but not about the constitution i was talking about statewide but not as estate wise so i hope that answers your question not looking for it in this election for a statewide one julie thank you for your call so candace what are you expecting to see as far as voter turnout i don't know if you can read the tea leaves at all on what we're already seeing on this early voting with people doing their mail-in votes and it can be difficult to say but it does seem like there is very high interest in this election yeah i mean we've seen a lot more turnout since the 2018 midterms and those are usually pretty low turnout you know 30 40 percent turnout across the country uh the 2018 i think almost 50 percent of uh uh vote eligible voters turned out which is huge for a midterm election and we're already seeing i think i saw today in the washington post that 47 million people across the country have already cast ballots one in five of them are new voters either they're like you know because of their age their their new voters that maybe they moved or maybe they're just older voters who are voting for the first time so i can i i would imagine that we're going to see pretty high rates of turnout even for a general election this year yeah we could possibly have a modern record in terms of the turnout the polarization between democrats and republicans is as great as we've seen since we've had scientific polling and i i often joke and say the only thing that democrats and republicans agree on is medical marijuana uh that's you know said it said in jess but there's no doubt that the turnout is going to be up and even among young voters uh gen z and millennials were talking about 18 to 38 year olds that normally have a you know of all the age cohorts the lowest turnout you know whether we're talking about uh gen x the baby boomers the silent generation but i but i agree i i think we're gonna we could have a modern turnout record given the polarization giving the high level of interest in this election and the stakes are so significant right we have another question and this one is an email and this one is from connie in bolzberg and connie writes i requested and received a mail-in ballot but now i'm considering voting in person because of all the discussion of mail-in ballots being rejected an email said i need to bring my mail-in ballot with me to my voting location to have it voided will i be voting on a regular ballot or a provisional ballot wow so we're getting really technical here terry or candace does one of you want to take a shot at that sure i think it's important to note a couple of things i'm going to answer connie's question to know one that there are so many questions because mainland voting is new i'm relatively new and no excuse mail-in voting is new in pennsylvania and then got tested hard in the pandemic i think the second thing that's important about her question is that people are feeling that um you know they're listening to the the aspersions that are cast on mail and voting and on the integrity of the election which i think is something worth considering um you know thinking about what that means for american democracy but to her question finally she's right if you in pennsylvania take your mail-in ballot that you have received at home with the envelope the outer envelope and take it to your polling place they will avoid it you will sign uh you know scientists like a not an affidavit but you'll sign saying that you're who you are and you're doing this thing and then they will give you a ballot that it's just a regular ballot if you go without your mail-in ballot and you if you requested a mail-in ballot and then you go without it then you will vote provisionally but what connie is talking about she'll get the you know just a regular ballot if she does that if she brings her ballot in okay so we yeah thank you we hope that answers your your question and mail-in voting has become such a contentious issue that that supreme court decision that we were talking about terry does that show that just that it could come down to the individual votes that the two parties are willing to go to court they're going to fight in court whether or not you can count those ballots if they come in a day or two after the election i would be shocked if there weren't multiple lawsuits if particularly in the battleground states but it could be any state dealing with mail-in ballots dealing with uh poll watchers and the activities inside the polling places and what about the potential for disruption and i hate to say this the possibility of violence outside of the ballot places given this the contentiousness uh of this campaign i've been doing this for a long time i don't remember a campaign even when we had the big debate in the 60s over civil rights and the vietnam war the kind of contentiousness that exists and the huge difference between democrats and republicans as i indicated before on virtually every issue before our country and candace you were talking about the idea of mail-in voting and the idea that it's being considered that doubt is being cast on it but there's no real evidence of that right that there is fraud with mail-in voting no there's none it's one of those points that it's almost not worth talking about there's there's very little evidence of voter fraud and i'm from north carolina so um you know the the last time we saw major voter fraud in in north carolina it was republicans who were doing that so i'm not saying that voter fraud issues are republican issues i just think it's important to note and notice that there is very little there's very little voter fraud um around the country and so you know mail-in ballots are secure they're a good way to vote going to the polling place is a good way to vote absentee ballots are a good way to vote the only thing you don't want to do is not to vote or to vote more than once if you're just joining us i'm anne danahe and this is conversations live election 2020 on wpsu joining us tonight are terry madonna and candace watts smith our toll-free number is 1-800-543-8242 and we're ready to take your calls you can also send us questions by email at connect wpsu.org so terry going to that question that you've been doing this a long time have you seen this level of mistrust in the election or differences of opinion about which way to vote and which way can be trusted and whether