- There is a curious debate about the health of American elections.

Some allege they are sick.

Others say they are thriving.

Today's guest peels away competing claims to help us understand the real issues facing American elections.

She's Rebekah Caruthers.

This week on "Story in the Public Square."

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) Hello, and welcome to "Story in the Public Square" where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

And my guest this week is Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO at Fair Election Center.

She's joining us today from Washington, DC.

Rebekah, thank you so much for being with us today.

- Thanks for having me.

- I mentioned you run an organization called Fair Election Center.

What exactly do you do?

- So, at the Fair Election Center, we do three things.

We defend, expand, and facilitate voting rights.

We do that through both federal and state-based litigation.

We advocate in the halls of power.

we help recruit poll workers across the country for those jurisdictions that have in-person elections.

And finally, we have one of the largest year-round C3 non-partisan campus organizing programs in the country.

- What does that do exactly?

- So with our campus work, we work with campus administrators to make sure that students have accurate information so they understand the rules of the local jurisdiction.

Can they actually use their campus residents to register the vote?

And the answer is yes.

What are things that they need to do, especially for outta state students?

But we work with campuses all across the country including community colleges.

- All of those requirements differ state by state, right?

- Yeah, every jurisdiction, every state gets to set up its own rules with how elections are carried out.

So it's really interesting when we're hearing from this administration about the idea or concept of federalizing or nationalizing elections when it's up to the states to determine how elections are carried out.

The only thing that the Constitution says regarding elections is that the presidential election is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, every four years.

- This is a big narrative in American politics right now.

The president has been pushing the idea, for a variety of reasons, that American elections have not been conducted fairly, that he's been on the short end of the stick in terms of what he would claim as fraud, although there's hasn't been any real evidence to support those claims.

From your assessment, what is the current state of the fairness of elections, generally speaking, in the United States here in 2026?

- As I alluded to earlier, there are about 9,000 local jurisdictions all across the country.

Wisconsin's one of those states that have thousands of local jurisdictions when it comes to administering state and local elections.

Because our election system is so decentralized, there's pros and there's cons, but here's the pro to it.

It means that it's extremely difficult to have a wide sweeping fraud or wide sweeping manipulation of elections across our country because it's nearly 9,000 jurisdictions that fraud or that manipulation would have to occur with.

So what's interesting is that we're hearing rhetoric coming from this White House, specifically this president, but the facts don't fit the narrative that we're hearing from the White House.

What's very concerning for me is that the role of the federal government is to make sure that election laws are enforced, but what we're seeing from this administration is this willingness to restrict voters.

And that's the problem.

That's a huge problem.

It's going too far.

It's not good for democracy, and that's actually not the federal role in elections.

- In another context, I might call some of the things that at least I'm seeing voter suppression.

And when I think about the role of the federal government when it comes to those things, typically, it's to make sure that there isn't voter suppression.

Am I overinterpreting the things that I'm seeing, or is that a reasonable take on some of the developments that we've seen come out of this administration?

- I think it's reasonable.

It might be an understatement, especially in terms of we're seeing this administration, the things that this administration is willing to do in order to have impact on the midterm elections.

I just wanna let your viewers know that this isn't normal.

This isn't how the election process is supposed to work.

This isn't normal for a president to show willingness to interfere with elections and election outcomes.

So I just wanna make sure that we're not normalizing some of the things that we're hearing this year and even some of the things that we heard last year.

I think about August 2025 when the president attempted to issue an executive order saying that he was gonna end vote by mail.

He doesn't have jurisdiction over that.

States get to determine what their local election process is gonna look like.

When we look at states like Washington State, they decided that they're gonna do universal mail-in ballots, which means every person who is registered in Washington State, they get a ballot mailed to them.

They fill out their ballot.

They turn it back.

That's how elections are adjudicated in Washington state.

But Washington gets to determine, Washington State gets to determine how they wanna carry out their elections, just like Rhode Island gets to determine what is the best way to carry out elections so it's people have the right to express their right to vote.

- Yeah, so this is... The vote by mail thing is one of those issues that the president has really sort of fixated on.

He claims that the United States is the only government, the only country that has vote by mail.

Are there flaws?

Are there risks in voting by mail?

And if they're not, let's knock it down.

But if there are, what are they?

- So let's talk about the facts.

The facts are very simple.

If we're looking at the partisan breakdown of who have chosen to use vote by mail, one of the things that we understand is that up until 2020, Republicans, largely, their voters tended to use vote by mail or absentee ballot, depending on the local jurisdiction and how they set up vote by mail versus absentee ballots.

And so once we started to see that there was a change in who was using the mail system in order to cast their votes, then we started to hear different rhetoric - So I mean, it's partisan is what you're saying.

