Welcome to Politically Speaking.

I'm Elizabeth Bennion, chancellor's professor of political science and director of Community Engagement and the American Democracy Project at Indiana University, South Bend.

Elections play a vital role in a free and fair society and are the cornerstone of American democracy.

America's trust in election infrastructure, procedures and processes is critical to their confidence in election outcomes and their support for a representative democracy.

And today's politically speaking, we discuss election integrity, focusing on ways Indiana's state legislators and county clerks are seeking to ensure the security and fairness of the election process.

Joining us today are St Joseph County Clerk Amy Rolfes and Indiana State Representative Tim Wesco, chair of the Elections and Apportionment Committee in the Indiana House of Representatives.

Thank you both for being here.

Clerk Office Let me start with you.

You received a check for $110,000 from the Secretary of State, which must have felt pretty good.

It was a big check.

Yes.

And, you know, that's part of a federal grant for the state of Indiana and total, I think, $2 million.

What will that be used for and how do you hope it will help to really protect election security?

Well, one of the things that I looked at when I first took office was just an overview of where improvements could be made and working on that, that thought about protecting all aspects of the entire election ecosystem.

So one of the things that I did was have the Department of Homeland Security come and do an assessment for us, and that was the start of the looking into getting a grant for securing our machines.

We have over a thousand pieces of election equipment, and I know people don't think of that because they go into their vote center location, but there's a lot of machinery behind that.

And so securing that and making sure that it's protected in all regards every day of the year, that's what the election security grant is for.

Now, I notice that one of the things surrounding this story that has happened is a statement by the secretary of state that not all the details will be revealed till after the election, given the interest in government accountability and transparency.

What's the sort of logic behind protecting some of those details?

Well, that's a great question, because I've certainly gotten that question as well.

And it is protecting not the whole reason is to not expose our current vulnerabilities.

And I've talked with the media.

I will be happy to share with them after all of our equipment is in place, all of the security equipment is in place.

But just wanting those St. Joe County voters to know that right here, right now, we are awaiting to get the security equipment for protecting the equipment.

So.

All right.

So we'll have to listen to get a full inventory of all the things that you did.

But it is being used to really secure those machines.

Right, Exactly.

It's all equipment based.

So be happy to share afterwards after it's all in place.

Thank you.

Now, in terms of funding, Representative Wesco, what role do sort of federal grants like this play versus the state legislature versus county government who funds elections in Indiana?

All of the above, or how does that work?

Primarily, the local government funds the elections and the and the county council funding the clerk's office and then the clerk's office administering the election.

And there are times when the state does provide direct funding.

I know, to update some of the equipment around the state so that each machine has a voter verified paper audit trail.

That was something the state invested in.

Occasionally, the state has made of grants available to update equipment, but that's primarily funded at the local county level.

Sounds like, given sometimes shortfalls in those budgets, that's where those grants at the state or federal level.

Yes, those can be those can be really helpful to get equipment and update equipment or to improve security through to have a Help America Vote Act funding dollars and so forth.

But the basic fundamentals of the election administration is funded at the local level.

Okay.

Now, Clerk Rolfes, almost everybody seems to agree that ensuring sufficient funding for election equipment, supplies and personnel is necessary.

But another piece to protecting election integrity and promoting trust among the members of the public is voter education.

And so I wonder if you could talk briefly about what your office are doing to try to help voters understand how those election machines work, how the infrastructure works so they feel that the system is secure?

Exactly.

I know when people walk into a vote center, it's oftentimes very confusing and not quite sure.

And I think a lot of voters are hesitant to do that because there is a lot of technology and there are a lot of steps when you go to vote.

But I would encourage everyone to know about elections 101.

So we started elections 101 in the fall, and it is exactly for that purpose.

It is hands on voter education.

We were able to create a very basic program.

We call it a hands on workshop where it is led by the voter.

What their curiosity is.

It was one hour at the public library is where they hosted us, so we collaborated with the library.

We had a station for voter registration, so we had all the forms there.

We had our subject matter experts from the clerk's office manning that table for voter registration.

We had an absentee ballot table as well with, again, somebody from the clerk's office who could explain everything about absentee ballots.

We also had one station where we explained who works elections and what a sheriff does and what an inspector does.

All the different roles and responsibilities of election workers.

And then our our fun one was a mock election.

So we actually housed we actually brought the election equipment to the library for the term, the time that we had the workshop and our participants could actually vote in a mock election using our electronic poll pad.