or not we're going to trust those outcomes yeah well as candice pointed out you know i don't think there's widespread fraud in mail-in balloting i'm not going to say there isn't any but i don't think it's widespread and president trump has made that a huge point during multiple speeches and in tweets what he has said is to republican voters vote in person vote in person vote in person and he's repeated that and he's constantly referred to mail-in ballots as fraudulent uh look i almost fell off my chair about five or six weeks ago when i saw a gallup poll and it was on president trump's job performance positive 90 of republicans gave the president a positive job performance i hope everybody is seated two percent of democrats you're what i just said in fact when you look at other polls you'll see democrats giving the president a positive job approval at four five six percent the gap the gap on the approval is something that it is greater than anything we've seen since we've had scientific polling which shows you how polarized we are and i put it this way if president trump does something bad democrats criticize and republicans cheer if president trump does something good democrats criticize and republicans cheer that's a shorthand way of saying how polarized we are and each party's base is dug in you know dug in and we have a much lower percentage of undecided voters than we've had in recent elections so this is this is in a league of its own and it's not likely to change right and one place where we are very polarized and you can you can see it is the supreme court appointment that's being considered right now and part of that is that it's happening it looks like it's going to happen and it looks like it'll go through that amy coney bear will get appointed and approved before the election candace what if that does happen assuming she does get approved and appointed to the supreme court how do you see that impacting decisions about the elections that could work their way up through the court system oh plenty plenty i mean so for example there there was a case um that the supreme court heard recently um about these three additional days and what ultimately happened was there is a 4-4 decision so it was kind of like a non-decision and it ended up back down to the to the pa supreme court's decision um but it takes five to kind of undo some of these decisions that states may be making and we will see probably a lot more uh decisions that that haven't have the fifth vote in some cases or maybe even a sixth um a six so it it yes it's gonna matter it's gonna it's gonna matter a lot one other aspect of this is many uh democrats are using the number six six three in other words that the conservatives will control the supreme court by not uh not five four but six three and there are two kinds of cases in particular or two cases that could emerge how about a big debate and court cases over the election itself the second one is the court is going to take up uh the affordable care act and whether or not they strike down the entire law or or the part that is basically an issue is the mandate that was in the affordable care act you either you know you have you if you don't have insurance you must pay uh pay a tax the court could separate the two and just say you know whatever the mandate isn't you know whether they up or down on a mandate and leave it's called severability and leave the uh affordable care act intact but there are those two big situations i'll put it that way that a lot of critics of judge barrett constantly refer to when they oppose her uh her confirmation it came out by the way it did come out of the senate judiciary committee no democrat showed up the republicans moved it out of the committee and it looks like it's going to be taken up sunday uh before the entire supreme court right okay well we have another question and this one is by email and we have this question from mary and she writes if biden wins the election and trump litigates how long can trump pursue this okay so that's perfect timing are we going to see uh some sort of repeat of the 2000 election when it took a long time before the final outcome was settled okay okay i think it's important for us to keep in mind for example that obama won pennsylvania i mean we're mostly talking about swing states and so obama won pennsylvania by five percentage points and hillary clinton lost by you know one percentage i mean it was like very small 0.7 yeah and so the the these issues i think will only come into play if it's as tight as we think it's going to be and maybe it won't so i mean i think that this is something to consider that we have to remember that the florida issue i mean there were hundreds of votes at play not thousands or many tens of thousands so a lot of things can happen i'll i'll leave it to terry i'm sure he has something to say about it well i mean look if if it goes to court whoever brings the suit and the elections can't be certified we'll have to see where that all goes you make a good point and there's no way to understand it now but i'll say this if indeed no one gets when the electoral college meets in december if that no one gets 270 electoral votes and this thing goes on and on and on and on in court and the democrats control the house of representatives how many different ways can you say acting president nancy pelosi i'm assuming that she'll you know be this be the speaker of the house and so there are any number of possibilities candace is right and it's too hard to know exactly now it looks like trump is people are saying he will leave if indeed he loses the election but you can't rule out that the litigation will go on regardless of who files it you know if it ends up before the supreme court and almost anything you know is possible under those circumstance so candace mentioned the polls and one of the questions that came up in the the last election was how accurate the polls are i think a lot of people mistrust the polls now if they trusted them before and that was because a lot of people a lot of the polls forecast hillary clinton as the winner of course she did not win was it an issue of the polls not being accurate or was it more about misinterpreting the polls terry well let's put it this way hillary clinton uh won the popular vote nationally by 2.1 percentage points the national polls average on real clear