Brad Raffensperger is the CEO and owner of Tendon Systems, LLC. Tendon is a specialty contracting and engineering design firm with nearly 150 employees. The firm has operated in 35 different states. Raffensperger also owns and operates a specialty steel manufacturing plant based in Forsyth County. Additionally, he served two terms in the Georgia General Assembly from 2015-2019.
Jocelyn Benson is Michigan's 43rd Secretary of State. In this role, she is focused on ensuring elections are secure and accessible, and dramatically improving customer experiences for all who interact with our offices. Benson is the author of State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process, the first major book on the role of the secretary of state in enforcing election and campaign finance laws. She is also the Chair of Michigan's Task Force on Women in Sports, created by Governor Whitmer in 2019 to advance opportunities for women in Michigan as athletes and sports leaders.
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SPEAKERS
Brad Raffensperger
29th Secretary of State of Georgia
Jocelyn Benson
43rd Secretary of State of Michigan
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:07)
>> Hello, everyone and welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darsie. I'm the managing director of SALT, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance, technology, and public policy. SALT Talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators and thinkers. And our goal on these SALT Talks is the same as our goal our SALT Conference Series, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. And we're very excited today to welcome you to the latest episode of our election series. There was the brainchild of one of our hosts today, Elliot Berke.
John Darsie: (00:48)
Really our goal with this series is to just set the record straight and get the facts out into the sunlight about what happened not just in the 2020 election, but to teach people about the facts surrounding election operations, election security, and lessons that we learned from this go around that can continue to help us improve the elections process. And we're very excited today that it's a bipartisan conversation as well. So we have the Secretaries of State of both Georgia, Secretary Brad Raffensperger, who's a republican. We have the Secretary of State of the State of Michigan, Mrs. Jocelyn Benson. We're very grateful for both of them for joining us. I'm going to read a little bit more about their bios before I turn it over to Anthony and Elliot for the interview.
John Darsie: (01:27)
The Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is the CEO and owner of Tendon Systems in addition to his role there in the State of Georgia. Tendon is a specialty contracting and engineering design firm with nearly 200 employees. And the firm is operated in 35 different states. Secretary Raffensperger also owns and operates a specialty steel manufacturing plant or multiple plants based in Forsyth County, Georgia. Additionally, he served two terms in the Georgia General Assembly from 2015 to 2019. Secretary Raffensperger earned his bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Western University, and was awarded his MBA from Georgia State University there in Atlanta. He's a licensed professional engineer over 30 states. He and his wife have been married for 42 years and live in Johns Creek. He's a member of the North Point Community Church.
John Darsie: (02:17)
Secretary Jocelyn Benson is the 43rd Secretary of State of Michigan. She is the author of State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process, the first major book on the role of Secretary of State in enforcing election and campaign finance laws. She's also the chair of Michigan's Task Force on Women in Sports, which was created by Governor Whitmer in 2019 to advance opportunities for women in Michigan, and athletes and sports leaders. She's a graduate of Harvard Law School, like Mr. Anthony Scaramucci, who is also hosting today's talk. An expert on civil rights law, education law and election law. Secretary Benson served as Dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. Previously, she was an associate and professor and Associate Director of Wayne law schools Damon J. Keith Center for civil rights.
John Darsie: (03:10)
Prior to her election to the position of secretary of state, she served as a CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality, aka RISE, which is a national nonprofit organization using the unifying power of sports to improve race relations. Benson is the co-founder and former president of Military Spouses of Michigan, a network dedicated to providing support and services to military spouses and their children. In 2015, she became one of the youngest women in history to be inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
John Darsie: (03:43)
Hosting today's talk, as I mentioned before is Elliot Berke, who is a managing partner, founder of Berke Farah, a law firm based in the Washington D.C. area. As well as Anthony Scaramucci, who's the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, a global alternative investment firm. Anthony is also the chairman of SALT. And once upon a time he spent just under two weeks in politics as well. So he might have a little bit to say about his experience, but obviously-
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:08)
Madam Secretary and Mr. Secretary, he never lets up on these SALT Talks. He reminds people every day about my 11-day PhD in Washington chicanery. Okay, so now listen. I have to read this as well. The SALT Talk Election Series was created as a record of what actually happened in the 2020 election. It is designed to rise above the noise and hyperbole and focus on the facts and law, and to educate our views about the election process from a holistic perspective. The SALT Talk, this particular one is the third in an Election Series. The first one was an election security talk with former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The second was an election administration and lessons learned from 2020 with the election assistance commissioners Hovland and Palmer. I'm going to turn it over to my good friend and my longtime lawyer, who knows everything about election law, Elliot Berke.
Elliot Berke: (05:07)
Thank you, Anthony. And Madam Secretary and Mr. Secretary, thanks so much for joining us. Anthony said this is our third talk in the series. And our first you really focused on the federal perspective. But it's always important to remind our viewers that our national election system really is a federal state local partnership. That being said, beyond the constitutional requirements regarding our elections, they're largely run by the states. And that's the way our framers designed it. So notwithstanding the litigation that has followed the election, we'll get to that. This election was largely a great success story. Let's back up and go back to around this time last year when you started realizing that this pandemic was going to have a significant effect on what it is you do. I'll turn it over to Secretary Benson first for comments.