Using the freedom Vote is what we call it, and then actually put their ballot into the ballot box after it was scanned.

And then we actually opened up the back of the ballot box as well.

So the voters could see that the voter verified paper audit trail, which representative Wesco is talking about, that those ballots do go into the back of the box.

And for example, during a recount, that's what you do.

You open up the back of the ballot box.

So it was from start to finish.

This election's one on one and we would be happy to host it again in the spring, because I'm sure there are a lot of people who are even more interested in this bigger election about voter education.

So this seems like a model that other clerks across the state might be interested in adopting.

Have you talked with your fellow clerks about that?

I certainly have, yes.

Actually, my chief deputy of elections, Tricia Carrico, and I are enrolled and we're participate almost ready to graduate a program out of Ball State University.

It's the certification in election administration, technology and security.

And that is a course that gets really into the weeds with everything that I just said.

And our capstone project, our project to graduate, was to design a voter education program.

And that's how we came up with elections 101, and it can be replicated.

We were very purposeful.

We have a template and other counties can use it.

Okay, excellent.

Now, Representative Wesco, so as you think about voter education, would that be something also that's best done at that local level where the state is passing the laws and it's up to local clerks offices, voter registration offices, civic groups to really educate the voter?

That's typically been the case, especially if there's a special election.

They'll send out a postcard in relationship to that so that people know that the election is going on.

And of course, polling poll centers and putting the vote here signs out front and encouraging people in that respect.

But there's also a significant responsible party that that falls on candidates for candidates to get go out and to educate the voters and to inform the voters.

Hey, I there's an election and I encourage you to come out and vote for for me in the election.

And so all of that plays a role And in engaging with voters and to engage with the voters, you need to tell them when the election is where to go or make sure they at least have that information.

So when it's a standard election, say, in the first Tuesday to the first Monday in May or in the November May election, people are pretty well informed as far as when Election Day is.

But still, we'll send out candidates and political parties will regularly send out mailings about the election date, reminding voters election date, reminding voters the of the opportunity to vote early and the locations to vote early that we have here.

You can vote early for up to 28 days before the election cycle.

And so a lot of that is something that goes on in every election cycle.

Now, I'm wondering, clerk for office, if you could talk just briefly about a case that is now being investigated by the Indiana State Police.

You observed some irregularities with signatures of a presidential candidate, a Democratic presidential candidate.

Dean Phillips And I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about what alerted due to the fact that there may be a problem and why you decided it needed to be reported to the police?

Well, yes, to our office.

And every clerk's office receives petitions from the general public.

It's a petition that is gathered with signatures.

And the signature?

It's a signature.

It's a name of a They're supposed to be a registered voter with their signature, their name, their address, their city or town and their zip code.

And I believe that's a fundamental piece of our democratic process, is that the registered voters are the ones that get to decide who is on the ballot.

So in Indiana, the nine congressional districts, each one had to have 500 signatures from work and congressional District two.

And so it was 500 in the district.

And we had a campaign volunteer from the Dean Phillips campaign that came and dropped off petitions, which is what every candidate has to do.

Then when we started going through them and it is painstaking to go through them, it's very detail oriented.

We had 53 pages with ten signature ten lines each.

And you normally do see anomalies and things that just don't you know, occasionally somebody just writes, you know, Mickey Mouse just so that they don't have to spend time on the petition.

But we began to see a pattern of signatures that did not at all match.

And the voter register statewide voter registration system has an extensive history of signature.

A signature history.

So we had there were just too many signatures that didn't match and addresses that perhaps didn't even exist.

Well, not perhaps they don't exist here in South Bend and and in the surrounding area.

So we alerted the Indiana election division right away because this set of petitions was really very different than any of the other sets of petitions, and that we were advised then to finish up all the petitions of that particular candidate and then call the Indiana State Police.

So and then I alerted the county election board as well, and then the secretary of state's office.

So just trying to be very diligent about everything.

We were diligent about every petition that came in, but this particular set seemed to be problematic.

So now the state police, it is an active investigation.

They are still working together on it.

So now I know you were quoted in the South Bend Tribune is saying voter fraud in Saint Joseph County is not a conspiracy theory, that it is real.

There are folks who have said maybe this is a conspiracy theory and potentially done to raise a specter of voter fraud, to clear the way for voter disenfranchisement.

How do you respond to that kind of it seems like everything is a debate or a conspiracy theory these days, but how would you respond to that?

Well, I would say that I think one of the benefits of me being new is a new set of eyes on every single procedure that there is.