politics was three points hillary so what's the point here the bottom line is that the national polls were right on it's the state polls and there were a bunch of reasons why the state polls were off and in varying degrees but pollsters have gone back and they've looked at their sampling techniques they've looked at their methodology they've looked at how they statistically adjusted the polls uh and even at franklin and marshall the center for opinion research that does a poll for me did an extensive exit poll and if you want i can explain certainly what what they found which explains why the fnm poll was off and in past years i mean back then we go to 2018 and the poll showed a guy named bob casey and another guy named tom wolf winning re-election uh back in 2012 the poll is right on with obama winning and so it's complicated but there's been a lot of reassessment of polling techniques and again if you want me to go on and and talk about specifically the franklin marshall poll i'm glad to do it but we can we can move on as well well i just can i if you don't mind if i add ann and terry um i think that it's also important for us to keep in mind that these are forecasts just like the weather just like when we bet on baseball games or you know other sporting things and in those contexts that have many fewer consequences we understand that i think that we felt i think americans felt betrayed um because the consequence of uh the you know one out of eight showing up you know for for trump showing up felt so consequential that we couldn't trust polls and forecasting but i think it's important to keep in mind that what we're getting are probabilities not um not necessarily telling us exactly what's going to happen that's it and it's a snapshot in time it's only good for the moment it's done change takes place you're exactly right and that's the fundamental problem with the fnm poll was we were out of the field 10 days before the actual election so what did we know within 10 days a large number of voters made up their mind or changed their mind in the last 10 days and we weren't polling so you you're absolutely right we couldn't pick it up the change that took place then there was another factor you all remember a guy named james comey the fbi director and what he did it was either thursday or friday before the election the following tuesday in 2016 he said i'm opening up an investigation into hillary clinton's email so you're right changes that took place after the polling was complete you know there's nothing that you can do about it if you're not in the field that's a great thing that's a great thing to keep in mind and we have a call and this one is from madden in state college hi matt and i hope i'm pronouncing that correctly from state college my name is martin martin i'm from england and um i watch a lot of english news and i want to make sure that everybody in the us knows just how the rest of the world thinks about the us and and what a deplorable that last debate how deplorable it was for the uh the rest of the world to see the u.s i live here with my family and frankly my friends from the university said that when i was in england they're making fun of me of just how terrible and how polarized this country is very yeah that is very polarized that's a great that's a great point and we are actually we'll have the second and final debate after tonight's show that first debate was extremely contentious this time they're taking measures to try to make it i guess to improve the the dialogue there's going to be a mute button candace what do you i guess what what do you say to that the idea of people looking at this from the outside and trying to make sense of it well marsden is not the first person i've heard say that i have a couple of international students in my classes and the fact of the matter is is that they were pretty confused about what was going on you know is this is this the way that that politics is done in the united states but my students other students felt that way too and i had to explain to them that we were all experiencing something all at the same time that um that many of us have never seen before so i i understand where martin is coming from and i think that a lot of americans are feeling that way that we would like to see the people who are representing us and who are leaders of our country to behave with dignity um and to you know to to to respect other you know even your opponent right democracy is about sometimes you are the rule maker and sometimes you're the ruled and so that it goes back and forth and that you try to keep that in mind so it was i think disturbing to to a lot of people um and i hope it unfortunately i have to say this that i think that the the even the format of the debate as i understand it for tonight is actually going to do a lot of reminding of how poorly behaved um the candidates were and all you know and how poorly behaved the candidates were um in the first election because excuse me in the first debate um because there's gonna be a mute button um and i think that that's kind of gonna be an audible reminder in the way that the plexiglass during the vice presidential debates was a reminder of the of the global pandemic and the extent to which it hasn't been handled in the united states right terry any thoughts on that on what to make of it and what we might see in the upcoming debate well that yeah that's a great question and the fact of the matter is and i'm being candid about this in the polls that were done afterwards uh president trump took a bigger you know there more concern was expressed about his behavior and biden uh received the most how do i put this his debate performance was viewed more favorably even though he interrupted and he called names and they both engaged in that so it's going to be really fascinating i think there's a lot more pressure if you will on the president than to see if he can comport himself very differently tonight and what you hear what you read and listen when they're on the air his advisors have really urged him to tone it down to stick to the issues and the fascinating thing about the last debate and both candidates did it they were asked a question by the moderator they spent 10 seconds on the answer and then went on to answer a question that wasn't asked but they wanted to get to a subject they cared about we'll