Jocelyn Benson: (06:00)
Well, thanks, Elliot and thanks, Anthony. Thank you, everyone at SALT, John for inviting us today. And really taking seriously the importance of creating a truthful record of history. And exactly how democracy survived really this extraordinary year that we all just went through. So I'm very grateful to you all for doing this work. And I think it'll be an important foundation through which people can learn about this cycle in the years to come. With that, on March 10 in 2020 is the date of our presidential primary, it was also the date of our first ... my first statewide election as Secretary of State. And it was the first election in which citizens had a right to vote by mail, as well as a right to vote absentee, a right to register to vote on election day itself and vote.
Jocelyn Benson: (06:49)
And those rights were cultivated by citizens themselves, who voted them into our state constitution in 2018. And the same year in which I was elected to serve as the state's chief election officer. And at that time on March 10, we were anticipating high turnout. We were anticipating more citizens choosing to vote absentee than ever before. And we had a very successful election day that we spent a year preparing for, that was intended to guide us as we prepared for two other statewide elections following that. One, of course, was in November. At 8:00 PM the polls closed, and we actually celebrated a great success. We saw minimal problems. We saw identifiable ways in which we can improve for the future. Did a press conference at 9:00, talking about the winners and all of that.
Jocelyn Benson: (07:34)
And then 10 o'clock, I got a call from the governor letting us know that the first two cases of Coronavirus had come to Michigan. At that moment, everything changed. At that moment, we had three elections remaining. A local election in May, an August and November statewide election. And we immediately began pivoting, adapting and adjusting. Following the data that we already had about what citizen behaviors were going to be, voting behavior. We already knew more people were going to vote absentee this year than ever before. We were already preparing an infrastructure for that. But we realized the important, and this was probably the most important pivot that we embraced right away. The need to educate every single citizen about how exactly to vote absentee in order to be able to vote from home, regardless of how long the pandemic went on.
Jocelyn Benson: (08:20)
And then secondly, making sure that [inaudible 00:08:22] knew about that, had faith in it, but that our infrastructure was ready for more people voting absentee than ever before. So our work quickly shifted to that, to planning out that and really educating citizens about how to vote in this new era. And this is the last thing I'll say, because this was very important. We did not want to set any ... we immediately knew there would be an effort potentially to postpone elections. And we had our next election in May. And so for me, it was very important to demonstrate that we could successfully manage a local election in May, an election in August and ultimately November in a pandemic, where delaying or postponing an election was off the table. And instead, it was about adapting and adjusting to ensure every citizen knew how to still participate, exercise their vote even in the midst of a pandemic.
Elliot Berke: (09:10)
Brad, how about you from your perspective? How did you first start preparing for the pandemic? And how did you prepare for what turned out to be an unprecedented volume of mail and balance?
Brad Raffensperger: (09:21)
For us, in Georgia we have 15 days plus a Saturday of early voting. So we had 16 days for the presidential primary. We were in the second week, and that's when we had to postpone the presidential primary because it just had reached the pandemic portion. The General Assembly suspended operations. And daily, we were having fewer and fewer poll workers show up just because of the pandemic. So we had to postpone that, and immediately then push out the balance of the presidential primary to the June primary, our general primary for all of the other State House and State Senate seats. So we began a very robust program, what does that look like to vote in a pandemic? And number one, we send out absentee ballot applications to the active voters so that they could decide if they wanted to vote from the convenience of their home.
Brad Raffensperger: (10:09)
At the same time, we had to find all sorts of PPE, so that we make sure that we could vote safely. It was very challenging for the counties, the county election officials. We have 159 county. The second largest number of counties after Texas, we have a lot of counties. That's a lot of moving parts. And so many of their employees were not coming into the office. So how do you vote and get ready for the June primary? We had the general primary in June and in that the ballot, if you had not voted in the presidential primary you could vote at that time for the presidential primary. Out of the 159 counties, I would say 154 did a good job. We had five counties that struggled. And one of those was Fulton County. And coming out that we got a consent decree with them so we could put a monitor in there to make sure they really worked on improving for the November election.
Brad Raffensperger: (10:58)
We had the November election, and we have several focus points. And one of those was to make sure that we could shorten the lines. We had very long lines in the June primary when people decided they wanted to come out and vote in-person. And so on election day in November, our average wait time was about two minutes or less in the afternoon. We had record turnout, believe it or not in the June primary. We also had record turnout in the November race. We had record absentee ballot applications and balloting. We had record in-person voting, and then we ended up with nearly five million voters vote. That's up from about a million what we had during the 2016 race. So with the interest that we had from both sides of the aisle. Obviously for us, that's really I guess you could say when the excitement started, because Georgia has been reliably red for about 20 years on the presidential races.
Brad Raffensperger: (11:57)
And many of us are really on both sides. I think the democrats were surprised that they ended up having more votes for President Biden than President Trump. And that's when really the big disinformation campaign started. But then in Georgia, we have run offs. And then we had two Senate races at and run off in January. So we've actually had a lot of races over the last year, five races all under a pandemic. So it was a very challenging situation. Our counties really did a excellent job faced with all the obstacles that they had.
Anthony Scaramucci: (12:34)
Elliott, if it's okay I want to jump in. And I want to ask both secretaries the same question if it's okay. And this is a, it's almost a metaphysical question in a weird way. So you're coming out of law school, you're coming out starting your career and you're going to be the secretary of state of your respective states. What did you think about the continuum of the United States and it's democracy when you were a kid? And what are you thinking about it right now in terms of its preservation? Let's start with Madam Secretary.