So my intent is not at all to begin a conspiracy theory.

My intent is to do exactly what election code directs that I do.

The Dean Phillips campaign had plenty of petitions with other petitioners that that came and dropped those off, and we were just as diligent following election code with those and those were perfectly fine.

So I believe that I am just simply doing my job.

And so that is a result.

The petitions in question were a result of me actually doing my job, following exactly what I needed to do.

So that that is how I would respond.

I really want to commend Amy for her work on that and for really watching the signatures coming through and seeking to uniformly apply state law.

Ultimately, it's turned over to law enforcement.

They're going to determine whether there should be charges filed.

But in relationship to the comment about voter fraud here in Saint Joseph County, we we have had it where charges have been made, convictions have been found.

People have gone to prison.

So are you talking about the 2008 Butch Morgan case similar petition for.

Yes, right.

I mean, that not necessarily fraud changing an election result or at the ballot box.

But in the put that in practice, it's it is real.

And we need vigilance and the serious people like Amy who are really paying attention to what's coming in and making sure that things are legit.

Absolutely.

So that we know that candidates are actually selected by the voters and that folks who are elected are actually selected by the voters as well.

I do want to raise that issue with you as well, Representative Wesco, which is this idea that election integrity involves people who are eligible to vote, being able to actually cast their ballots without violence, without intimidation, without interference, without undue burdens, and also then those votes actually counting.

Right, that they are the election process is secure.

How do you trying to balance between those two goals of security and access?

We've done a great deal to increase access here in Indiana over my years as chairman of the elections Committee, but just over the last couple of decades, moving to a vote, centers where people can vote anywhere in the county.

So in the middle of a workday and they're on the other side of the county, they can vote in wherever they're closest to being able to vote early.

We have one of the longest voting early periods in the country.

And there's one of the debates we had recently about extending hours on election days is that some people think, well, that's what we need to do, but we've already expand.

It's so much opportunity for voting early and otherwise that that's an area where, as I know, our election workers are already putting in a 15 hour day.

We don't need to add another couple of hours on top of that.

And then just to delay the results so that it likely cannot be can not have preliminary figures the night of the Election Day.

So but also Indiana's voter I.D.

law.

We were one of the first country, four states in the country, to institute a voter ID law that has been wildly popular and successful to validate that the people who are voting are the people that they say they are.

And we've recently applied this then to voting absentee by mail just in the last legislative session that went well in the last municipal election cycle.

And so appreciate the clerks across the state stepping up with those changes this year being a such a significant election year.

We have attempted not to make any major changes in the administration of elections.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have we have heard from clerks around the state that have brought input, provided questions.

And so we are in House Bill 1265, providing some clarifications in in the language, in the code, and answering some of those things and kind of clearing up the codes so that we can have the most successful election cycle here in the 2024 presidential cycle.

And so I guess a follow up to this question, because it seems like integrity involves access and security, but so often these seem to be somehow pitted against each other.

So organizations like the Brennan Center have said about voter ID laws that, you know, you're more likely to be struck by lightning than to encounter in person at the poll voter fraud.

So this is really about disenfranchizing voters who you think won't vote for you.

How do you respond to that?

And then how can local clerk's office or civic organizations help people get the idea they need so that it's not a question of somebody who's maybe poor and lacks transportation, getting that eye, that free ID to vote.

So there are organizations that opposed voter ID laws from the get go, and I don't want to question motives of organizations that would do so.

But the general public has widely embraces polls have shown over and over repeatedly that it is supported with very broad bipartisan support.

I mean, you can't even go in and buy a keg of beer without having your ID, Right.

And so this is something that is a significant part of engaging in commerce and exercising your right to vote.

And so it gives a great deal of assurance to the public.

It gives a great deal of assurance to election officials.

And and it does make it hard to cheat.

And that's something that we've wanted to promote.

And I've worked with Secretary Morales on this as well.

And it's been our mantra we want to make it easy to vote, hard to cheat.

That's that's our mantra and that's what we want to continue to do.

I think your argument is not that there is widespread fraud that you're trying to correct, but that you want to prevent the possibility of it in the future.

Absolutely.

For instance, we have legislation this year, House Bill 1264, that would require the statewide voter registration system database to be compared with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Database of temporary credentials and temporary credentials Are our driver's license given to legal but non-citizen residents?

They're legally here, but they are not citizens, so they're not eligible to vote for whatever federal law reason.

These individuals are oftentimes asked if they want to register to vote, even when they're not eligible to vote, and they inadvertently become registered to vote.

