Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experience shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit FDRLST, make
sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of
course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Jay Christian Adams, President and General
Counsel for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and we talk
about the critical topic of election integrity and the battles
ahead in this critical midterm election year. Christian, thank you
so much for it for joining us in this edition
at the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. Great to be here.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we have a lot of ground to cover. As
they used to say in the Smoky and the Bandits song,
We've got a long way to go, but a short
time to get there, or something like that. We're beginning
our conversation today with the big story, a Supreme Court
decision that I think will have a significant effect moving forward.
It addresses standing of political candidates. The Supreme Court ruling
on that case. As we speak, I was wondering if
we could delve into that and what that will all
mean moving forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's the Boss case was decided by the
Supreme Court effectively, I think four to two to two.
And the big issue there that's important is who can
sue for violations of election law.
Speaker 2: Good news.
Speaker 3: There's good news and bad news, just so we can
do both. The good news is this expands the universe
of people who can bring a lawsuit to candidates. In
other words, if you're running for Congress and an election
law is being broken, then you can sue. I get that.
That's a good thing that the Supreme Court ruled the
way it did and said candidates can sue. What's a
little important to understand on the other side of the
ledger is this probably we need a lot more than
just candidates having the right to sue.
Speaker 2: The public.
Speaker 3: Interlegal Foundation files lawsuits. We filed a lawsuit exactly like
this case actually in North Dakota challenging their acceptance of
mail balance late and we lost on standing just like
Judicial Watch did in Illinois. On today's case, and ours
is not a candidate. It was essentially an election official.
So the standing issue at is a big deal. It
needs to go further. Today was a good step in
the right.
Speaker 1: To It is a huge issue. And I'm thinking too,
it wasn't settled today, but there were lawsuits in the
last election cycle about state senators or lawmakers having standing
in these issues, and we saw a pretty famous Pennsylvania
case stalled out on that front. Where do you think
that is heading for these others like lawmakers who file
lawsuits in these election cases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's what the Supreme Court resolved.
Speaker 3: It's settled now in the Boss case bost by the
way that a candidate would have standing. That's what the
big opinion was the Supreme Court. Now, it was a
fractured opinion. Amy Cony, Barrett and Kagan disagreed with it
and said, yes, they're standing for this particular person, but
it's because they're wasting and spending money after.
Speaker 2: The election to make sure the law was followed to
you know.
Speaker 3: Send observers and that kind of So they kind of
had dollar bill standing in the concurrence, and of course
two justices dissented said there is no standing. You're going
to open up the floodgates to crazy people like the
normal stuff.
Speaker 2: And so it was essentially a four too two opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I think I didn't ask that question correctly.
I know that the candidates now have standing according to
the Supreme Court. But in the last elections, and we've
seen this before, legislatures have sued collectively or many members
of a state legislature have sued in an election dispute,
and particularly election integrity questions. In a case in Pennsylvania
comes to mind, where you had a federal judge there
say I'm sorry, we rely on these previous cases to
assert that legislation, legislators, the legislature does not have standing
in the these cases because of you know, a lot
of different things. I don't think this case dealt with that.
Where do you think that might be heading based on
and perhaps informed by this Supreme Court case?
Speaker 3: Yeah, terrific question. My apologies. I'd assumed in your question
the legislators were on the ballot, right, and that's the difference.
Speaker 2: So you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: This case does not say legislators have standing simply because
they're legislators. If they were candidates, they would have standing.
But if there's simply legislators who aren't on the ballot
that is unchanged.
Speaker 1: All right, gotcha? And again the Supreme Court kind of
paused on that. One would say, maybe bulk at that
and we'll see perhaps down the road. Now we are
in another critical It sounds hyperbolic to say that every
election cycle is critical. If you look at it from
the point of view of do you want to save
this republic? That's pretty critical. So all of that said,
what do you see at PILF as being the biggest
election integrity issues as we head into the twenty twenty
six mid term election year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got to tell you it's related to the
Supreme Court case, which this case didn't reach the bigger issue.
It only reached the small issue of whether Cannon set standing,
And that's the federal law that requires male ballots or
ballots to be received by election day. That's the underlying
litigation and boss that was not touched by the Supreme Court.
And I think that late arriving ballots that cause late
announcements of winners is the single most destabilizing component of
American elections. It's destabilizing to the country. I think it
creates doubt, it invites mischief, and that issue is going
Supreme Court in another case that will hopefully be resolved
well before election day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is critical. I know that you folks have
been dealing with this for a long time. Ask some
of the candidates in Nevada how critical that was. There's
a gentleman who ran for Senate a few years back
who can tell you all about that. But it's not
just there, it's California, it's in so many different states.