Jocelyn Benson: (13:11)
I think that's such an important question because for me, and this is why I got into this work, I realized that it's the people who occupy the positions in a democracy, both as administrators and as elected officials, and the voters themselves that ultimately will ensure democracy survives. And I was really struck by that because I started my career in Montgomery, Alabama investigating hate groups and hate crimes all around the country. And being in Montgomery, being so close to Selma, spending a lot of time in Selma, talking with people who'd been actively involved in the creation of the Voting Rights Act and the march that preceded it really instilled upon me a sense that democracy is a living, breathing, organic thing that we must and every generation must embrace our responsibility to keep alive.
Jocelyn Benson: (13:54)
And so for me, I became a lawyer because I wanted to do voting rights work. And I wanted to continue the work of those in Selma to protect every person's constitutional right of one person one vote on election day. It's the one day which we have a constitutional protection that we're all equal. And seeing how far particularly after the 2000 election we really had to go to make that a reality, I wanted to make my career one piece of an effort. I just wanted to be another foot soldier in the movement to protect everyone's right to vote. And for me, that meant being a lawyer originally. And then after the 2000 election, I began to see that secretaries of state, particularly after 2004 with Ken Blackwell in Ohio played a pivotal role in making decisions every day to ensure that the right to vote really is realized for everyone.
Jocelyn Benson: (14:41)
So I wanted to occupy this position to be a secretary of state in furtherance of all who've come before us to protect our democracy. And then of course, we certainly saw the cycle how election administrators at every level, and everyone with a place of authority have that really critical responsibility to protect the republic, to protect our democracy from those who would seek to damage it.
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:06)
Secretary Raffensperger.
Brad Raffensperger: (15:09)
I think our form of government is very difficult to protect if it doesn't have the most basic of things and that's integrity. And I think that we always need to be looking at what is the character of the person that I'm supporting. And then we can look at the cause, because both sides of the aisle we have our causes, but it's really the person that is carrying the banner and really at all elected offices. So it's begins at City Council, and I've been on City Council, the state rep state senator, but really need to look at basic integrity. And I think we also have to look at basic common decency. One of the advantages I have of serving in the General Assembly that it was like a big mosh pit.
Brad Raffensperger: (15:50)
We had Democrats and Republicans, we all sit amongst each other instead of being on one side of the other sway conversations. I think we need to have more of those conversations about policy that are respectful with each other. It doesn't mean that we change our viewpoints, but maybe we take a little bit of what someone says and we can have conversations to move things forward. At the end of the day, people want government to work for them. I think it has to start with personal integrity. And that's one thing I did say to everyone that had concerns about the election. We have 159 counties that run the election. If you look at your county election directors, what guides them is their personal integrity. As long as they walk that line of personal integrity, then you don't have much to worry about. The political parties need to turn out their people. But we have personal integrity of the people running elections. It's all going to work out at the end of the day.
Elliot Berke: (16:43)
I think that's exactly right, and it's somebody that's practiced in this area for 25 years. The challenges to the integrity of our system is something that I really spend a tremendous amount of focus on. And this Congress that we have about voter fraud and how widespread is it, does it exist in voter suppression. It really is a conversation that doesn't focus on the realities of our system. And what I know is that fraud occurs just as oppression occurs, and no amount of it should be tolerated, because any challenge to it is going to affect the public's confidence in our system. And the last time we were really here as a nation having this conversation was 20 years ago. And [inaudible 00:17:26] through the passage of the Help America Vote Acts and the creation of the election systems commission.
Elliot Berke: (17:31)
I'm curious as to your thoughts on how effective the EAC has been. I'm on the board of advisors of it, so full disclosure there. But it wasn't an attempt to federalize election, it was really designed to come up with best practices and assist the states. And so that conversation obviously is going on right now within the EAC, but I'd be curious as to how effective you think it's been. And I know one of the main areas we're going to look at moving forward is the timeliness of our voter rolls, and how to keep them up to date. So moving forward, I'd love to hear your thoughts on those two questions.
Jocelyn Benson: (18:11)
Brad, you-
Brad Raffensperger: (18:12)
I'll take that one. I am grateful that the EAC is a commission of two Republicans and two Democrats, because I certainly wouldn't want it to be three, two. And I know that the democrats would want it to be the other way. But what that really means is, then you have to come together and really hammer out good policy that both sides can support, because we have very close elections at the end of the day. So you really have to get by, and when you do that I think it helps make our society more stable. From the standpoint of being able to update the voter rolls, that's a conversation that is well past time to have. In Georgia, we have about eight million registered voters. Studies show that on average, the average American 11% of voters move every year. And you just run the numbers.
Brad Raffensperger: (18:57)
That means we have 800,000 people in Georgia moving every year. And if we can't update the voter rolls 90 days outside the election, that's 200,000 voters that have moved someplace. Have they moved out of state? Have they moved within the state? Are they outer precincts, different county? Things like that. And so we need to have something that is very objective based, not subjective. I'm an engineer. And when you deal with objectivity, you can't argue with the facts. You get into subjectivity that's why you need lawyers. And so I really like objective measures, and that's why we also joined ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center, which I know Michigan did as well. It's an objective measure of keeping up accurate voter rolls. It's very important.
Jocelyn Benson: (19:39)
I couldn't agree more, and I think it all gets back to the basic foundation of facts and truth and data. That has to guide election policy. That has to guide election administration. And when it does, voters win. And so the EAC has a great role to play. And as someone who one of the first things I did after the 2000 election was work on the Help America Vote Act, and do research to actually collect the data from the 2000 election. Where did spoiled ballots occur? What could have gone better? To inform what ultimately became the creation of the EAC, which was really designed in part as a repository of those facts and that data to help us as we're making quick decisions in election administration, to make them from a place of best practices and truth and data.