- So, it appears that he is arguing from a partisan perspective and not a pro-democracy perspective.

- So there are a variety of things that we've heard about that have put a lot of pressure on the people who work in polls.

There have been threats of physical violence.

There's been a constant stream of misinformation and disinformation from both domestic and international sources.

When you think about that whole panoply of threats, what are the things that make you most concerned about the ability to safely, effectively, and fairly conduct elections?

We're in a midterm year later this year in 2026.

- You know, you're right.

We're in the midterm year, and guess what?

Primaries have started already.

So Americans are actively going to the polls in order to exercise the right to vote.

So the biggest threat I would say almost depends on the week.

This week, I'm... If you would've asked me three months ago, I would've told you, "You know, I think the biggest threat is the threat of this administration to send ICE, Immigration and Custom Enforcement, federal agents, to polling locations or early voting centers."

I would've told you, "You know what, I think that's a big threat."

If you would've asked me a month later, I would've told you, "Hey, with the post office changing its rules on when postmarks happen, once you place mail into the custody of the post office.

I think this is going to be a big threat to democracy.

If you would've asked me then in late January, what is the threat to democracy?

And I would tell you, "Hey, you know what, I think it's the SAVE Act, especially with the competing bills are in the Congress.

In February, if you would've asked me what is the threat to democracy going into the midterms, I would've firmly said, "Hey, it's gonna be misinformation and disinformation," where misinformation is when there is incorrect pieces of information that's told to the public, which it could be... It's not necessarily nefarious when people misspeak, but disinformation is the big one.

It's when bad information, incorrect information is intentionally told to the public and to specific demographics in an effort to manipulate.

And so I would've told you that for February.

For March, it looks different.

It looks like it could be the SAVE Act again.

Looking into April and beyond, honestly, I think it is gonna be all of these things.

Anytime that you have a federal government that isn't doing its job to enforce voting rights, but instead it is doing things to undermine the confidence that the American people have in our elections process, that is extremely damaging because you look to the federal government to unite us nationally and to let us know, hey, these are the things that we're gonna do as a country to make sure that we're prepared and that we're voter-ready because this is a major election year.

- When I hear more progressive individuals talk about these issues, I hear them talk about voting rights.

When I hear more conservative individuals talk about these issues, I hear 'em often talk about election integrity.

And why are those two things... And so, I think the way I wanna ask it is this.

Are those two things mutually exclusive?

It seems to me like they're two sides to the same coin.

- And you'll hear advocates talking about things to shore up our democracy.

You will hear people like me talk about the Constitution and what exactly is enshrined in the Constitution.

So all of us can agree that we need to make sure that there's integrity in our elections.

All of us should also be able to agree on the facts.

And the facts are, is that we do not have people who are pretending to be other people in order to access the ballot box and show up and to vote.

We do not see undocumented people showing up and pretending to be someone else and showing up to vote.

That's not what's happening in this country, and that's something that used to be a nonpartisan thing where we could agree on the facts.

In fact, the Heritage Foundation just several weeks ago, released a study, released some data going over the last three or four decades showing that less than 100 people in the last few decades who were undocumented attempted to vote.

So if over 30, 40 years, less than 100 undocumented people attempted to vote, then why are we being so heavy handed and making it extremely restrictive and extremely hard for eligible Americans who should be able to vote and who have been determined to be eligible to vote?

Why are we making it harder for those people to indeed cast a ballot?

- And you said that was the Heritage Foundation that said that?

- That was the Heritage Foundation.

They're not exactly known for being a liberal bastion.

- Yeah, not at all.

So you mentioned the SAVE Act already, and so that's federal legislation that is, I think, intended... I'm gonna let you describe what the SAVE Act is, but I also wanna note that there are state level efforts to legislate similar provisions into election law.

Let's talk about the SAVE Act at the federal level, then we'll talk about some of those state level restrictions.

For the folks at home who maybe don't know what's in the SAVE Act, what are its major provisions?

- I'm glad you asked.

So in Congress, there are competing bills that deal with voting rights that have moved during this Congress, meaning it has been introduced.

It's now starting to be debated and discussed.

And so in the Senate, we're seeing that there is the SAVE America Act.

And in the House, we saw that it is the MEGA Bill.

I believe it's Make Elections Great Again Bill.

So when we look at these various versions of these bills, earlier you did a call out and you called it voter suppression, and you're absolutely right.

I try to describe what those things mean because I don't assume that the average person understands exactly what voter suppression is when we use that phrasing.

So in the various bills that are moving throughout both chambers of Congress, it would do things such as requiring a DPOC, a documentary proof of citizenship, in order to register to vote.