Where do you think that case will end up given
what you've seen so far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question, and it's a statutory text question.
The question is does federal law require all ballots to
be in by election day? That's the issue before the
Supreme Court, and the statute says election day they have
to be cast by election day.
Speaker 2: And so it's going to turn on what the meaning
of cast is.
Speaker 3: And I think that cast means you're gets dropped in
the official basket.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean it gets dropped in the mailbox, are
given to.
Speaker 3: Some contractor who comes to your front porch and takes
the mail away.
Speaker 2: And so I think that it's huge.
Speaker 3: I think it's probably going to come out the right way,
but I certainly won't want to bet put all my chips.
Speaker 2: In the center of the table.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we have to think about the
dirty voter rolls out there. That's something the Public Interest
Legal Foundation has thought a lot about over the years.
You've got a lot of cases in motion right now.
We have seen some really awfully dirty voter rolls and
the fruits of those voter rules. Of course in the
last couple of years. In particular, where does that stand
and where do your legal actions stand on that front?
Speaker 3: Well, I got some bad news there the Six Circuit
Court of Appeals in the case we brought against Joscelyn
Benson in Michigan, we're having twenty five thousand dead people
on the active voter rolls, which is barely subject to dispute.
It's lock solid evidence. The Sixth Circuits said, Hey, states
don't really have to be effective in how they clean
the roles. They just have to try to. And we're like, Nope,
that's not what the law says. And this we have
a petition with the US Supreme Court. If the Supreme
Court doesn't take the case, guys, there is a court
decision by the Six Circuit Court.
Speaker 2: Of Appeals that says states really.
Speaker 3: Don't have an obligation to keep clean voter rolls, and
so this is a huge issue. I think some Republican
Party groups helped us, but we didn't get enough. We
didn't get it much in the way of broad energy
on this. Nobody from Michigan. Nobody, And it's sort of
sort of discouraging because this is the ballgame whether we're
going to have clean voter roles or not.
Speaker 1: Why is that? Why didn't you get that energetic response?
I mean, is really where the rubber meets the road
in terms of election integrity?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I really don't.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's something you can do a show on and
ask the people who should have But it's discouraging. Look,
all we can do is try as hard as we can.
We litigated this. We went to the grave sites of
the voters. We visited them in the graveyard with video.
You can go to Public Interest Legal Foundation and google
Michigan video graveyard.
Speaker 2: We actually went to the site.
Speaker 3: Some of these people have been dead since the nineties
and they're still in the active voter rolls.
Speaker 1: Well, what is the argument from Joscelyn Benson. I'm again,
like a mediocre attorney. I know the answer to this,
But what is the answer from the Joscelyn Benson's of
the world, who, by the way, want to move from
Secretary of State to be the next governor of Michigan.
Keep that scary thought in mind, But how do they
justify these dirty voter rolls?
Speaker 3: So there's two ways they do. The first is the
proportionality way. They say, hey, this is only twenty five
thousand dead people on the active roles out of six millions,
so we're and we removed one hundred and fifty thousand
dead people last year, so we're making a reasonable effort
to keep the roles clean.
Speaker 1: Go away.
Speaker 3: That's the first argument. It's a tiny fraction of the problem,
and they removed a bunch of people. The second argument
they're making is the law doesn't require them to be effective.
It just requires them to give it the old college
try and if they fail, oh well they're not liable.
And so those are the two arguments. And you could
see how if these two arguments got legs, which they're getting,
it's going to affect the entire country, not just Michigan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it, because every state that doesn't
value election integrity and quite frankly, Let's be honest here.
They want to use dirty voter rolls to the advantage
of their political favorites. They're going to not only can
you need to do this, but they're going to, you know,
expand the issue, and that becomes very critical in twenty
twenty six. So I ask you that in this vein,
do you believe that we are going to see without
COVID But who knows the kind of nonsense that we
saw in twenty twenty because the left sure seems desperate
to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, the good news is I don't think we're
ever going to see anything like we did in twenty twenty.
We didn't see it in twenty twenty four, we didn't
see it in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty is going to go down.
Speaker 3: In history as the year the guardrails were taken down
and all of the nonsense that occurred in violating state laws,
suspending state laws. You know, sometimes courts signed off on that.
But the point is, I don't think we're going to
see that again. The Left pulled off and inside right
that year, and too much effort has gone into making
sure it never happens again.
