Protecting The Integrity of Our Elections – With John Fund: Should the nation be engaging in a learn-as-you-go voting experience during the most critical election of our history? Why can people go to liquor stores but not voting booths? Did COVID provide the perfect cover for people who’ve wanted to shape our elections? What happened in the states who tried mail-in voting (not absentee voting) earlier this year? How could we send a message to curb voter fraud? Tune in to hear this important conversation with John Fund on protecting the integrity of our elections.

Air Date: 10/22/2020

Guest: John Fund

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

Listen:

Download: Click Here

Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

This is the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy and faith, the culture, the election, all of those things from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective.

My name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I’m here with David Barton, America’s premier historian, and our founder of WallBuilders. Tim Barton is with us, he’s a national speaker, and pastor and president of WallBuilders. 

And you can find out more about all three of us at wallbuilderslive.com. That’s our radio site. Wallbuilderslive.com. If you’re a first time listener, that name WallBuilders comes out of the scripture in Nehemiah that says, “Arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach.” Back then, without those outer walls, your nation was destroyed, you were run over; today, it’s all about the foundations, it’s about the principles.

And so WallBuilders was organized 30 years ago to help rebuild the principles of America, to bring back the founding documents and the founding principles that made America the greatest nation in history. WallBuilders Live is an opportunity to bring interviews to you, to do our Good News Friday programs, Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs, it’s all available at our website, wallbuilderslive.com.

You can dig into the archives there if you’d like to listen to some of the older programs, or even just some of the ones from the last few weeks, and that’s also the place you can make a contribution. When you make that donation, you are investing in freedom, you’re giving us the chance to bring truth to the culture, to equip and inspire and empower your fellow citizens to make a difference in restoring America’s constitutional republic.

John Fund from National Review

Alright, David, Tim, John Fund will be with us a little later in the program over at National Review, used to be at Wall Street Journal. We’ve had him on the program a few times. He’s actually spoken at the legislative conference before. But he’s been writing a lot about this topic, and of course, everybody’s seen it everywhere. The President’s talking a lot about election integrity, and whether or not with all the mail in ballots, all the changing of the voting dates, a lot of stuff going on across the country to change things at the last minute on how we’re going to vote in this very important election.

David:

Well, I’ve been really surprised at the fact that the voter integrity issue or what we call voter integrity has really been kind of a one party issue. And you wouldn’t think it should be, you would think that both sides want a fair vote, both sides want a fair count. And so all the measures to ensure ballot security and all the things that we’re seeing of all the problems with the postal service with mail-in ballots for states that have never done it before, I mean, it’s only the Republicans that are complaining about how bad this is and the other side doesn’t seem to be doing that.

Tim:

Well, and to be fair, right, I think the democrats would say no, no, we care about election integrity as well. And what they would argue is that we want to make sure that nobody’s disenfranchised that everybody has the opportunity to vote. And to be honest, we’re not against people when we talk about mail-in voting, we’re not against people being able to vote by mail, but there’s a thing called an absentee ballot.

Now, you can vote by mail, it’s just a different system. And there are very few States who have successfully done any kind of mail-in voting system. And what we’re seeing now is that States who have never tried a mail-in voting system are using a mail-in voting system for the very first time, it’s being widespread. And you’re already seeing incredible problems with states who have just now adopted something they’ve never tried, they’ve never practiced. And when it comes down to…

Inconsistencies During A Critical Election

Rick:

Wait, Tim, are you suggesting this is not a learn as you go subject here that we should be…?

Tim:

When half the nation is doing something for the first time at one of the most arguably critical elections in the nation’s history, it does seem then to give cause why people might be a little skeptical that we’re implementing this for the first time right now when people are fine for the most part going and picking up groceries, when they’re fine for the most part for people they’re going to get in their alcohol, and like we’re keeping pot dispensary shops open, and so many things that have been labeled essential services.

And yet we’re saying voting is not something we can do in person, we’re doing everything else in person. It seems a little inconsistent with what we are doing, and especially that we’re doing something that has not been tried or tested in the States seems like there’s a lot of opportunity for a lot of things to go wrong.