have to see tonight if they stay on the subject and there are a couple of areas that aren't on the that aren't subject matter tonight and i'm i'll bet you dimes to donuts that the candidates veer off and go in their own direction right the beloved bar i have to see the beloved pivot right so if you're just joining us i'm anne danahe and this is conversations live election 2020 on wpsu joining us tonight are terry madonna and candace watts smith our toll-free number is 1-800-543-8242 and we're ready to take your calls you can also send us questions by email at connect wpsu.org and i think we actually have one more question from martin from state college he might have another question for us hi martin are you there yeah i'm still here hi what was your other commenter question so basically uh you imagine in the english parliament that one i'm from manchester in england and one of the uh the the labor mp for manchester or one of the suburbs of manchester called the conservative mp scum and it was just a major issue in english politics and they had to apologize and i think if the u.s system had had more of that we'd have less of this divisive behavior and and by the way terry every time i hear your name i think of lady madonna like terry madonna he used to be on wrsc and i used to when i heard your name i would sing that in my head well thank you for thank you i don't have her looks and i don't have her money well you don't know lady madonna was actually uh she she was not she didn't have that great look since you didn't have that much money if you listen to the song well well thank you thank you for your your questions and your and your comments any thoughts on that that we need to revise how we respond and handle these types of things as candace knows look the politics are just very different that that's it a parliamentary system is very different from the republic that we have in a way it functions but i'll tell you something back in the day not so long ago uh lawmakers used to scream and shout at each other on the floors of the general assembly in harrisburg and in congress scream and shout and then they'd walk by each other and say oh by the way don't forget our dinner tonight in other words they had close personal relationships they disagreed and now a lot of that is gone it it now the personalities are such and the issues are such that i'm not saying in every case but in many cases they just don't have the personal relationships that uh uh that candidates had in the past i'll tell you joe biden became very close to a guy named arlen specter uh pennsylvanians of course remember uh arlen specter and they developed a very close friendship over the decades and even if they disagreed with each other uh you know the personal relationship allowed them to work together when they alternated as chair of of the senate judiciary committee and so you know it's just much more acrimonious and far more personal when these invectives take place and when these disputes take place uh between and among members of congress yeah we have another call and this one is from carolyn in hollidaysburg hi carolyn thanks for calling and what is your question or comment i would like to know if the pennsylvania state legislature is going to allow pre-processing of the mailed in ballots because if they did the uh they the ballots you know could simply be ready to go the vote tally for those things could be ready to go at the same time that the results come in from the voting machines i don't know that they're going to allow that it doesn't look like they're going to allow that correct me if i'm wrong that's a great question though so terry what can we expect to see on voting day right the pollsters are going to have the poll workers are going to have to wait until that morning to start counting right yep the effort to move it early has failed you know to begin the separation and do the vote counting uh florida by the way allows it three weeks in advance and we're probably likely to know the results in florida by the end of the day on november three at least that's what the uh the expectations are very high that that will be the case because of the three weeks but politically they couldn't get together in the legislature and with the governor to to do that concerns about security and some other and some other matters uh and again i uh the experts that i follow uh all are all are saying that we may not know who won this presidential election for some time again partly because of the counting partly because of the potential for lawsuits as we as as we talked uh earlier so we're in no person's land in many respects and i imagine it will vary by the county some counties may have fewer voters or be better prepared or just have different situations candice i want to go back to the idea of trust in the election results and is that going to be a factor the longer you have to wait people are starting going to start to wonder it gives a lot of time for people to start coming up with theories about what's going on yeah i think that's why this show and shows like it are so important to explain to voters that if we don't get results um on the night of like we're used to um that that doesn't mean that something's gone wrong um and and that carolyn's question is a good one and i and i hope that there are political leaders who are listening to voters to say like you know it makes sense to start processing the ballots much earlier and there are plenty of other states that provide excellent models of how to do it properly securely and accurately so that they could have the you know the part you know a big chunk of what we need to know by the end of election day and there are still some states that that don't even begin to process their mail-in ballots until the until until um until post-close so each state has a different set of rules and it's not just going to be pennsylvania who's out there it's just you know it's predicted to be just such a a key state um to your other question um and can you remind me what it was i think that was the latest one and we actually i'm going to um instead of going back to that i'm going to jump in because we do have a caller we have another caller so we're going to get that question and this one is from connor in state college and hi connor thank you for calling and are you on the line you have a call from connor in state