Latest / Question Everything / A Republican Takes On Her Party Over Voter Data

Transcript

A Republican Takes On Her Party Over Voter Data · Question Everything

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: President Trump is trying to change the way elections are
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: held in the U.S. In February, he said they should
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: be run by the federal government instead of the states.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: If you think about it, a state is an agent
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: for the federal government in elections.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I can tell you why. The Constitution. Yeah, that old thing.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Which clearly says that it's the state's responsibility to oversee elections.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: not the federal governments. Trump's comments came after his administration
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: had already started a fight with state election officials over
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: personal voter data. Starting last year, the Department of Justice
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: wrote letters to officials in nearly every state demanding that
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: they send over the lists of every single registered voter
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: with unredacted personal information about each of them. The DOJ
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: said this was to make sure that non-citizens weren't showing
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: up on the voter rolls. Democratic state officials opposed this,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: saying the federal government has no right to this information.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: But lots of Republican state officials agreed with the Justice Department,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: said it was a good thing to do in the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: name of securing our elections. Such as South Dakota Secretary
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of State, Monet Johnson.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I'm supporting any effort to make our voter rolls clean.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: They have legal right to have that information that we
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: have in our systems.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And the Secretary of State from Nebraska, Bob Evnan. Over
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the last four-plus years prior to this administration, 10 or
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: 15 million people walked across the border of the United
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: States without the legal right to do so. This is
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: not true. That's the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants living
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: in the U.S. in total. It's not the number of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: people who walked across the border. You have to wonder,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: have any of those people wound up on voter registration?
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: But not every Republican sided with the Trump administration on this.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Some state officials on the right have said that the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: DOJ's request probably does break the law. And they're dead
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: set against giving all of their voters data to this administration.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: State officials such as the Republican lieutenant governor of Utah,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Deidre Henderson.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: I feel like it's just a bullying tactic, which is
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: a sign that they're getting desperate.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: The federal government hasn't ever tried to create a single
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: centralized voter list like this before. So the implications of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: it are unknown. But Lieutenant Governor Henderson felt this was
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: a bridge too far. So she took a risk and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: broke ranks with her own party to refuse the administration's
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: request for Utah's voter rolls. And as a result, the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: DOJ has now targeted her.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: With threats and intimidation, we're going to come after you
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: if you do anything wrong, and we're trying to do
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: everything right.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: For years, President Trump and other Republicans have claimed that
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: there is widespread voter fraud. It's not true. The evidence
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: shows that voter fraud is extremely rare and has no
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: meaningful impact on elections. But Trump, of course, has supercharged
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: this whole thing for a decade now by insisting, first,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: that he would have won the 2016 presidential race by
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: more votes if not for fraud, and then by lying
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that the election was flat out stolen from him in 2020.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Now his administration is using the lies about fraud to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: justify seizing these voter rolls. And it's worrying. What does
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: he want his administration to do with this personal information
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: about voters across the country? Just this week, we got
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a possible hint. On early Monday morning, the federal government
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: started conducting arrests in California using a list they compiled
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: of about 20,000 people that they claim are likely non-citizens
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: on the state's voter rolls.
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: We embedded with agents from the Department of Homeland Security
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: and the FBI. As they attempted to arrest people they
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: say have registered to vote, despite not being a citizen.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: The feds charged 28 people and have taken at least
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: 11 into custody so far. It's not clear if there's
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: any validity to the charges.
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: Critics of this have said, well, this is just an
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: attempt by the president of the United States to sow
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: doubt in the upcoming election if the president and his
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: political party don't like the result.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: This is playing out just days before we go to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the polls in this year's midterms. So today on the show,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: we're asking. How effective is the president at getting his
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: hands on our information as voters? We'll hear the story
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of what one Republican lieutenant governor is doing to protect
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the voting rights of people in her state from her
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: own party.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: My job is to enforce the law and administer something
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: that I think is sacred, which is a free and
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: fair election. We're not all just going to hand over
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: the keys to the kingdom.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: From KCRW and Placement Theory, this is Question Everything. I'm
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Brian Reed. We investigate how the truth gets buried, distorted,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and denied, and the ways people are fighting to make
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it matter again. Stick around. So with the midterms upon us,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: as some of you may already be voting early, our
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: producer Zach St. Louis spoke to Utah Lieutenant Governor Deidre
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Henderson about how her own party is pressuring her, even
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: threatening her, to turn over her state's unredacted voter lists.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Here's Zach. Deidre Henderson has a lot of titles. Lieutenant
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Governor of Utah. Mom of five.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Wife.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Lifelong Republican. And she's also her state's chief election official.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: I'm conservative, but I'm also very practical. I sometimes joke
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: I am too practical for politics.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Last summer, Henderson got the same letter that every state
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: got from the Justice Department, asking for what was initially
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: pretty standard stuff.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: And then there was a follow-up letter that said, we
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: want your entire state unredacted voter rolls.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And what information is that, unredacted voter rolls?