Speaker 1: What is the status of the save Act that certainly
ties into the voter roles. And yeah, the Save Act.
You know, the idea that the vast majority of Americans
agree with is that you have to be a US
citizen to vote in a US election, and it requires
you know, documented proof of that fact. Is it has
passed in the House. It has been stalled in the Senate.
Do you know why and what is the status of
the Save Act right now as we get closer and
closer to voting in this midterm.
Speaker 3: Well, my understanding is it just doesn't have the votes
in the Senate, that it just doesn't have the votes
necessary to pass. And so, you know, I'm not close
enough to Senate issues on this that I can tell
you why that is. But at least my understanding is
it's just a game of math.
Speaker 1: I am curious though, I've heard that there are some
Republicans who do not support this basic constitutional issue, this
basic election integrity issue, and that baffles me as well.
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Speaker 1: What are the other big issues that you will be
fighting in court this year? I know you have sent
out a number of warning letters and letters too. Your
lead researcher, Logan Churchill has written plenty of these saying hey,
we can help you with this. A secretary of state
elect state election official, we can get you in compliance
with election law election integrity. What kind of issues are
you you're delving into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so one is we're dealing with the race base
for districting in California. We have a lawsuit against California
there where the new congressional maps are jerry rigging the
system to create race districts. We're also looking at a
secret ballot in Texas. We have a lawsuit being argued
this week there as to whether you have a right
to actually have a secret ballot. I know that sounds shocking,
but it hangs in the balance. And then there's the
whole voter roll problem around the country. We continue to
spend money and time to find dead people, people who
moved away in the voter roles and make the data
available to election officials. It's it's something that is fixable,
and it's something that everybody should agree needs to be improved.
Speaker 1: Where does that California issue stand? And I asked that
in the main, there are a lot of liberal states
looking to you know, rig their maps so that they
can they can grab more congressional seats. Where does your
lawsuits stand? Where does the issue stand? In general?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's in the hands of a federal court,
three judge panel. Actually, when you do a challenge like this,
you get three federal judges and.
Speaker 2: You know where it stands.
Speaker 3: As like, we're in the middle of combat with litigation
with California, and hopefully, you know, we get some good
news from the Supreme Court on another redistricting case shorty
called Louisiana versus Cala, which has a brief in there,
and hopefully redistricting law moves in a better direction this
calendar year.
Speaker 2: You bet.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Jay Christian Adams, President and General
counsel for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, talking election integrity,
all the battles ahead in this critical midterm election year.
Will A lot has changed since the election of twenty twenty.
We are seeing citizen only voting laws in place or
amendments to constitutions, a growing movement on that front. Are
we going to see the movement at least in these
blue states that didn't change these issues? Are we going
to see a bigger movement with liberal election offices working
with far left non profits so to speak, so called
nonpartisan election groups.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question, And two things of note. First of all,
a PILF has been doing a deep dive into the
personnel in a very blue state's election offices, and we've
been harvesting resumes and we will eventually have a more
comprehensive report, but I can tell you from a preliminary standpoint,
it really makes it hard to have a lot of
confidence in these election offices while we're seeing. The other
thing that's happening is states are passing these mini voting
rights acts like New York did, Virginia did, California did
to radicalize election law in these states, so like lock
it down, like this is never changing, We're always going
to be hyper progressive, crazy and at a challenge to
Some of these voting rights acts on stay level really
need to be made and we look forward to doing that.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go into detail on some of those, because
what these politicians and these activist groups are calling voter
rights acts is just a lot of times and end
around to you know, basic election integrity rules, basic integrity laws.
What are they trying to do in some of these states.
Speaker 3: Well, two things they do, of note they do a
lot more than that, but I'll just give you two.
One is they make race the center of state election law.
Speaker 2: In other words, you can bring.
Speaker 3: These cases to demand race based districts like I want
a black district for Congress, I want to well Congress
and even down to school board, and they dispense with
the federal rule. They get rid of the federal rule,
which is really hard to satisfy. It's a really complicated
way to do it, and they make it really super easy.
So what happens is you create all these race based
districts under state law. That's the first thing The second
thing they do is they give state attorneys general, the
bureaucrats in the state, basically the oversight power to review
everything that the local jurisdictions do about elections. You know,
if they want to change the time and place of
the office being open, changing a polling place, everything that
goes into state elections. These bureaucrats in Albany, Sacramento, they
get to veto at all, and that allows manipulation by
state employees in the process.