David:

And when you add to that, you look back into March, April and May, where there are a lot of elections, even in June, where you had elections in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and you had elections in New York City, etc, you were seeing the voting ballot was being done really for the first time in those areas. And about 20% of the ballots were being disqualified.

Now, if you want to stop disenfranchisement, you just can’t do a system where you’re thrown out about 20%. At some that’s because people have never done mail-in balloting before and they don’t know how to do all the signature stuff and how to verify and how to whatever.

Multiple Ballots

And so they’re being rejected as they should be because they’re not ballot exactly the way they should be. But that’s disenfranchising a lot. But at the same time, you’re seeing mail-in balloting where there’s not that kind of diligence. And so you’re finding people that have had multiple ballots, and then other states have ballot harvesting.

So you’ve seen already this year for several months, that this has not been a good system and now we’re looking at essentially half the nation doing this and at a time right before election. I just saw just in the last few days, Pennsylvania, this is new for them, and they are now rejecting almost 20% of the ballots that have come in. And this is not a good deal to be rejected 20% in a critical election where the some of that is just honest mistakes.

Rick:

I heard a rumor that the Secretary of State’s for most of these States were caught at a Home Depot getting their, you know, do it yourself manual and no, not really, it wasn’t that bad, but it feels like it’s almost that bad, that they’re literally learning this as they’re trying to figure it out on this very, very important election eve of this very important election. So it’s a serious, serious subject. We joke a little bit, but this has huge, has implications for decades to come.

So we’ll get a little bit of expert opinion here from John fund. He’s been researching this around the nation and watching a lot of these attempts to do this for the first time and some of these States that did this earlier this year in the summer, and give us an update on which dates are continuing to try to do this going into the final weeks of the election. Stay with us folks, John Fund with us here on WallBuilders Live.

A Moment from American History

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Too often today history education excludes great black heroes from the American founding such as Lemuel Haynes. Haynes, abandoned as a baby, pioneered churches across upper New England. He became the first black American to pastor a white congregation to receive an honorary master’s degree and to be ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination, the Congregationalists.

He was a soldier during the American Revolution and in his churches on George Washington’s Birthday, he regularly preached sermons, honoring George Washington. Even late in his life, he expressed his willingness to go back to battle if necessary to protect America, which he called a “Sacred Ark.” American history is filled with numerous examples of black heroes who are largely ignored by mainstream education today. For more information about pastor Lemuel Haynes and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us, folks. Good to have John Fund back with us. Always a pleasure to have you, sir, books and read your articles over at National Review. Thanks for taking some time to join us.

John:

Thank you, pleasure, Rick.

Rick:

Hey, you have been making the clarion call from the rooftops since the spring that we have a recipe as you said in one of your articles for confusion, coercion and fraud with these mail-in ballots. Well, here we are just right up next to the election. What’s your assessment at this point?

Using COVID as a Cover

John:

Well, COVID provided the perfect cover for people who have wanted to transform our election systems overnight, turned them upside down and shake them. 20 States have moved to basically almost all mail voting. And the problem with that is, if you did it in a measured slow, deliberate pace, there’s a lot fewer problems. As it is right now, you’re asking election administrators, many of whom shall we say, you know, you could time them with your calendar in terms of how quickly they move to implement new procedures.

We’ve got a potential where you won’t be able to tell where the incompetence ends in our election and the fraud begins. Give you an example. Pennsylvania, which is the key swing State, Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided without any justification in the Constitution, to say we’ll accept ballots in Pennsylvania three days after the election Friday, late Friday. And they don’t even need a postmark.

They don’t even need a postmark. So you can imagine that engraved invitation to voter fraud. Tuesday night, you find out how many votes you need to win your race, and Wednesday, you can, shall we say encourage some people to send in ballot, and they’re going to put you over the top.

Rick:

Lyndon Johnson would have loved this.

John:

Ballot box 13, you’re very well educated.