Jocelyn Benson: (20:23)
And we saw this year and as Secretary Raffensperger just pointed out how critical it is that whether it's making sure we have accurate rolls, or making sure we're delivering an election system that will ensure voters voices are heard you have to and you should follow what the data tells you. And if you do that and you make policy, not out of partisan agendas, but out of just simply following the data driven solution and best practices, you actually can have a successful election. And that's really what informed our success in Michigan, and I know in other states this year.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:58)
I guess these are short answer questions. But I'm curious to your reaction to these. First one is, in light of what happened in 2020, are we moving towards a safer, freer and fairer electoral process, or are the two of you worried that we could be making a turn towards a destruction of our democracy?
Jocelyn Benson: (21:22)
I think that question is going to be answered by the people of our country, and our leaders moving forward. Every decision that will be made. The people voters choose to serve as secretaries of state, there's elections coming up in '22 on both sides of the aisle. It doesn't matter, as Brad and I have shown whether you're a Democrat or Republican. If you're just committed to integrity and administering elections, but really it's in the hands of all of us. We've seen how close we can come, and I'm sure those challenges will continue. I'm confident that they will, those challenges to the safety of our democracy, those challenges to people's votes, they will continue. The question is what will the majority of America do in response? Will we dig down and protect our democracy as we did successfully in 2020? And I think what I know right now is if we don't, then indeed we could move away from the republic that I know we all cherish.
Brad Raffensperger: (22:20)
Our General Assembly is meeting right now, and there are several bills under consideration. I think at the end of the day, you'll see bills that really have the appropriate level of accessibility balance with security. And when you do that, that is really the balancing point. We need to have accessibility, we need to have security. I think that's when you have those honest conversations. I'm also very grateful that many states like ours, we've moved to a verifiable paper ballot. And so therefore, if you need to have a recount, we actually have something that we can recount. We had electronic voting, you just press the button and get the same answer. But we'd have the verifiable paper ballot, we verified the initial count. And then we could actually count that twice, which we did in Georgia. So we have three counts on that. And each one of them verified the results. And it's tough to argue with a piece of paper when it has a name on it.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:10)
Yeah. Well, my friend Chris Krebs says it's very hard to hack paper. I know you've heard him say that on more than one occasion. So I guess what I'm asking is about awareness. The fact that more people are aware, at least I'm hopeful that that will lead to even further integrity. I want to switch to another quick question. Jill Lepore, who wrote a book called These Truths, who's former alumnus of Tufts University and a greatest story. And she more or less says in the book that voter suppression is as old as any American tradition. And she more or less says that voter suppression is like apple pie in America, meaning it's happened for ever. And she has a lot of facts to support that. I guess I'm going to start with you, Madam Secretary. Do you think we're getting better at not having voter suppression? Do you think we're getting more open, or do you think we're heading towards even more voter suppression in the future?
Jocelyn Benson: (24:06)
Well, I think we're dealing with a democracy that ultimately is about the distribution of power in our country at the state and federal level. You're always going to have efforts by bad actors to use the political system for other partisan agendas in a way that enables them to have power. And manipulating that sometimes comes through the act of making it more difficult for certain communities to vote, particularly historically disenfranchised communities. And indeed, the whole history of our democracy has been a story of that. And it would be naive of us to think that the efforts that led to the disenfranchisement of historically underrepresented communities in particular and voter suppression over time.
Jocelyn Benson: (24:47)
There's no evidence to suggest that that has gone away, or that anything has diminished. Perhaps the ways in which that evolves. And the way in which suppression manifests itself in our democracy has evolved. But every generation, as Congressman Lewis says, has the responsibility on you to fight those efforts. Knowing that they are almost endemic to the political system that we are in. And only when good people on both sides of the aisle demand, ensure every voice is heard and every vote is counted that we can truly ensure we overcome that endemic effort to suppress people's voices. But make no mistake, it's always been a part of our system. And it would be naive of us, I think, just to think it's gone away.
Jocelyn Benson: (25:33)
And again, that's why voters need to choose elected officials and election administrators who are going to stand with them, and making sure their votes are counted and voices are heard regardless of who wins, who loses and any political affiliation.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:47)
And how do we stop it Secretary Raffensperger? How do we make it more available to people, the right to vote?
Brad Raffensperger: (25:54)
When I was running for office for secretary of state, at some point it hit me that this is the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr. And this is a tremendous responsibility really based on the history that we have had in Georgia. And therefore, we have done everything. I know that when Stacey Abrams lost, she talked about voter suppression. But if you really look at the facts, I know it made great narrative what she said, but if you looked at her facts, we have 16 days of early voting. We have record registrations, we have record turnout. We also have opt out when you will be registered to vote when you get your driver's licenses. It's real ID compliance, we have security with accessibility. And I really believe that Georgia has made tremendous strides.
Brad Raffensperger: (26:36)
In fact, we've made such great strides that's why today we have businesses flocking to Georgia. That's why we have six million people that live in the metropolitan area. That's why George has expanded. And some of the others southern states never got that message. And so we've already really led, and we have come together as an organization. And I feel that we've done a great job in Georgia, and I believe that our general assembly will continue to lead. Basically, we have a motto in Georgia, it's our official motto. It's wisdom, moderation, and justice. And those are three great chords of a strand. And we continue to build on that, Georgia will continue to move forward.
Elliot Berke: (27:22)
Secretary Benson, another major issue that came up this election was with ballot harvesting, another chain of custody issues. Moving forward, what do you see in terms of steps that can be taken to bolster integrity of the process by taking this the eyeing that process and eliminating ballot harvesting?