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Voter files have a lot of information about a person,
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: an individual, and most of it is public. And that
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: includes your name, and you tie it to your age range,
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: not your full birth date. It includes your vote history,
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: not obviously who you voted for, but which elections you
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: voted in, your political affiliation. But they didn't want that
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: public stuff. They wanted social security numbers, driver's license numbers,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: and full dates of birth. They wanted everything.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Henderson doubted this was legal and wrote a polite letter
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: back to the DOJ saying, sorry, I can't do what
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: you're asking. A few months later, the DOJ sued Henderson,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: along with every other state election official in the country
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: that refused to turn over their voter rolls. It was
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: 30 states plus Washington, D.C., The lawsuits are headed up
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: by the assistant attorney general of the DOJ's civil rights division,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Harmeet Dhillon.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Sometimes state officials say they're going to refuse to comply.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: So then you know that's the end of the conversation
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: and you draft your lawsuit and you go to court.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Dhillon is a longtime lawyer who was a legal advisor
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: on Trump's 2020 campaign and former co-chair of a group
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: called Lawyers for Trump, which backed the president's effort to
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: overturn the election results. She tweeted, stop this deal, shortly
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: after that election. And her firm was later brought in
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: to represent Trump and several of his allies during the
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: House January 6th committee hearings. In a Senate judiciary hearing
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: in July, she repeated what's become a familiar 2020 talking
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: point among Trump appointees.
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: Ms.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Dillon, who won the 2020 election for president? Senator, I
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: previously testified on this matter. President Biden was declared the
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: winner of that election, and I honor that and respect that. So,
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: but you can't say he won? I mean, he was
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: the president for four years. He clearly was the president.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Last September, Lieutenant Governor Henderson learned the lengths the DOJ
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: would go to get her constituents' information. She was sitting
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: in her monthly book club meeting when she got an
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: email that freaked her out.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: What it said was, as you know, you are under
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: investigation for possible federal election law violations. My heart skipped
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: a few beats and was really quite alarmed. It was like, no,
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: I had no idea that I was under investigation. Nothing
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: ever suggested that I had violated election law. Nobody ever
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: said that.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: The letter from the Justice Department said that Henderson could
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: be in violation of the Civil Rights Act if Utah
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: didn't follow specific instructions for maintaining her state's voter records.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And it threatened that she could personally be held criminally liable.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: if they found that Utah wasn't maintaining their records properly.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: The penalty for that could be fines or up to
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: a year in prison. Henderson knew the risky situation she
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: was in. She knew that Trump made these threats all
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: the time and had a penchant for following through on them,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: even when they didn't always hold up in court. She'd
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: seen the president attack former FBI director James Comey and
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: New York Attorney General Letitia James on social media before
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: the DOJ brought criminal cases against them. charges that could
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: have carried real prison time as well, if a judge
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: hadn't ultimately thrown them out. Plus, Henderson knew the precarious
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: history of voting rights, and specifically the history of women's
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: right to vote in Utah. I saw that she had
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: posted online about being a big fan of a musical
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: called Suffs. It's a Broadway show about the suffrage movement
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: in America that's been touring the country. So I asked
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: her about it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: When they came to Utah last year, I got to
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: meet the cast and I just, I loved it so much.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: Keep marching. I love that message.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: So, no surprise, she knows all about how the suffrage
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: movement played out in her home state.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: In fact, Utah women were the first women in the
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: nation to vote under an equal suffrage law. It was
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: 50 years before the 19th Amendment was passed, and they
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: voted for 17 years. And then Congress, they didn't like Utah.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: They didn't like how Utah women were voting, and they
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: passed a law making it illegal for Utah women to vote.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: And at the Utah Constitutional Convention in 1895, there was
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: this big debate over whether or not they should put
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: an Equal Rights Act into our state constitution. Some men said, no,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: it's too risky. Congress won't approve this. The men of
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: the state won't ratify this. And finally, another man got
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: up at the Constitutional Convention and said, If the price
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: of statehood is the disenfranchisement of half our population, then
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: the price is not worth the demand. So we risked