And then when it's time to cast your ballot, you also have to provide that same type of paperwork.

So let me explain exactly what that means.

Documentary proof of citizenship means you have to provide vital statistic records such as a birth certificate, or you might have to provide a passport.

But the reason why that's an issue when it comes to registering to vote and then to actually cast your ballot is that there are over 20 million Americans, according to the Brennan Center, that don't have readily access to their birth certificate.

Not only that, but if you go grab your birth certificate, I want you to check it closely for errors.

One thing that people have noted, especially as folks have been trying to upgrade their state IDs to REAL IDs, is that oftentimes there are errors on your birth certificate.

We've seen where people's names have been misspelled.

We've seen where there was an initial where there shouldn't be an initial.

Or here's something very practical.

If you got married and you decided to take on your spouse's last name, or you decide to hyphenate your last name, guess what?

that means that your current name is not the same name that was given to you, or that's been placed on your birth certificate, so there starts to be friction there.

The other thing in regards to passports.

Over half of the country, so over 150 million Americans, don't have a passport.

It used to be easier to actually apply and get a passport, but we've also seen that the State Department has made some recent changes, in the middle of all these new voter suppression schemes, have made changes to actually restrict where you could in fact apply for a passport.

It used to be at different nonprofit centers or even local libraries, you could apply for a passport, but the State Department has restricted some of the local places that you can go to apply for a passport.

But also it costs money, and we shouldn't be requiring for people to spend money in order to register to vote in this country.

That is a poll tax.

The other things that the bills in Congress would do is that it would require strict photo ID.

In fact, the only state left in this country that will actually meet the minimum requirements that's in the SAVE Act, that's in the Mega Act would be Ohio.

So that means, in 49 states plus the District of Columbia plus the other territories, states would have to scramble and make changes in order to have photo IDs that would be compliant with this new law.

The other issue with both the SAVE Act and the MEGA Act is that it tells local election administrators, "Hey, guess what, if you register someone to vote, and it turns out they're eligible to vote.

But if you don't ask for all of these requirements and you don't get all of these forms and things that we need you to have them fill out, we could throw you, local election administrator, into jail, and/or we could also issue a civil fine because it means that you weren't in compliance with this new federal law."

And finally, I mean, there's so many issues with these bills, we don't see any funding mechanisms to actually help states have the money that they need in order to comply with these new federal regulations.

- That's a lot.

There's so many things that I, sort of threads I wanna pull here.

From the folks who are pushing this kind of legislation though, from their perspective, what do they say that the need is that they're responding to?

What is it?

What's the need in securing elections that this is intended, according to them, to solve?

- Well, those who are pushing for this in the Congress are telling folks our elections aren't secure, we can't rely on the results, we don't know who's voting.

They're saying all sorts of things.

But what's amazing, every one of those folks who are saying that, they accepted the results of their election that got them in the Congress.

So it's really interesting that, all of a sudden, in order to maintain power, they have a different sense of how elections are really working in this country.

- I think you make a compelling case.

I think though there might be some people who say, "Well, there's no way they're really trying to make it harder for women to vote.

That just seems like... It's 2026, that can't possibly be going on."

How do they respond to those concerns that if you're a spouse and you take your spouse's name, that's somehow targeting women?

Do they try to respond to that criticism?

- Well, look, there could be some men who have taken their spouse's name as well.

- Fair enough.

- Which is why, yes, it's gonna have a disparate impact on married women, but it impacts spouses who have changed their name in whatever form.

So, at some point, we have to believe people when they tell us what they're doing, At some point we have to examine people's actions and understand their motivation.

I'm not interested in trying to look the other way when they're making it very clear that they're looking for ways to restrict who has the ability to register to vote in this country, and who has the ability to cast their ballot.

Because if this was truly about proving that the person who is registering the vote is who they are, guess what, the current system is working, because all of us who have registered to vote, we had to prove who we were in order to register to vote, and the state that we reside in has felt that it was sufficient enough to issue us our voter registration.

So then when we show up to vote and we submit to whatever documentation that the local jurisdiction ask for us, guess what, those jurisdictions have shown that they find it acceptable, that they know that when you show up to vote, that they know you are who you say you are.

So if the states aren't asking for this across the country, then why is Congress going in the wrong direction when it deals with voting rights?

One of the questions you asked me earlier was, are there states who are looking to do this.

Well, we see under DeSantis' Florida that the Florida legislature, I know in one chamber the SAVE Act has passed, and I know that is up for a vote in the other chamber.

What is left to figure out in the state of Florida once they have their legislative session?

July 1st is when the law becomes public.