Speaker 1: Well, now, wait a minute, I thought liberals Democrats weren't
all that keen on states' rights. It seemed like it.
For a long time. It was always federal central authority.
What changed there?
Speaker 3: Well, look, they know that in places like New York
and Massachusetts and California and Minnesota, they love state power
because they're always.
Speaker 2: Going to be in power.
Speaker 3: Right Maryland, These are places where progressive is a culture
and there's no there's no competing political ideology. It's a
one party state, and so why not be in favor
of state power when you got the power.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Indeed, here's the headline from the Associated Press as we
talk today. Democrats will spend millions to shift voter registration
strategy ahead of the midterm elections, kind of what we
were talking about before. The Democratic National Committee will spend
millions of dollars to cement control of voter registration efforts
that have traditionally been entrusted to nonprofit advocacy groups and
individual political campaigns, a shift that party leaders hope will
increase their chances. What do you think about all of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, this has been going on in small measure
all around the country. I mean, one example, the fight
was Texas where pardon these people went out to do
voter registration and they were putting on bad registrations, like
the fake registrations, and Texas passed the law that said,
if you want to sign people up to vote, you
have to go through training, you have to show you
know the law. And of course what happens next, Texas
got sued over this law like hey, this is suppression.
Well the Planner's lost, Texas won. But the same fight
is taking place around the country where the registration process
has basically been outsourced to activist groups.
Speaker 1: And we've gone down this road before, where you know,
you have activist groups trying to you know, trying to
register voters, trying to register the kind of voter they
want to turn out. But at one point, of course,
they were deeply embedded in some of our election offices.
You know, we saw that certainly in twenty twenty where
you had a Democrat Party operative in Wisconsin working inside
Green Bay Office election office there and working alongside with
the largest blue cities. Do you see that happening again?
I know there have been some changes in the laws
on that front.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, some of these election offices in Richmond,
or at least they were, are populated by volunteers parachuted
in from activists left as five to one C three
groups to work inside the election offices.
Speaker 2: This is not a shocker.
Speaker 3: This is the standard operating procedure in a bunch of
state capitals around the country. And I know people were shocked, like, well,
who would ever do that for free? Well, they do
it for free. They parachute people in.
Speaker 1: That leads us to ballot harvesting. You know has dealt
with this in the past. How big a role will
ballot harvesting play in the twenty twenty six midterms.
Speaker 3: Well, it depends on which state. A lot of states
have curtailed it. A lot of states it's a culture.
Some states have made changes, like Mississippi has it is
less of a problem than it was in the past.
Speaker 1: You're hearing a lot, interestingly from liberals from the Democrat
Party about twenty twenty six and how the election might
not just be fair because you have Donald Trump in office.
You know, according to the left, he's the biggest threat
to democracy out there. And they're certainly using terms like
fascist and what have you. You know, they're talking about
the R word here, Christian. They're saying, we're really worried
that the twenty twenty six mid terms could be rigged
by Trump and Republicans. Isn't that quite a change from
when there were a lot of folks, including yourself, who
raised questions about certainly the many irregularities of twenty twenty Yeah.
Speaker 3: I really sincerely hope as we move forward as a
country that these sorts of claims become very out of fashion.
It's like a slinky or a I don't know. I
want to do some cultural fun here, like stuff that's
no longer popular, like some of the records I have
at home, like the Bay City Rollers.
Speaker 1: S A t U R Day, my friend right right.
Speaker 3: Right, right, right, right, The point is that I'm looking
forward to the day that the confidence in the system
is restored, and you know that the pendulum doesn't swing
back and forth between one and the other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that has changed. I think the polling
shows it that there still is a good deal of
distrust in the system. But people feel a lot better
today than they did a few years back, and understandably so.
How much does Congress have Let me ask it straight here,
how much culpability does Congress have in you? The failure
to bring election integrity to the forefront?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Limited, because remember Congress has limited jurisdictions. Sure, that's how
the founders wanted it. The founders didn't want Congress involved
in state elections. You know there's a reason for that too.
It wasn't just they flipped the coin, do we want
Congress involved or not? Go ahead and mister Adams flip
the coin. No, it was because they knew centralized authority
throughout human history brings disaster. It might start out as
a really good idea, it might start out as really
well attentioned, but it doesn't end up there. And the
founders knew that. So our constitution has a presumption that
the states are in charge, so I can be a
little bit grateful in a way that Congress hasn't addressed
this and states like Mississippi, Texas, Georgia.
Speaker 2: I'm just rattling off some great laws Florida.
