New voting rules in battleground states could affect election results

As we wind our way to Election Day, some key states are still debating and battling over new election rule changes. In some prominent cases, these are Republican-led and pushed by former President Trump himself. In the past few weeks, the Georgia Election Board passed changes that could affect this year’s results. Lisa Desjardins discussed more with Jessica Huseman of Votebeat.

Read the Full Transcript

Geoff Bennett: As we wind our way to the November election, some key states are still debating and battling over brand-new election rule changes.
As our Lisa Desjardins explains, in some prominent cases, these are Republican-led and pushed by former President Donald Trump himself.

Lisa Desjardins: In just the past few weeks, the Georgia Election Board has passed changes that could affect this year’s election.

Among them, local officials could launch an investigation after results are in, and each local official could demand to examine all election documents, presumably including each ballot. If there’s a discrepancy in ballot and voter counts, no vote from such a precinct would count.

Former President Donald Trump has recently praised by name the three board members who passed those rules as fighting for honesty and victory. This week, the national and state Democratic parties filed a lawsuit, citing current Georgia law and writing: “Election officials are free to voice concerns at the time of certification, but they may not point to those election irregularities or anything else as a basis for delaying certification or denying it entirely.”

To look at this and voting law changes in other states, I’m joined by Jessica Huseman of Votebeat.

Jessica, let’s start right there in Georgia, obviously, a hotly contested state. We see Vice President Harris there this week. What do we know about what Georgia election law says about certification, and can these rules stand?

Jessica Huseman, Editorial Director, Votebeat: I have a really difficult time seeing how they could, but I am not an attorney.

The law in Georgia does say that local boards shall certify the election by a given date. It does not give them any room to not do that and essentially accepts it as a predetermined conclusion.

So, I think that the law in Georgia is very clear as to what they need to do. And if they behave accordingly, then they will do the same thing they did last year.

Lisa Desjardins: Now, this comes from a newly configured Election Board. The Georgia legislature changed the law to change this board.

No longer sitting on this board is the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, someone who our viewers might remember was on that phone call with former President Trump, who wanted him to find some votes. Raffensperger refused.

Now, Raffensperger has called out what he sees happening on the Election Board, saying it’s a mess and saying: “Misguided attempts by the State Election Board will delay election results and undermine chain of custody safeguards.”

Jessica, we are just 69 days away from this election. I know you’re saying what the law looks like, but can the courts actually move through this quickly enough or is it possible that there will be confusion about this on Election Day?

Jessica Huseman: There’s certainly a possibility that they could move quickly enough, right?

The courts tend to move very quickly ahead of elections because they don’t want to affect things too close to the day of the election. But the amount of time that courts consider too close is getting shorter and shorter and shorter every year.

And so, yes, there could definitely be some confusion here. I think that, if it gets even into the middle of September, we’re going to start seeing some antsy feelings on the part of Georgia Democrats especially. But, ultimately, the courts do have it in their power to fix this.

Lisa Desjardins: If this is allowed to stay in place close to a right out Election Day, do you think any of these counties are ready to use these kinds of powers, and exactly for what?

Jessica Huseman: I’m sure that they are.

I think that there are a lot of very red counties across the country that have been sort of playing with the idea of refusing to certify local election results. But in the past, that has not been successful, basically anywhere that it’s been tried.

And I don’t see why it would be different in Georgia. Local boards are under a lot of pressure to certify from the people who live in the community. You can only certify your own election. And so, if you choose not to certify your local results, that means you’re preventing local candidates from taking office. And any of those people could sue.

That’s what’s happened in the past when counties across the country have tried to do this. And I think that there probably will be a few counties in Georgia that push their luck here, but probably reverse course very quickly.

Lisa Desjardins: Do you have a sense of how much of this for the Election Board members, who really haven’t spoken out too much outside of their meetings, how much of this is about their concerns over election security? How much of this could be what we hear from Donald Trump, trying to set up a scenario where there’s doubt if he loses?

Jessica Huseman: It’s hard to say.

I think that the Republican Party has gone all in with Donald Trump on these claims of voter fraud and noncitizen voting and bloated voter rolls, none of which are true. But because they have thrown themselves so far in line behind him — behind him, it’s hard to say whether or not this is something they actually believe or this is a party line.

And at the end of the day, I’m not sure that it makes much of a difference. This is — this is a political determination that’s definitely going to impact the efficacy of a vote.

Lisa Desjardins: And you mentioned those questions about noncitizens voting. And we know just this week or in the past week, the Supreme Court has ruled in on Arizona law and given Arizona Republicans a sort of partial victory, saying that they can enforce some of the Arizona election law, which basically would mean, if I have this right, that people without an I.D. at the voting — at the ballot box would have to fill out a special federal form to vote in the presidential election.

That’s something that a lot of Republicans are saying was a victory for them. Do you think that’s going to make a difference at the polls or not in November?

Jessica Huseman: It’s hard to say. Past examples of voters having to fill out forms that polls do not suggest necessarily that voters will be tremendously dissuaded from voting as a result of that.

So, for example, in Texas, if you do not have an I.D., you have to fill out what’s called a reasonable impediment declaration here. That does not seem to have been a barrier in recent elections. And so if this is implemented well by local election officials, it should be pretty seamless.

Lisa Desjardins: The right often raises this idea that perhaps there are too many people voting. We know there are not many instances of voter fraud.

But on the left, the concern is sometimes about too few and purging voter rolls. Texas just announced that there’s been about a million purged as part of its regular countywide purging and voter rolls for those who are deceased, et cetera.

Is there anything this year to be concerned about or is that standard procedure?

Jessica Huseman: So, voter — so, removing people from the voter roll is very well controlled. There’s federal laws that dictate when and how someone can be moved — removed from the voter roll, and what kind of notice they have to give to the people who they are attempting to remove.

And so none of those things have changed in the last few years. That federal law has remained the same. And we’re actually currently within the window that those federal laws allow such that no one can be removed from the rolls at this point from now until the election.

So if you’re on the rolls now, you’re going to stay on the rolls through to the end of the election. That will not change. But I think it’s important for people to know that there is a universe of federal law that does apply to this that dictates when someone is made inactive and how long they must be inactive and how much notice they need to be given in the mail in order to remove that person from the voter roll.

So this is not an overnight process and it’s a process very tightly controlled.

Lisa Desjardins: Jessica Huseman, a very clear look at some big concerns. We appreciate you.

Jessica Huseman: Thank you.