Jocelyn Benson: (27:44)
I think it's a couple of things. One, in Michigan and in many other states, we don't have that ballot harvesting. It's not permitted. You actually have a clear chain of custody under our law for what ballots can be voted, and then delivered and counted. And it's all validated by the voter's signature. No voter can get a ballot. It's mailed to them or given to them without signing an application, that signature must then match the signature file. And then that only gets them a ballot. The ballot actually isn't counted unless the voter actually signs the outside of the envelope, and then returns it on time. And then that signature is then match.
Jocelyn Benson: (28:19)
So there are several protocols in place that many states have developed like that to ensure that you have provisions in place that protect the integrity of the process, without making it more difficult for someone to cast their vote. And I think that's the heart of, to get back to the previous question as well, is how do we basically protect the integrity of the process while also ensuring that every voter's voice is heard. And it comes down to and this is what the EAC and data can really inform, how you ensure you're making data driven decisions that ensure that you meet voters where they are, give them options to cast their ballot.
Jocelyn Benson: (28:54)
And then make sure every option, whether it's a paper ballot in-person, whether it's voting through the mail, with the signature protocols in place is covered with various integrity mechanisms to protect the integrity of the vote. And actually, the thing I found this year both with ballot harvesting and just all the other things is that it's two sides of the same coin. Number one, we build the infrastructure that's secure, that's accessible, that's fair. And that can stand up to amend scrutiny, as we did, as Brad did in Georgia. But then the other side of it is that you have to educate people about how to use that system, how to play by the rules and ensure their votes are counted.
Jocelyn Benson: (29:29)
How to be accessible, but also again, educate them on the role they must play. And then in doing so, you can also empower voters to push back against misinformation that isn't based on data. But is furthering a partisan agenda, but is instead lies fed to voters about false words on the election integrity. And then through educating voters about the truth, they can be empowered to recognize a lie before it hits the airwaves when they get it, and resist it. And we saw a lot of that happen in Michigan, a lot of that work in Michigan. So it's multifaceted, but voter education is a key component.
Elliot Berke: (30:08)
Secretary Raffensperger.
Brad Raffensperger: (30:10)
One of the first bills that I worked on when I got in Secretary State's Office was House Bill 316. And what that did was outlaw ballot harvesting. So we understood that, and we've been working on that. But it's interesting because of the disinformation campaign that we've just been under. We have many voters that are writing to us, pass a lot of outlawed ballot harvesting, because it had been told to them it was going on in Georgia. It's been outlawed, and we do investigate it. And when it comes before the state election board, we will prosecute.
Elliot Berke: (30:40)
Yeah, I think that's also something we've learned in this process too, is that the disinformation campaign is so vast that even amongst lawyers arguing these cases at least publicly, not so much in court at times, which we saw was vacuous. But they would talk about things that there were concepts, but they weren't necessarily occurring in the jurisdiction or in some cases, the over voting or under voting issue as if it was a smoking gun on something. And it was just a demonstrable ignorance of the process. And I think that's a big takeaway is that we just have to do more, and continue to educate the public as to how our election system actually operates and what is normal.
Elliot Berke: (31:25)
Mistakes happen all the time, but they don't necessarily mean that they're systemic. And in some cases, a concept, it's like watching on CNN or Fox about a high speed car chase. It doesn't mean it's happening in your neighborhood just because they show it. So moving forward, I think that's something that we're all going to be responsible for helping out with.
Jocelyn Benson: (31:48)
Yeah, and I hope that can be an outcome of this past year, where we've seen exactly what happens when you see a diminishment of civics education and historical education over time. And then you have an electorate or parts of an electorate that can be susceptible to lies about the integrity of the process. And it's heartbreaking, because you know people are lying to them to further their own political agendas. And as a result, you have citizens who have every right to believe that the process is secure, and that their votes were counted even if they're unhappy with the outcome. There's every reason to believe that all the data shows they should, yet they'll believe lies that are furthering a political agenda. And we need to better equip our citizens, and empower our citizens to push back and recognize lies when they're told to them so that we can protect them and the furtherance of our democracy.
Anthony Scaramucci: (32:42)
So let's let's dispel some of those lies, which is reason why we're calling it election integrity and truth series. Walk us through the chain of custody for mailing votes in your respective states. Why don't we start with you Secretary Raffensperger?
Brad Raffensperger: (33:04)
During the pandemic, we stood up an online portal for people that wanted to request an absentee ballot. First of all, it took the human element out of it because the counties were short staffed. But they would put in their driver's license number and then their birthdate day, month and year. So that way, we could make sure it truly was the person wanting that ballot, requested that ballot. So for the first time, we in effect had voter photo ID because it connects you to Department of Drivers Services. Once that was done, then it was processed and then an absentee ballot was sent out to the voter. When it showed up on your doorstep, then you'd open it up, make all your selections, close it up and sign the envelope.
Brad Raffensperger: (33:45)
Then when it came in, the signatures were matched. We actually did a signature match audit study for Cobb County since we had actual complaint at that county. And we found out of 15,000 sample size, we had two ballots that did not match up. And it was actually the spouses that voted for their husbands. The husbands knew that they were voting for them. But the point is that that signature match was being used. But then so we have chain of custody throughout the entire process through there. But it's the one area because it's not under the control of an election official with all eyes on it, that does raise the greatest amount of concern of voters. And we understand that, and that's why we want to make sure that there is a strong chain of custody, and strong voter identification. So that you know that it's truly the voter that requested the ballot.
