MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For more on the security considerations for the midterms, we've called Lawrence Norden. He's vice president of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's Law School. Good morning. Thanks for joining us.
LAWRENCE NORDEN: Thanks, Michel.
MARTIN: So we've just heard a list of some of the ways President Trump has gotten involved in the midterms - Justice Department lawsuits, attempts to restrain mail-in voting, a voter-fraud bounty. How do you view these last-minute challenges?
NORDEN: Well, look. There's been, for the past year and a half, an attempt by this administration, by the president to interfere and undermine in the election. They have consistently lost. And I expect that they will continue to lose through Election Day in these efforts and that we will have free, fair and secure elections on Tuesday.
MARTIN: Do you feel, though, that there are enough legal and regulatory safeguards in place to respond to the administration's allegations of election fraud?
NORDEN: Legal, certainly. And, you know, our system is built on the state and local governments running our elections, and they're certainly ready. And look. The efforts by the administration have been telegraphed since pretty much the day that the president came into office. In fact, they were part of the campaign. They were part of Project 2025. It was clear what they were going to be doing. And so state and local governments - civil society have been ready.
MARTIN: So, you know, follow up on that if you would. You know, for years now, as we've just heard, the president has tried to sow doubt about the integrity of U.S. elections. What have election security experts like yourself learned from these efforts?
NORDEN: Look. I mean, what we've learned is, at the end of the day, state and local governments are running elections, that there is a concerted effort to undermine public faith in elections. And that is probably the most challenging part of this - is that you have a drumbeat coming from the administration and the president himself attempting to undermine people's confidence in the system. And that it is all of our jobs, including especially election officials, to reassure the public, to talk about the security measures that are in place, to talk about the fact that virtually every vote that is cast has a paper backup and that we audit them afterwards, that there's a bipartisan process in running our elections. And at the end of the day, it's the state and local officials that are responsible for ensuring the security of the system.
MARTIN: You know, this - you may consider this outside the scope of your expertise. But I'm wondering if you think that a decade of the president with such a large, you know, megaphone casting doubt on election integrity has had an effect on who votes, how they vote, things like that.
NORDEN: Look, there's no question that it is - it has had an impact on our - you look at polls - on our democracy. But there is less confidence in the system probably than there was a decade ago. On the other hand, again, if you look at the polls, the vast majority of Americans are confident going into this election. And if you look at the last several elections, actually, we've had, for the United States, fairly high turnout. So I think Americans still believe in our democratic system, and they're showing that by turning out. And again, early voting right now, we have record turnout compared to recent elections.
MARTIN: So, you know, the administration has largely dismantled the agency that essentially led the federal government's election security efforts. Has that had an effect on these elections?
NORDEN: I think we should start with just a couple of points for context on that. First, as I said, state and local governments are the ones that are responsible for running elections. And there is - has been a huge improvement in election security over the last decade. There's been a massive investment since 2016, and the Russians' attempts to interfere in our elections, on improving election security. And because the administration's plans for undermining elections were telegraphed so early, states in particular and civil society have stepped up to ensure security of our elections and fill the - some of the role that CISA used to play.
Having said that, I think there are two impacts from the loss of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the agency that really was the prime federal agency for assisting and helping election officials secure elections. The main one for the immediate term is that CISA was the agency that kind of saw everything that was happening all over the country. We have 10,000 election jurisdictions. They were in...
MARTIN: OK.
NORDEN: ...Contact with all those jurisdictions. They could kind of see at a high level if there was confusion, if there was misinformation, if there were problems on Election Day and communicate that out. So the public got clear information about what was happening. I worry if there's misinformation, confusion, an attack like the bomb threats that we had in 2024, that there will be less clear communications about that happening. And that's where misinformation can kind of thrive.
MARTIN: OK. We have to leave it there for now. A really rich topic, and thanks so much for sharing your expertise. That's Lawrence Norden. He's vice president of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center. Mr. Norden, thanks.
NORDEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