Well, guess what, the primary in the state of Florida is in August.

So based upon that, it's either gonna be effective in time for the August primary, or it's gonna go into effect in 2027.

But once again, Florida should be looking for ways to make sure that those who want to vote actually have the ability to vote.

We should be looking for ways to encourage people to be participants in our democracy.

- Yeah, it's remarkable.

Are there other states?

We hinted at this earlier, but there are other states considering legislation that has some of those same documentary provisions as the Federal SAVE Act.

Am I mistaken about that?

- Yes, there are other states that have, have floated the idea, have introduced bills for DPOC, documentary proof of citizenship.

One of the things that we're seeing is that when people, local people on the ground, when they find out about this, you know, they are pushing back and fighting back because they're asking the question of why.

Why would you have such onerous restrictions on the right to vote and the ability to register the vote if you don't have proof that is needed?

If you're gonna do something so draconian, then you should be able to, you should have to pass the threshold of proof of need for it.

- So I know that several states have shortened their periods for- - Early voting.

- For early voting, they've limited the number of drop boxes.

How does that impact people's ability to vote and to participate in our democracy?

- So Ohio is one of those states that says there's only one... Ohio has done several things.

They have the most restrictive photo ID requirement in the country.

They have eliminated some of the days in their early vote period.

The other thing, Ohio requires that... Right now in Ohio, you get to have a drop box to turn in your ballot, but it's one per county.

Not one per city, one per township, one per village, but one per county.

So when you think about Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, that's millions of people, and there's only one drop box.

That doesn't make sense if you are actually interested in making voting more accessible for people.

And I'm really pushing the accessibility here, 'cause there's all sorts of reasons with why people aren't able just to show up from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM or 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, or whatever the election day in-person vote is in your respective jurisdiction.

Sometimes people have to work, sometimes people get sick, sometimes people are doing caregiving, sometimes people are taking care of children.

Some people actually work more than one job.

There are all sorts of reasons why people aren't available exclusively on that election day, during that 10 to 12 hour window in order to cast their ballot.

And so part of accessibility, especially even people who have various disabilities, part of accessibility is looking for ways to make sure that voting is accessible for those voters who want to cast their ballot.

And so when we see that there are pushes across the country to make it harder for people to actually be able to vote, then we have to start questioning that scheme.

So we saw, even in the Texas primaries, one of the things that Texas made the determination to do was that they were gonna split their primaries, that they were gonna hold primaries for the Democrat and for the Republicans on the same day where they were gonna, in certain counties, not all counties, but Dallas County as an example, they were gonna hold their in-person voting at two separate locations.

So say my spouse and I, we live in the same house.

We're both registered the vote.

We belong to the same voting precinct.

But say I am in one party and my spouse is in a different party, we would go to two different voting locations in order to cast our ballot.

That brings confusion and that simply doesn't make sense, and it's actually more expensive to do those things.

And so what ended up happening in Dallas County is that we saw many voters.

And by the way, Dallas County is the second most populous county in Texas where there's millions and millions and millions of residents who live in Dallas County, and there's millions of voters there.

And so what we saw is that people try to go to their usual precinct.

They were turned around and told, "Hey, you can't vote here because you have to go across town and you gotta go somewhere else in order to cast your ballot."

People ask for provisional ballots.

And at some precinct locations, they were told, "Oh, well, we can't do that for you."

And so what end up happening is that one of the candidates went to court and sought injunctive relief, and they asked for... They asked for the Dallas County polling sites to stay open later.

So they were allowed to stay open for an extra two hours to 9:00 PM Central Standard Time.

But then we saw Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has not been a friend to voting rights, step in and do an intervention with the Texas Supreme Court.

And the Texas Supreme Court said, "Nope, shut that down."

So in the middle of that two-hour extension, those polling locations got shut down.

And those ballots that were collected after the original 7:00 PM cutoff, they were pushed aside.

And so there's still limbo on whether or not those ballots actually would be able to count.

And so when you have that level of confusion that's put into our voting system, that is an intended to create more friction, make it more confusing, because we know when it's more confusing, people will show up to vote, and then they get turned away, and then that's it.

They don't come back to vote.

And so when we see our elections in this country are more and more decided at the margins where it's within a 1% margin, a 2% margin, a 3% margin, that extra friction and that extra misinformation, disinformation, and confusion around how people access the ballot, it impacts outcomes of elections.

- Rebekah Caruthers, this is profoundly important work that you're doing at Fair Election Center.

Thank you so much for telling us a little bit about it, but that is all the time we have this week.

If you wanna know more about the show, you can find us on social media or visit at salve.edu/pellcenter, where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

I'm Jim Ludes asking to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

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