Speaker 3: Florida passed a lot of great stuff that these laws
are being passed. And look, I know people listening in
Minnesota or Massachusetts or Maine might be saying.
Speaker 2: What about US.
Speaker 3: I get it, But this is a decision made in
seventeen eighty seven and the founders were worried about not
holding elections, and so they put the Election's clause in
the Constitution. We should use that power very sparingly.
Speaker 1: Indeed, are there some areas though, in that Congress does
have authority and they've kind of stepped aside or abdicated
that authority.
Speaker 3: Well, one area that the congressional authority is going to
impact the country is this election day. Is election day
case that's going to Supreme Court. Congress passed a law
and said ballots must be cast by election day. Okay,
there you go. They've used that power under the elections
clause to opine about what the law is. Now the
question should they change the NVRA that doesn't require Americans
to pay thirty thousand dollars to get the Alabama voter roll, right,
should they change the NVRA that allows electronic records to
be within the scope of what any American can get
from an election office related to list maintenance. There are
some areas around the edges where Congress could help the
process where they've already made the decision to legislate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how is that going? By the way, because PILF
has been very instrumental in a number of states dealing
with the high cost of obtaining voter roles. If let's
be honest, if we can't see those voter roles, it
is very hard to you know, talk about where election
integrity stands, hard to gauge that you have dealt with
some very very expensive costs associated with the voter roles,
both in red and blue states. Where does that stand
right now? And where do you see the fight ahead?
Speaker 2: So some good news. PILF has brought and won an
outcome in New.
Speaker 3: Mexico where we got the outrageous fee dramatically reduced by
thousands of dollars, and so you can get these records
without paying a king's ransom. Now in New Mexico. I'll
give you some bad news Alabama. Alabama fought really hard
so they didn't have to turn over electronic records, and
they got an eleventh Circuit decision saying so that they
don't have to turn over electronic versions.
Speaker 2: Of voter rolls.
Speaker 3: And so we said, okay, fine, you won this case
called Greater Birmingham Ministries. By the way, we'll take the
voter roll records in pay per form the way you
said that you prefer it. Well, guess what, they couldn't
do it. They don't have enough paper to print, right.
And so that's a real bad place that I hope
sorts out. But it's one of these examples where you know,
just because it's Alabama, just because it's New Mexico, don't
think that the outcome is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a lot of states too. I remember,
and I'm speaking as an investigative reporter, Wisconsin was an
extremely expensive place. I remember trying this was fifteen plus
years ago, trying to track dead voters on the voter rolls.
And I said, well, sure you can do that, but
it's going to be ten thousand dollars plus a pop.
Well that's very difficult because voter rolls are indeed subject
to change. And if you've got to spend ten thousand
dollars every couple of weeks to get read on voter rolls,
that's going to price certainly the average citizen out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's something Congress can fix too, if you're
looking for something to fix Wisconsin. By the way, the
reason I say that is Wisconsin's one of six states
exempted under the National Voter Ilellustration Act from transparency. And
we just made arguments in the Seventh Circuit about this
Court of Appeals.
Speaker 2: We had a similar case.
Speaker 3: In Minnesota that just got argued in the Eighth Circuit
Court of Appeals as to whether or not this exemption
from transparency election transparency under federal law is valid, and we.
Speaker 2: Argue it isn't.
Speaker 3: We ought to be able to get the records cheap,
But Wisconsin and Minnesota took the opposite argument, and by
the way, so did the US Justice Department. I might add,
they were in court opposing pill on the question of
cheap transparent voter rolls.
Speaker 1: Why why on earth ask them? Yeah, I think we should.
I think that I think that the Trump campaign would
certainly appreciate cheaper voter roles like every other campaign on
the right and the left, you know, and obviously government
watchdogs like yourself. Well, end with this final question for you,
as we look ahead at this critical midterm election year.
How confident are you in election integrity in America as
we get closer and closer to election day?
Speaker 3: A whole lot more than I was years ago. A
lot of progress has been made. There's so many good
things happening in this space. I have confidence in my
vote being counted, and I think most people hopefully share
that view.
Speaker 1: Very good, sir, Well, it's always good to check in
with you. You've got your your finger on the pulse of
what's happening out there in election integrity because you're dealing
with it every day, and I am sure we will
talk often this year. All right, thank you for having
mesolutely anytime. Our guests today, Jay Christian Adams, President and
General Counsel for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, about the
election integrity battles ahead. You've been listening to another edition
of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections
correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, stay lovers of freedom. I'm anxious for the
pray