Jocelyn Benson: (34:37)
Yeah, and here in Michigan it's very similar. And again, these are best practices that are in place in states all across the country, where you have in Michigan two signature checks as I mentioned earlier. One on the application when a ballot is requested. And then when the ballot is returned, the voter signature is again verified. And we actually implemented also in Michigan standards for signature evaluation working with clerks. And we're going to continue to make improvements where we can in ensuring our 1,600 clerks have all the tools and resources they need to have that double signature check process continue to be one that is following the best practices in matching signatures, and ensuring a verification of the voters identity.
Jocelyn Benson: (35:22)
And then after that, we also have a requirement that ballots be received by election day, either in the clerk's office or at a local drop box. And we put in more than 1,000 drop boxes all across the state of Michigan to ensure citizens could meet that requirement. And then after that, after the clerk verifies the signature and records the receipt of the ballot, they also then bring it to the counting board. And there's a bipartisan counting board that actually counts the ballots with plenty of observers as well. We had hundreds of people all across the state including in Detroit and Southeast Michigan observing the actual tabulation of the ballots once brought to the counting board.
Jocelyn Benson: (36:03)
So it's a multi-factored multi-step process with security checks in every step of the way to ensure that only valid ballots are being counted. And it's one that we're really proud of. And I think in Georgia as well, you saw that the actual process worked very well this year. And I was so grateful that you all started by mentioning the success of this year's elections, because that's really the true story here. Is extraordinary successful election. And it was so successful that it was able to stand up to a historic effort to undermine that truth among our citizens. And so moving forward, we have much more to learn than anything else from this election cycle, including how to ensure the integrity and security of the process. And that's great scrutiny.
Anthony Scaramucci: (36:45)
But I want you to state that definitively Madam Secretary, because people get all of this disinformation. From your observation at your state and in overall the election was ... I don't want to put words in your mouth. But tell us what the election was in terms of its freedom and fairness.
Jocelyn Benson: (37:08)
I think this was the most successful election Michigan has had in recent history. We had more people vote than ever before. We had secured elements of the process from top to bottom. And in the midst of extraordinary amount of scrutiny, which had there been any significant wrongdoing or problems, it certainly would have been found and revealed. And instead, we were able to meet every element of misinformation every rumor with the truth and the facts and the data. And the hard work that our election administrators put into ensuring the election worked, and was extraordinarily successful. And that to me, is ultimately the story of the 2020 election.
Anthony Scaramucci: (37:45)
No, look, it's an amazing story. You're a great patriot. Secretary Raffensperger, who won the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia?
Brad Raffensperger: (37:56)
President Biden did, about 12,000 votes.
Anthony Scaramucci: (38:02)
Elliot. You see any issue with that Elliot, or?
Elliot Berke: (38:05)
I don't. I mean I actually obviously follow these things closely. I'm very familiar with [inaudible 00:38:13] office. I've represented them before the Congress with respect to allegations made on the last election. And so we know what to look for, and I know who to speak with including members of Election Assistance Commission. There was no daylight between anybody in this space that actually works on this stuff in terms of what happened. One of the things that was interesting to me was I've run war rooms at the national and state level. And you run war rooms, typically what you start to see is things happen. So you say in this county, this is going on. In this county, this is going on. That doesn't mean that there's an attempt to steal the election. It means that something is going on.
Elliot Berke: (38:56)
A lot of times you work with your election day officials, and you fix it. And I just didn't hear that much going on with respect to at least the [inaudible 00:39:07] in terms of concerns they were raising election day. Everything came out of post election. And a lot of what we heard, a lot of it was allegations. Some was made in court, some was made outside the courtroom were things that could have been addressed. And when more appropriate if they had been addressed election day, and there could have been confidence on their side that they were being handled in a way that made them feel comfortable. But then it took its own direction, it became something else.
Elliot Berke: (39:44)
And one of the things I think also is a big story of this election that we haven't touched on, but it was something that Mike Chertoff brought up. He when we did our talk earlier this month, he said he [inaudible 00:39:56] concerns going into the election. One was cyber attacks taking out polling stations. The other two were violent actors attempting to intimidate voters. We talked about that to some extent. And then of course, question every election and it's something we've all talked about many times. We'll get to that in a few moments too. But with respect to the cyber attacks, it is also a great success story. We don't know yet about attempts that weren't successful.
Elliot Berke: (40:25)
But we do know, I think with a high degree of confidence, and I think this is what Chris Krebs was really speaking to. And by the way, when he was speaking in that statement that ultimately got him fired by the President. It was a joint statement by again, every federal state and local official that has a stake in this process in terms of Secretary Benson and Secretary Raffenperger said the confidence that they had in the election outcome. But what you think that it is that we have been relatively successful in wording cyber attacks by foreign entities where elements of our critical infrastructure have not?
Jocelyn Benson: (41:04)
Well, it's interesting. I can't speak to elements of infrastructure, but I can say back to what you were saying earlier about how everything went very smoothly. There were a lot of eyes on the process leading into the election. One of the first meetings I had in February, I was sworn in in January 2019. A month in, I was in D.C. with my colleagues and Secretary Raffensperger was there too. Meeting with the federal authorities about how to force cyber attacks in our elections. It was something we had identified early on as the probably biggest security threat, real security threat to our elections. And so every step of the way, we methodically did everything we were supposed to do. Shared information, coordinated with local and federal officials. Identified funding needs and filled them when they existed. Put in great experts at the state level to help with the federal.