college hi are you there oh yeah i'm here hi connor what can you help what can we help you with yeah um so i was just curious i guess your guests had talked a little bit about you know voter fraud not really being an issue which i i i agree with there's not really much evidence there but but they had spoken about you know mismatching signatures and naked ballots and the potential for votes to get tossed away and i'm just curious do they not consider that to also be you know some sort of voter fraud where otherwise legitimate ballot ballots would also be tossed into the trash uh you know for procedural issues uh i'm just curious on their topic so kind of coming at it from the other direction i think if i'm understanding the question correctly if somebody means to vote they just didn't do all the paperwork properly and then their ballot gets tossed is is that a concern i think it is a concern because you know there are a lot of new voters and there are a lot of people who haven't voted this way before and i i in my just kind of own personal thinking is that a lot of constraints have been put on this business for example of the naked ballot that occurred like we are talking about that because the trump campaign litigated around that and so the decision ultimately was that if you don't have that security um the security envelope your vote gets tossed that was on purpose and that was an effort to reduce turnout and to reduce the number of votes that are counted so it's not voter fraud right it's not that people who are suppo not supposed to be voting who are voting or are voting more than they're supposed to it's a different problem but i and it's actually one that i i think that we really need to consider um what the implications are for people who should be able to cast a vote but because of some technicality um are are not going to be able to vote and i i do think that that's problematic and i i will say though that i've been very impressed like i said before i'm new to pennsylvania but i've been very impressed with the education that the state has been providing through the mail that you know really talks about how each of the steps needs to be done which you know you need to you know put your you what kind of pain you got to use um that it goes in one envelope and the next envelope and all of the things so i've been very pleased with that and i hope that um that that that education will lead to fewer of the inconsistencies that conor is concerned about um occurring this this very important election yeah definitely well if you're just joining us i'm ann danahee and this is conversations live election 2020 on wpsu joining us tonight are terry madonna and candace watts smith our toll-free number is 1-800-543-8242 and we are ready to take your calls you can also send us questions by email at connect wpsu.org one of the issues that comes up is how tight the election will be how tight in pennsylvania how close the race will be as candace noted the pennsylvania vote went for barack obama is pennsylvania still considered a swing state terry i mean it had been going democratic in previous elections until donald trump won is it still a swing state is it is it back in the game that way well if the candidates certainly think so we have been visited by the candidates and their surrogates more than any other state a number of the important uh analysts like nate silver's 538 blog refer to pennsylvania as the tipping point what's that mean if you win pennsylvania you win 270 electoral votes and you'll be president of the united states we're the most visited uh by far it's not even close uh the candidates i i joke and say they're in the states so much that we can give them residency and that's going to continue by the way and so yes uh trump wins by 44 000 votes that's all 0.7 percent uh of the popular vote but at the moment the real problem that republicans have are in the suburbs around the state and particularly in the suburbs and outside of philadelphia where the democrats have made big gains and donald trump right now the real clear politics average is 4.9 percentage points these that's what it was this morning who knows what it is now and the race has varied in this state with biden ahead by about 3.9 percent to 7 so the variation hasn't been you know been great but the reason biden is trail uh that trump is trailing in the state is because of what's going on in the suburbs that are now becoming heavily democratic and trump isn't doing as well among the working-class voters uh in the southwestern part of our state and up in the northeastern part of our state in the old mining and mill towns where the old industries coal iron and steel once dominated the economy and of course now natural gas is used uh it's called fracking and he's not doing as well as he did back in 2016. so we still have a close election it's the tipping point and uh each of the parties has a problem the problem is more severe for the republicans because of the of the large size of the population in the suburbs you know what do you see when you look at those numbers candace because there is that margin of error and it looks like it can be very close depending on which pole you're looking at yep i mean you know i think terry i really can't add more to what terry has said i think we just have to keep in mind that the there's no poll that can tell us exactly what is going to happen they can tell us about what's gonna happen and the fact of the matter is is that you know let's say donald trump has a one in six chance of winning i mean that's like i hate to be crass like russian roulette like it could it could come up um and so that's just that's just how polling and forecasting works what about the idea of the hidden trump voter this came up a lot after the last election when trying to to figure out what went wrong with some of the polling is that such is that an issue do you think terry this time around the so-called hidden trump vote or someone who might tell the pollster that they're going to vote for joe biden and then they cast their ballot for donald trump well the scientific analysis say that that wasn't a big factor in 2016. uh anecdotally and personally i traveled all over the state and i've talked to some of my colleagues who've done the same thing and i think we're in agreement that there was i love this expression a shot the shy voter