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: statehood itself in order to make sure that the women
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: of Utah had voting rights, equal political rights.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: When you dig into this history, you learn that while
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: this was a fight over women's suffrage, it was also
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: a fight over polygamy, which was legal in Utah at
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: the time. Congress was opposed to that. And the right
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: for women to vote became a bargaining chip in that fight.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: We haven't always had equal voting rights, men or women.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: We haven't always had fair elections. And we do have
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: that now to a large degree. We can always do better.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: But the proclivities of mankind are not to be just
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: and good and kind. It's to gain power however they can.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: So we have to be intentional about protecting women. the
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: rights that we have for everybody, not just people in
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: our own political parties.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: And Henderson knew how easy it was to get wrongly
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: bumped off voter rolls. She told me a story where
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: she herself had been purged from Utah's voter rolls just
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: a few years ago while she was the acting chief
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: election officer.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: During the 2022 primary election, everybody in my household got
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: their ballot in the mail but me. And after a week,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: I finally went to my staff and I'm like, hey,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: can you just like look up and see what I
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: didn't get a ballot? My county clerk had purged me
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: from the voter rolls and listed me as a non-citizen.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: Whoa.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Not maliciously. They were just being overly aggressive. I was
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: born in the Netherlands. My dad was in the Air
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: Force stationed at a NATO base there. And I'd been
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: registered to vote for decades. And they just took me off.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: She was able to get back on the voter rolls
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: pretty easily. But that experience, along with knowing all that history,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: made her resolved to protect Utah voters.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: The state of Utah has one chief election officer, and
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: that's me. And the direct supervisory authority of federal and
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: state elections is directly on my shoulders. There is nobody
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: else who bears that burden. And I take that very seriously.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: My job is to enforce the law and administer something
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: that I think is sacred, which is a free and
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: fair election. That's the foundation of democracy. If we can't
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: trust that, then we have a real problem on our hands.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: When Lieutenant Governor Henderson started getting these demands from the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Trump administration for the non-public voter info, she was concerned
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: about the federal government having all of the state's unredacted
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: voter rolls for a few reasons. One is that having
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: all Americans' information in one big list somewhere makes it
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: more vulnerable to foreign attacks and data leaks. And if
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: this one federal list got messed with before an election,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: it could seriously impact people's ability to vote. Another reason
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: is that according to lawyers Henderson spoke to, she might
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: be breaking state and federal privacy laws by handing over
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Utah's list. And then there's the Constitution, which clearly lays
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: out that states have the authority over running elections.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: The decentralized nature of our elections is a feature, not
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: a flaw. We have thousands of jurisdictions across the country
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: that run elections.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Locally.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: And so it would be very difficult to control an
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: outcome in a race when it's all decentralized like that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: But to centralize it all into one spot, like the
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: opportunities for shenanigans there, either foreign or domestic, would be huge.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: It's a very, very, very bad idea. It's the worst
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: thing we could do for our elections. It would be
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: less secure than having the states do it, just not
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: even thinking about the constitutionality or legality of it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: You said shenanigans?
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: What are you thinking about? What are the worst case
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: scenarios when you think about them?
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: You want to control the outcome of an election. You
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: don't have to control ballots. You just control who's allowed
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: to vote, right? Now, with all of this data that
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: the Department of Justice is asking, if you've got someone's
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: full birth date, their driver's license number, and the last
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: four digits of their social security number and their name
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: and address, you can go in and completely alter their
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: voter registrations. You can go in and change someone's political affiliation.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: You can unregister them. The opportunity for people with bad
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: intent is rife. And so before I just handed over
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: all of this really sensitive data, I wanted to make
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: sure that I was following the law. And that took
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: some research and some digging and some talking to lawyers
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: and talked to some other states because we were starting
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: to see that, like, All of the states were getting
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: this letter. Not everybody got it on the same day.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What were those conversations like?