And you end up with non-citizens registered to vote, vote.

Now, whether that's ten, 20, 102,000, it doesn't really matter if you have non-citizens who are registered to vote.

That calls into question the integrity of our elections.

And so, again, seeking to ensure that where we we we do have the information and data that we can identify high potential non-citizens who shouldn't be registered to vote and may mistakenly not necessarily nefariously register mistakenly.

And oftentimes, if to their own disadvantage, if it were to come out in the process of becoming a citizen.

So, you know, it's not necessarily something that nefarious is oftentimes accidental, but that's something that we want to ensure that our voter registration rolls are accurate up to date, and only the people are registered to vote who are eligible to vote.

I know there has been a lot of discussion and a lot of controversy surrounding this, mostly because of the idea that the BMV records could be out of date so that the person who is eligible could be Disenfranchized, or also that the clerk's office would be required to do verification of citizenship status.

And that's beyond their scope.

It's unlike the Association of Clerks, couldn't really agree on this.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and how you're trying to resolve some of those issues moving forward.

The legislation lays out very clearly a method of verifying that an individual who may have had a temporary credential may have in the interim become a naturalized citizen.

So it would require the county voter registration board, either through the clerk's office or through an independent board to reach out to the individual and seek that verification.

So whether it be not a birth certificate or naturalization papers or just a naturalization number, they can then verify their citizenship and they remain registered to vote and eligible to vote.

But if they cannot verify their naturalization as a U.S. citizen, then at that point it becomes a matter of you shouldn't be registered to vote and we're going to help you by removing you from the voter registration roll.

I know Senator Greg Walker and others have expressed a concern that this may be asking clerks to do something that's beyond their scope, interpreting somehow immigration law or becoming at in crosshairs with the federal government or the Voting Rights Act that they generally look and see if you have a registration, if you have proof of residency, and that this may be too complicated for the clerks.

I wonder from an election administration perspective what your thoughts are on that or once it's state law, is that all you would need?

Well, my perspective again, I am I am a new clerk, so I fully admit I don't speak with a lot of history behind me, but I know that I feel that the legislature is is doing their best at ensuring access to voting and security.

They are trying to bring those two things together.

And I would not expect a legislature to understand exactly the steps that clerks do go through.

It might be a little more difficult.

There might be other things that the clerks would have to do.

But for myself, it's it's an extra step of assurance and and providing to the voters there.

They are the ones that need to understand that we are doing everything we can.

And yes, it might be a little more work, but if the legislature has come up with this, you know, with the best of intentions of securing the election, I am happy to go ahead and and do a little bit more work because it makes everyone feel better about it.

So that's.

And as far as federal law is concerned, non-citizens aren't any more eligible to vote in federal elections than they are in state elections.

And so I see this as ensuring that people are in compliance with federal law.

And there's been no federal law specifically cited that would say that anywhere.

I mean, people can throw out whatever spots and if you know about things that don't actually exist.

So you're not particularly concerned about the threats of lawsuits because you think this is worth doing.

And if somebody sues, you feel fairly confident that you'd be victorious?

Yes.

All right.

Probably.

And most any changed election may be even today, a major decision was handed down by the Supreme Court, lifting the injunction on Indiana's party affiliation rules for candidates.

And so I've learned in the election law space that frequently the laws are going to be challenged in court and will have to stand up in court.

And so that's just part of the process.

All right.

And part of what you all talk about in committee, I'm sure.

Now, you mentioned election workers.

Both of you have having enough poll workers and having well-trained poll workers can be a challenge.

And I wonder, you know, at the county level what you're doing to try to address that challenge and perhaps other clerks around the state.

Right.

Well, St Joseph County just received a grant from the federal government to create a program to recruit college workers.

So we will be focusing on that.

But we would love for the general public to contact the party chairs.

And we are always in need of more election workers, particularly in this presidential.

So I would encourage anyone out there that's interested and curious about how elections work to to call the clerk's office or call their party chair.

All right.

Well, we know there are a lot more laws to this, guys, a lot more future legislation to discuss and other issues besides elections.

So you'll come back and then maybe we can get more details after the election about exactly what the county did as well.

But unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this week's politically speaking.

I want to thank our guests, Saint Joseph County Clerk Amy Rolfes and Indiana State Representative Tim Wesco,.

I'm Elizabeth Bennion and reminding you that it takes all of us to make democracy work.

We'll see you next time.

This WNIT Local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.