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20081017 Rick Hasen on NewsHour
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Jun 5, 2025
Interview of Loyola Law School Professor and election law expert Richard Hasen by Newshour's Judy Woodruff, discussion of integrity of voting systems. Duration: 6 Min. 39.4MB.
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for a broader look at voting issues
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around the country we're joined by Rick
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Hassan he's a professor at the Loyola
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Law School in Los Angeles and an expert
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on election law professor Hasson thanks
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for talking with us what are the main
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voting related problems around the
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country right now well there are
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different kinds of problems some of the
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problems relate to machines and you know
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since 2000 when we learned that the
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punch card machines were a big problem
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we've switched over to other kinds of
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machines and in some places like in Palm
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Beach County they're on their third set
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of machines and in three major elections
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and so some of it relates to rolling out
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new equipment some of it as we just
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heard in that report relate to questions
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over voter registration and matching
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databases and some of them is just
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misinformation about who's entitled to
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vote and you know what the procedures
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are going to be on Election Day are the
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problems mainly concentrated in the the
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battleground states where we expect the
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vote to be the closest well I think that
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certainly the most attention nationally
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has been paid there but there are
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problems and you know all over the
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country I think we know that there'll be
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some problems on Election Day scattered
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in different places throughout the
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country but we're obviously going to
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focus on places like Ohio or Florida or
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Colorado we're in a very close election
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those electoral votes could matter for
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the outcome of the presidency let's talk
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about the controversies surrounding
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acorn the group that was mentioned in
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that report the Association of Community
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Organizations for reform now if you if
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you can take the partisanship out of
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that and help us understand what's the
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problem alleged to be well you know the
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way that this country works unlike many
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other mature democracies is that we
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don't have the government in the
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business of doing voter registration we
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have private third parties going out and
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doing it and so acorn has been very
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successful I think the figures around
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1.3 million registrations they've turned
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in and turns out that some of those
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registration forms are either fraudulent
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or contain incorrect information or
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duplicate information and so there's a
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question as to what's going to happen
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with those forms and there's a concern
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that some of those forms will lead to
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actual election fraud on Election Day
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turns out though that from all of our
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studies there's almost no evidence that
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fraudulent registration leads to actual
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election fraud on elec
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today with people pretending they're
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Mickey Mouse or Joe Montana and showing
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up at the polls on election day so
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potentially you're saying how big
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disruption when it comes to counting
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votes well you know in terms of counting
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votes I don't think that we're talking
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about a big disruption that the question
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is in terms of the bloated voter rolls
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and what it takes for election officials
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before Election Day to go through all
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those cards and in a lot of states by
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law any card that a third party group
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like acorn collects they have to turn in
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so each of those cards have to be
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investigated and that takes time and so
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that's a problem but it doesn't
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translate into any kind of concern about
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the integrity of the actual vote itself
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on Election Day
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now there was a US Supreme Court ruling
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today that's getting some attention
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having to do with Ohio and it's voter
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registration lists help us understand
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what that's about yeah we remember Ohio
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was very close last time between Kerry
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and Bush and whoever won Ohio won won
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the outcome so it's a closely fought
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contest has been a lot of registration
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and what the Ohio Republican Party was
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trying to do was to force the Secretary
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of State there who's the chief elections
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officer to turn over lists to counties
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of mismatches between the voter
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registration database and the Motor
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Vehicles database and report said that
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it could have been up to 200,000
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mismatches although lots of those are
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probably the result of data entry error
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or cut-ins different uses of a name like
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Joe and Joseph or senior and junior and
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those kinds of problems but those names
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will now do not have to be produced by
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the secretary and passed on to the
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Election Board so what is that what's
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the upshot of that what does that mean
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well so the question is what the Ohio
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Republican Party wanted those names for
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and one possibility is they wanted those
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names to mount voter challenges on
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Election Day to have a list of people to
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look I'll be on the lookout for at the
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polling places on Election Day and we
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don't know if that would have happened
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or not and there still could be
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challenges but we don't have this list
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from the Secretary of State that could
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provide the basis for this anymore
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so essentially less essentially we think
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though that's that's resolved not
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expected to be any more legal action
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brought in Ohio on that well there's you
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the voter registration list
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yeah well on that particular issue I
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think we're done but there's been other
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litigations or there was our order this
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morning from the Ohio Supreme Court that
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the Secretary has to allow observers
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into
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see what's going on in early voting
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there's been litigation over missed
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boxes that needed to be checked on
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registration forms there's so other
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stuff going on what's happened since
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2000 is election administration's become
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more partisan the parties are fighting
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more over these things and so generally
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there's just been a big uptick in
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litigation since 2000 over these kinds
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of problems
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professor Hasson we've also seen issues
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raised around college students how much
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of an obstacle do college students face
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around the country what's the problem
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potentially there well you know you're
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allowed to vote where you are basically
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domiciled where you expect that you're
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going to be living for the foreseeable
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future and so college students do have
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the right to register and vote in their
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college towns but sometimes that gets
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local resistance and sometimes it's
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misinformation so we saw reports last
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month of some of the Virginia County
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election officials giving wrong
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information such as saying that if a
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college student voted in a college town
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that the parents of this student
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wouldn't be able to claim that student
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is a dependent on income taxes there's a
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lot of misinformation out there about
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when college students can vote and where
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they can vote bottom line we're gonna
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hear more about that
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well you know I don't know that that
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one's going to be a big one on election
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day you know the the best thing in terms
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of election ministration is if the
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election just isn't closed because if we
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look really closely at things there are
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still problems in fact by some measures
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I think we're in worse shape than we
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were in 2000 so again I mean you're
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saying we should brace ourselves for
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Mora to hear much more about this
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between now and November 4th yeah I
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think so and I think also because the
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parties are you know playing this up
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you're hearing a lot from Republicans
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about voter fraud you're hearing a lot
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from Democrats about voter suppression
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you know until we move to a system where
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we have
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nonpartisan election officials and
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administer our federal elections on a
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national scale it's hard to see how we
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get out of this cycle where we see this
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flurry of litigation in the months
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coming up to Election Day
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Rick Casson from Loyola Law School in
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Los Angeles thanks very much thank you
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