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Almost everybody, including Republicans, were like really skeptical of this,
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: really concerned about it. You know, it's harder when it's
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: your own political party and administration of your own political
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: party asking for this data. And you may not have
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: the political support behind you to resist.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Ultimately, 18 states ended up giving their voter rolls to
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: the DOJ. all red states.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: There is a lot of fear of retribution, but I
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: feel like it's just kind of a bullying tactic, which
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: is a sign that they're getting desperate.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It was just this week, after I interviewed Lieutenant Governor Henderson,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: that the Trump administration started doing the arrests we mentioned
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: at the top of this episode, going after non-citizens on
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: a voter list they assembled for California. But Henderson told
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: me that the Trump administration has been doing things to
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: undermine free and fair elections since the president came back
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: into office. Like, the Federal Election Security Agency, known as CISA,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: put its election staff on leave and cut funding for
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: the program that shared cyber threat warnings with election officials.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: The FBI shut down its task force on foreign influence operations.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Henderson used to get regular intelligence briefings before elections. Not anymore.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: How are those things impacting what you do?
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Well, it makes it more difficult. And there is other
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: funding that they tried to withdraw too, state emergency FEMA
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: money for bomb squads and emergency management, things like that,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: that Homeland Security Secretary said would be withheld from states
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: who did not change some of their voting procedures. So
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: they're trying to get at us from every direction that
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: they possibly can. And it's just odd when from one
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: side of the mouth, they're saying, we care about elections.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: And from the other side, they're making it harder for
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: elections to be secure. We don't get those intelligence briefings anymore.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: What kind of information was in those intelligence briefings?
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: It's things like foreign malign influence, right? And in ways that,
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: you know, Russia and China and Iran are trying to
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: influence elections in the states.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: There are several recent examples. In 2016, the Russian military
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: intelligence hacked the Illinois State Election Board's website containing information
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: on registered voters. In 2020, Iranian hackers posing as the
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Proud Boys emailed Democratic voters in multiple states, threatening them
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: if they didn't vote for Trump. And in 2024, federal
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: agencies warned that Russians were behind a fake video of
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: someone ripping up ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania that were
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: cast for Trump.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: We just don't get any of that information anymore. And
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: not just has that support been withdrawn, Now we're just
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: constantly being bombarded by the federal government with threats and
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: intimidation and lawsuits and just constant barrage.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Taking all of this together, right? So you're saying the
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: intimidation you're getting from the federal level, you're not getting
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: as much information in the form of intelligence briefings. And
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: then on top of that, they're asking you for all
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: of your voter data to come to them, not just you,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: but all of these states. Do you see all of
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: this as an effort to, you know, take the running
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: of elections away from the states?
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. Well, look at the USPS rule.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: The USPS rule comes from an executive order President Trump
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: signed in March. He ordered states to send their vote
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: by mail lists to the U.S. Postal Service 60 days
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: before an election. then the USPS would be required to
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: check that state's list against a list of citizens from
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Homeland Security. The order would make it illegal for the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Postal Service to mail ballots to any voters who were
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: not on that list. The problem is.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: There is no database of U.S. citizens anywhere. It just
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: doesn't exist, and that's part of why all of these
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: efforts are quite futile.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: The Postal Service fought the rule, saying that they could
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: track the ballots, but argued that checking for citizenship was
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: not their responsibility.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: The level of bureaucracy and interference, needless interference, now designating
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: the Postal Service as the arbiter of who is or
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: isn't eligible to vote is just asinine. That USPS rule
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: was just one more effort to take control of vote
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: by mail, right?