and these voters were people who wouldn't tell pollsters they were going to vote for donald trump and indeed many of them wouldn't agree to be interviewed and if they interviewed you know they weren't about to fess up to who they were going to vote for the difference now is that trump is an incumbent he has a record of you know a for almost a four-year record by the time we vote the fact of the matter is that i'm not ruling out some of it but i don't think it's going to be transformative uh as important as it was four years ago but as they say we're just going to have to wait and see sure obviously covet 19 is a major issue that's at the forefront right now and then related to that is the economy what else are the other big issues on voters minds and i'm thinking of in particular some of the protests that we had been seeing questions of black lives matter questions of police brutality or police reform are those still issues that are factoring into the election candace yes um all of those things a recent poll suggested that almost 80 percent of people said that issues around the environment covet race relations [Music] are some of the kind of top issues that people are considering and of course that could mean it could go one way or the other um but those are the things that people are thinking about in their calculus of trying to make a decision um and you know there's the thing about covet i think is that it is so intertwined with a lot of other issues it's intertwined with education so many people have their children still at home it's intertied with health care it's intertwined with labor issues who can you know it's in her time with unemployment and employment it's it's intertwined with racial disparities so the i think the covid you know the pandemic has really kind of highlighted some major issues that have been able to have been swept under the rug for for a long time and people are really grappling and considering what it is that we need to do to to move beyond some of the issues that have been pointed out um and during this during our time uh in the pandemic yeah and another issue that's come in now is the supreme court appointment i mean i guess traditionally that has been a very important issue for conservative voters and now if you believe what's being written about it is that democratic liberal voters are becoming more more aware of that and placing greater value on that terry do you see that as something that's just for this election or that it could stick well i mean there's no way we know for sure it could stick but and but i'll tell you what the race has been relatively static and that's what's really surprising because of the deep polarization uh we have the death of of justice ginsburg the appointment of judge barrett and and and for a period of time after that donald trump actually closed the gap in some of the battleground battleground states i'm not saying that it's going to be you know make a difference in the outcome of the election but the bottom line here is that the two sides are so intrinsic and so and so polarized that almost nothing sort of moves them if you get my drift nothing sort of moves the election in a big way uh covent 19 and as candid point candace points out there's all kind of related factors to that that certainly play in in 2018 health care was the most important issue and as a as a a part of that it was the cost of prescription drugs well now we have coveted 19. we're heading into flu season god forbid you know and and and covered 19 have increases in what 20 some states and that leads to ratcheting up the significance of health care and the big debate over the affordable care act right so we have a couple minutes left and donald trump and joe biden are scheduled to meet for the final their second and final debate in a few minutes after this program ends what will each of you be looking for when you're watching the debate we'll start with you candace well i think that donald trump is going to try to litigate his pr his record um i think what will be interesting to see is whether he lays out an agenda for the future so if he's just looking at the pastor if he's telling voters hey this is what i'm going to do yeah yeah great question terry what will you be looking for well just to pick up on what candice said i mean a president seeking re-election to a second term historically have put out a second term agenda and that's largely missing i'm actually going to look at at the demeanor of the candidates the style and the personality that comes through to see if we have the same kind of contentiousness and a lack of focus on the issues rather they just go after somebody you know the other candidate over and over and over again i would like to see some more specifics about the policies uh but we know that it it's going to get contentious the question is how does it get contentious and what does it mean ultimately this late in the game will it matter could it affect the outcome candace do you see or voters pretty much have their minds made up i don't know any undecided voters and i would be surprised if there were a lot of still undecided voters um so no i mean and we also have to consider 47 million people have already cast their ballot yeah great point great point the other yeah the other thing is if you go back through history uh no debate presidential debate has you know swung an election one way or another a candidate will get a bump up a little bit but it doesn't determine but we're in in in and i hate to say this weirdsville and i think candace would agree this is the strangest election in the years in which i've covered american politics and taught the american presidency it's just so strange but we can't rule out some some big moment in the debate you know but i agree with candace i think most of the voters are fixed we have a relatively small number of undecided voters yet the voters are locked in it's going to be fascinating well and we will find out here in just a couple of minutes so candace wattsmith and terry madonna thank you both so much for talking with us my pleasure thank you terry madonna is director of the franklin and marshall college poll candace wattsmith is a political scientist at penn state i'm anne danahe thank you for joining us for conversations live stay tuned for the final presidential debate coming up next on wpsu [Music] [Music] you