Jocelyn Benson: (41:54)
There is information sharing. Everything you're supposed to do, we did. And I think that's in part why we did see the system prove to be impervious to any potential attempted cyber attack. And again, that's a great success story. And then again, to underscore your point earlier, election day we were planning it for years, for two years for a bunch of all these things. Violence at the polling stations, all these things we had planned for. And coming out of the voter protection world, that's what you do. You anticipate and you plan for it. And it was amazing that things went as smoothly as they did. And then it wasn't for us and for about 4:30 on Wednesday, 24 hours or so after the polls closed when word started to trickle out that Biden ... I think CNN shortly ran that time poll by Michigan for Biden that the fire hit our state and the attacks began.
Jocelyn Benson: (42:46)
The perception of the misinformation, all of that really escalated at that point, which was really telling. Gave me a lot of pride, because we did it. We successfully managed an election. Now we just had to fight the misinformation and the narrative battle. We actually did the work well. And again, that was because we've been working on it for as long as possible since I took office.
Brad Raffensperger: (43:09)
Well, we're concerned to Secretary Benson's point, whenever we meet with the National Association Secretary of State, I would think that we talked about cybersecurity probably 30 to 40% of the time. So we understand it's all of our radar. And so we had some potential threats that nothing ever penetrated our wallet defenses, but it doesn't mean we can never let up. And that's the thing is coming in the next cycle in 2022, we have to remain vigilant. There's hackers out there. There's actors from all over the world, and also national actors that would love to disrupt elections. We understand how critical it is. If you can create distrust in elections and somehow enter the database, do something on election day it is highly damaging to our society.
Elliot Berke: (43:56)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more on that. So getting into the questioning the integrity of the election. Our time is short, and I'm not going to go through every allegation, every court filing. I'm sure you don't want to either. But-
Anthony Scaramucci: (44:13)
I want to Elliot. I want to. It's important to me.
Elliot Berke: (44:16)
We'll schedule another time for that. But can you talk a little bit just in terms of the underlying litigation strategy when you get ... this was the volume again was nothing that we'd seen before. So how do you prepare for that? Brad, we'll start with you.
Brad Raffensperger: (44:35)
I guess we had good preparation. Stacey Abrams led that back in 2018. When I got here in 2019 we I think had 11 lawsuits on my first day, and we ramped it up to 14. And so we continue to beat those down. And then we had, obviously the Congress asking questions too. So we were ready and prepared. And then the Trump campaign started making a lot of allegations, and then we bit by bit knocked out every one of them. And none of them prevailed in a court of law.
Jocelyn Benson: (45:05)
Yeah. I think to Brad's point, it wasn't a legal strategy. It was a PR strategy designed to erode the public's confidence in our democracy. And so calling it what it was early on was critical. Allowing cases to be filed at first that I mean, look, if people have actual evidence of wrongdoing, then let's have that process work out. And then it turned out there was no evidence of wrongdoing, and yet the legal cases continued. And that's when it became even more apparent I think to more people that it truly was just a PR strategy. And my work as well as the work of others involve became twofold. One, telling the truth, affirming people's faith in the process, allowing the data and the facts to carry the day.
Jocelyn Benson: (45:48)
And then calling out the bad actors for what it was, which was a partisan agenda to again erode the public's confidence in the process. And to consistently do that was critical. And I had great gratitude that the judges, the members of our state board of canvassers, the members of our local board. Every person in the process who had a critical role to play in upholding the truth, followed the oath of office that they took and did just that. And that's really why we're able to stop a political agenda partisan PR campaign designed to undermine the democracy from ultimately being successful.
Anthony Scaramucci: (46:28)
Brad, can you walk us through the calls that you had with President Trump, and how you and your team prepared for them?
Brad Raffensperger: (46:36)
Well, the call ahead was in the Sunday or Saturday before the runoff election. Didn't have a lot of time to prepare, but we had been well versed in all of the facts on our side. Had a conversation and really became obvious very early on that was really he was repeating all of the disinformation that we've been facing for two months. It was very unfortunate, but Rudy Giuliani came down to speak before a state Senate committee meeting. And he made all sorts of allegations about what happened at State Farm, and they sliced and diced the video. The video is a 24/7 video and they took out portions of it, that it appeared to show that there was ballot stuffing. Unfortunately, we were not asked to come to that committee hearing.
Brad Raffensperger: (47:27)
We were not allowed to put rigidity on it and cross, and really slice and dice until I show them what they actually were doing. But we did get a hold of WSP the next day, showed them the whole run of the video and said this is exactly what happened. And we got brought in other news media sources. And so that was totally debunked. But President Trump, virtually a month and a half later, was still holding on to that debunked theory. And so it really is the entire list. He talked about that there was 5,000 or 10,000 dead people that voted. To this day, we found two dead people. Obviously, they didn't vote, but somewhat falsified it and we're looking for those people. And we're having an ongoing investigation, and we'll prosecute those folks.
Brad Raffensperger: (48:11)
But those are the types of misrepresentations that were given to him. At the end of day, I don't know if he believed it and we just wanted to believe it. And what did come through is that he had large rallies of people. And that can really give a candidate a false sense of security when everyone is showing up to hear you. And a lot of times you have people that came to multiple events, and really were traveling around the regions to come to these events because they are entertaining if you like conservative rhetoric. I happen to like conservative rhetoric. And so I can see why people went to those.
Brad Raffensperger: (48:47)
They were entertaining, but I think it gave the president a false sense of support that he had. And he didn't understand that in the metro regions, that there was a huge erosion of votes there. And that showed up, and that's why Senator Perdue got about 20,000 more votes than he did in the metro regions.