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: There was a legal battle that played out over this rule.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: In mid-September, the Supreme Court weighed in and said the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: rule can't go into place for the 2026 election. But.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: the litigation around it will be ongoing.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: It's terrible policy. It's shockingly bad. And to see who
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: was in favor of that was interesting. I mean, people
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: who supposedly love federalism and limited government and the Constitution,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: and they just were totally fine with that.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: It's hard to surmise any motivation other than a nefarious one, frankly.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: More on that after the break. Talking to Lieutenant Governor
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Henderson about what's driving these efforts in her party to
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: drastically change the rules around voting, I could hear the
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: delicate dance she's doing, trying to name what she sees
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: and say what she thinks is bad while still being
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: a Republican leader in a Republican state. the place where
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: she needs to retain support to be elected. Some Republican
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: officials have backed her up. Utah Governor Spencer Cox tweeted
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: that it was wrong for the DOJ to threaten her
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: for doing her job. But she is catching heat from
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: some others. The leadership of the Utah Republican Party has
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: issued a statement expressing their disapproval over her pushback against
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration. And Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee has
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: criticized her as well, tweeting that she isn't taking election
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: security seriously. So I'd noticed that she'd say something to me,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: about Republicans who support all the Trump administrations meddling with
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: the voting rules, like this.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: It's hard to surmise any motivation other than a nefarious one, frankly.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: And then she'd quickly back up a couple steps, tone
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: down her language.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: Now, I'm not suggesting that that's the main intent of
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: all these desire for these policy changes, but whether they're
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: good intentions or not, it's a bad idea and bad
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: things can happen because of it, really bad things.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: It kind of sounds like you're saying the administration could
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: be trying to control aspects of these elections in order
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: to control who is voting.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: Well, I look, I can't pretend to know what their
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: motivations are. And it may not even be the administration.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: It could be other people whispering in their ears who,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: you know, it's just who knows. I don't know why
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: else you would want to do this.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: But they're the ones that ultimately have the power and
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: are making the decisions and making the orders. Yes.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: And they're failing miserably at it, I would like to
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: point out.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Thankfully. So far, 26 courts have agreed with my take
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: on it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: 26 of the Justice Department's 31 lawsuits against the states
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: and D.C. who didn't turn over their voter rolls were dropped.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: One state settled, Oklahoma. The others haven't been reviewed by
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: a judge yet. Utah is one of those remaining cases.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: But Henderson is confident that just like the 26 cases
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that came before, her lawsuit will also get thrown out.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: All of this correspondence you've had with the DOJ, you've
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: made it all extremely public. It's all available on your website,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the letters you've received from them, the letters you've sent back.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: You're talking to me about this. You've done other interviews.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Why do you want this fight you're having with the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: DOJ to be had in public?
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm not trying to fight with anybody here. I
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: am trying to stand up for the rule of law
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: and for truth. And sometimes silence covers up bad behavior
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: and enables. And I don't think that's healthy and good.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: What makes it difficult is when other elected officials who
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: know better start to spread the lie.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Who are you thinking about?
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: Just.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: Any political leader, I'm not going to name names.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Henderson won't name names, but I will. There are too
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: many to choose from, unfortunately. People who've spread the lie
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: that the 2020 election was fraudulent. State officials like West
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey, or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, or
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, or the numerous other Trump
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: appointees who have sat in their Senate confirmation hearings and
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: refused to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. like
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: FBI Director Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton. And of course, there's
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: President Trump himself. Henderson will call out the lie, but
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: she stops short of saying the names of the people
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: in power who are spreading it.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: I don't say everything I want to say. I don't
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: say everything in the way I want to say it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Well, if you'd like to hear, please.
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: But I do think it's important for people to see,
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: especially when it's your own party, there are Republicans who
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: want to see someone in their party standing up for
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: what's right. I want the Democratic Party to see that
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: not all Republicans are willing to just go along with
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: things that aren't right. And I think that's important to
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: help just give the public confidence that the systems are holding.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: which is one of the reasons why I've been so vocal,
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: because I'm trying to counter the chaos with calm. I
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: just want to make sure that people know that we're
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: not all just going to hand over the keys to
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: the kingdom. Doing the right thing isn't always rewarded politically.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: In fact, it's often not. And you have to be.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Okay with that.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: You have to be okay with that.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: And you're okay with that?