Anthony Scaramucci: (49:08)
Listen they had to be tough calls for you, and we obviously appreciate what you went through work. We're going to close out in a second, but I think it's important for our listeners and viewers and for the record, I'd like to start with you Secretary Benson. What do you want the American people to know about their electoral process, and the guardians of their democracy and where things are going?
Jocelyn Benson: (49:36)
It's up to them if we're going to have a healthy democracy. It's up to all of us to protect it with every election every day, every month. That there are forces at play as there has been since the founding of our country that would seek to minimize people's voices and their power in a democracy. And by electing secretaries of state on both sides of the aisle with a commitment to integrity and protecting their voices in vote, we can ensure that the infrastructure is secure, because the work that we've done demonstrates that. But that they also have a role, that we all have a role to play in voting and staying engaged and holding accountable those who would seek to lie or manipulate to further their own political agenda and harm our democracy as a result.
Jocelyn Benson: (50:18)
And by doing so, by truly all of us being engaged, regardless of how we feel about a particular issue or what our party affiliation is, but committed to democracy. Our democracy can flourish and thrive and grow, and continue to be that beacon on the hill that the founding fathers wanted it to be, and that we all hope it can be. But it's going to be up to all of us to make sure that it is.
Anthony Scaramucci: (50:39)
What did we leave out, Brad? That was very well said, by the way, Secretary Benson. What did we leave out Secretary Raffensperger?
Brad Raffensperger: (50:46)
Well, a year ago I said that 50% of the people would be happy with results, 50% would be hurt. I understand that they've been polarized times. I wanted voters to have 100% confidence in the results. And they can have confidence in the results, because 159 of our election directors have personal integrity. This office runs on integrity, we're going to make sure that we have fair and honest elections in State of Georgia, with the appropriate accessibility and also security of our systems.
Anthony Scaramucci: (51:16)
Well, I got to tell you as an American I so respect the two of you. And as somebody that loves the country, I would always put our democracy and its constitution and the integrity election over policy, which the two of you guys have done. So just my heart goes out to you. Great, thanks. My colleague, Elliot Berke, thank you for helping me get out of Washington unscathed. It was a brutal experience for me, and I appreciate you doing that. Now let me turn it over to the millennial, who's the only reason why he's on this is because he helps us with our ratings with his shockingly good blonde hair. Did we miss anything, John Darsie?
John Darsie: (51:57)
I would just like to point out that technically it was General John Kelly, who got you out of Washington, Anthony.
Anthony Scaramucci: (52:04)
Yes, it was. He did. He pressed the eject button like we were in a James Bond car. Okay, but I landed nicely because of Elliot. I'm setting the record straight on election integrity and my firing. How's that, John? Is there anything else you want to bring out?
John Darsie: (52:20)
No, I just want to thank like Anthony said, Secretary Benson and Secretary Raffensperger. Also, the personal toll that it's taken on you guys. We didn't get to that topic, but I know you guys your lives have changed and you became household names. And maybe in a way that affected your life in ways you never expected before the 2020 election. But you guys have not shrunk from that challenge. And you've embraced the fact that you're going to have to be out front fighting the misinformation and everything that comes along with it. So thank you for that on a personal level as well. And just thank you, again, so much for joining us here. We hope to do this again in the future.
John Darsie: (52:55)
I think continuing to reinforce the integrity of our elections, and the confidence in our elections is not going to be solved through one webinar series with SALT or anybody else. It's going to be an ongoing process of maintaining and reinforcing that confidence. So hopefully, when we can do live events in the future as we were talking before we went live. We hope maybe we can reprise this conversation in the near future in person. So thank you.
Brad Raffensperger: (53:20)
Thank you.
Jocelyn Benson: (53:23)
Look forward to it. Thanks, guys. Honored to be part of the conversation.
Elliot Berke: (53:25)
Thank you again.
Anthony Scaramucci: (53:26)
Appreciate it.
John Darsie: (53:28)
And thank you everyone who tuned into today's SALT talk, the third and final episode for now of our election series focused on elections operations and elections integrity. Again, our goal with this series is just to expose people to the truth. To put the truth into the sunlight about what happened in the 2020 election so they can have confidence in the process as Secretary Benson and Secretary Raffensperger said in the face of a historic global pandemic, and intense pressure coming from the federal government these states were able to execute what was one of the fairest and freest elections that we have on record. So very grateful for all the work they've done. And all the pressure they've withstood, that could potentially have led to an erosion of our democracy.
John Darsie: (54:11)
So thank you to them. And thank you for tuning in and learning about the process. That's important as well that people come into these things with an open mind. Just a reminder, if you missed any part of this talk, any of our other election series talks, one was with former Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff. The other was with two members of the Election Assistance Commission that Elliot Berke was speaking about, that was Don Palmer and Benjamin Hovland of the Election Assistance Commission. So if you missed either of those episodes, please go to our YouTube channel. It's SALT tube.
John Darsie: (54:48)
You can watch them there, and you can watch all the episodes of SALT Talks that we started doing in May as the pandemic clearly became a long term issue that was going to force us to have to postpone or cancel our conferences. So please spread the word about those talks and about these elections SALT Talks in particular, because we think it's extremely important that people learn the facts of the situation. Please follow us on social media as well. We're most active on Twitter @SALTConference where we live tweet these episodes and air a lot of the episodes that we broadcast live on our Twitter feed. We're also on LinkedIn, we're on Instagram and we're on Facebook. And on behalf of the entire SALT team, that wraps it up for today. Thank you for joining us again. We hope to see you back here again soon on SALT Talks.