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Of course I'm okay with that. A good grief. I
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: don't want to do these jobs badly enough to sell
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: my soul or my country for the chance to do that. Like,
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: absolutely not.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: While Henderson is not cooperating with the Justice Department's demands,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: her office did do their own audit of Utah's voter rolls.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: This was last April.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: There were just so many, so many accusations flying around
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: out there, even in our own state, of there's just
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: so many non-citizens on the voter rolls. And so I thought,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: you know what, let's let's take a look and see.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: So we did a full review of all 2.1 million
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: registered voters on our voter list. And we found a
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: handful of non-citizens and a handful of those had actually voted.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: When you say.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: A handful, is it, are we talking hundreds? No.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: At the time, we found 27 confirmed non-citizens on our
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: voter rolls and then 25 probable non-citizens And of those,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: I think 11 had actually voted. We have now found
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: 52 that have voted in elections in a 15-year period
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: of time. You don't want any ineligible voters to vote.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: That's ideal. But you also don't want to enact large
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: solutions for tiny problems and then make it hard for
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: eligible people to vote. I think that impact would be
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: much worse to enact some of these kind of draconian
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: measures or overreact in a way that prevents eligible voters
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: from voting.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Henderson wants the voters in her state to believe that
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: their elections are secure. That's why she did that voter review.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Her office has also invited voters to contact their county
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: clerks to go watch how ballots get counted. Her team
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: created a website where Utah voters can track their mail-in ballots.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And she has said repeatedly that mistrust in elections is
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: a misinformation problem, not a security one. She once said, quote,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Fear sells. Facts are boring.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: What's been the biggest challenge for me is policy things
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: just don't even matter really anymore. But the one thing
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: that matters, that if you are not an election denier,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: then you are like spurned from the party. Election denialism
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: has become the holy scripture of the Republican Party, and
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: it's despicable. I would love to recognize my party again.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: I don't recognize it right now. I just don't know
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: what's next. I mean, they've seized ballots from previous elections
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: in some states. They've seized voting equipment. They, you know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: we're having to kind of train our county clerks and
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: election workers on what to do if a federal agent
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: shows up with a subpoena or a warrant, you know,
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: and These are things that we never had to think
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: about before. And now we have to think about all
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: of the other normal threats and problems that can happen
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: with elections, but that we're just adding this to it
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: and know that our main partner previously was the federal government.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: And now we can't really rely on them or trust them.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Just two days after I spoke with Henderson on October 9th,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: A federal judge ruled on a lawsuit about the Justice
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Department's use of the state voter rules. An organization called
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Common Cause brought the suit. They're a nonprofit that focuses
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: on voting issues. They wanted the DOJ's actions to be
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: deemed unconstitutional, and they wanted the court to force the
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: DOJ to delete the voter rules that states had already
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: turned over. The judge mostly ruled in their favor. saying
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: that the DOJ's efforts to keep these voter lists, use
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: them to find non-citizens and push states to remove those
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: people from the rolls, is illegal. The DOJ is likely
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: to appeal the federal judge's decision, but won't be able
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: to before the midterms. And now it will be illegal
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: for them to use the voter data they've already collected.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: But the judge stops short of requiring the Justice Department
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: to delete that data. So for the 18 states that
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: have already turned over their voter rolls, the administration has
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the lists, as people are already voting early. It's just
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: not clear what Trump's agencies will do with them.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Zach St. Louis is a producer on our show. Hey, y'all,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: we won gold in six Signal Award categories, and we
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: won two Listener's Choice Awards, as decided by you, for
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: best writing for our episode about the talented Miss Goldie,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: which we will link to in the show notes. Go
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: check that one out. And best host. It's for our
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: episode about Taylor Little, who's suing Meta for stealing their childhood.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: It was one of the most arresting interviews I've done
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: in the last year. We'll link to that one, too.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you all for supporting us. We really, really appreciate
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: your support. acknowledging the work we're doing and that it's resonating.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: We really thank you. Please rate and review Question Everything highly, highly,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: highly on your podcast app of choice. Ping me on
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Signal if you have a tip or a lead for
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: a story or like a recipe you want to share. Brihreed. 45,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that's B-R-I-H-R-E-E-D.45 on Signal. Our Substack, questioneverything.substack.com. Our Instagram account,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: follow us at questioneverything.podcast. Today's show was produced by Zach St.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Louis and edited by our executive editor, Kevin Sullivan. Our
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: team also includes producers Sam Egan and Tracy Hunt, contributing
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: editors Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney, associate producer Kevin Shepard,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and contributing producer Sean Cole. This episode was fact-checked by
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Annika Robbins and Marisa Robertson-Texter, mixing and sound design by
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Brendan Baker. Our music is by Matt McGinley. Evie Kwong
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: runs our social media. Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Tejla Jamera, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. We will see
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: you next week.