Rick:

Oh, John, you’re right. It is a recipe for disaster. Now you said something that’s a good distinction, though. And that is it’s this rush to do this when the States aren’t prepared and haven’t done it, because the other side keeps saying Utah, Utah, Utah, Utah does this vote by mail thing and that’s no problem.

Not a Learn-as-You-Go Time

John:

Well, if you talk to the Secretary of State in Washington, they will tell you it took them several election cycles to sort of ease into this. They did it in stages. They did it quickly and quietly, but with over a period of 10 years. Now you’re asking people to do topsy-turvy in the space of a few weeks.

Rick:

At a time when we are seeing that truth just really doesn’t matter to a lot of folks in America right now if they’re willing to ignore science and ignore all these other things. And I just don’t have any faith that they’re just going to do the right thing, right? I mean, we can’t have faith in our elections if we don’t have faith in the people that are handling this election or in the process itself. So what’s the solution at this point in your opinion?

John:

Well, luckily, there have been a lot of cases that have turned back the worst changes. Michigan will no longer accept ballots 14 days after the election. The Pennsylvania case I just mentioned is up before the Supreme Court.

Rick:

Michigan was going to do 14 days after the election?

John:

Yes. Yes.

Rick:

Wow! I’m sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead.

Somebody’s Planning Something

John:

No, no, it’s clearly, when you’re getting to that point, it’s not an accident, somebody’s planning something, and you can’t just pretend that it’s their, shall we say, alternative vision of good government.

Rick:

Yeah. Right. Right.

John:

So the bottom line is this, Rick, voter fraud is a lot like shoplifting. If you talk to anyone in retail sales, they’ll tell you, you do three things. Put up a camera even if no one’s watching it, have a security guard even if he’s half asleep, and have a sign that says shoplifters will be prosecuted even if you don’t ever prosecute one. If you do those things, there are a lot of people in our society that will do something if they think there’s absolutely zero risk of getting caught.

But they won’t do it if there’s even a small risk that they might get caught. So what the retail stores will tell you is you take just a few precautions against shoplifting, you cut shoplifting 35-40%. And that’s what I think we need to do, especially through the US Attorneys, the federal prosecutors, all of which were appointed by Donald Trump, we can send a message this year, this time, we’re going to take it seriously if somebody plays shenanigans.

Rick:

Yeah, I think, you know, it’s kind of that whole thing. I mean, if they would just start prosecuting some of the ones they’ve already caught. I mean, they’ve caught some guys red handed in Houston associated with the Biden camp…

Lots of Money Slopping Around

John:

Well, if you go to Heritage Foundation’s website, just look under their tab ‘Election Integrity’, you will find a database of almost 1400 people who have not just been arrested or indicted for voter fraud, they’ve been convicted of it. So whether it’s in Dallas for mailboxes, whether it’s going door to door, and valid harvesting, whether it’s entering Alzheimer patients’ homes, and shall we say improperly convincing people out to vote, this can happen in any State where that people think the race is going to be close.

There’s a lot of money and boys, their money slopping around this election. And where they think the news media, of course, you know, is completely oblivious, because if watch the news media, there is no voter fraud, despite the fact that we keep seeing people getting caught over it.

Rick:

Right. And was it Wisconsin where they did this and it was a disaster in June or July?

John:

Well, New York was the worst one. That was in June. It took six weeks to count votes for two congressional primaries in New York City. And in Brooklyn, for example, 25% of the absentee ballots, which is a form of mail-in voting, were rejected. You know, people who aren’t used to mail-in voting will make mistakes the first time. So basically, I think the Democrats are being very cruel here. They’re telling voters go vote by mail, but many of their ballots will be disenfranchised, because they didn’t dot the i’s, they didn’t cross the T’s.

Different than Absentee Ballots

Rick:

Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. And this is not to say, I don’t think either of us are against military folks being able to vote from overseas, again, a system that we’ve had for decades and has been ironed out to work well,

John:

Well, look, obviously, you know, habits have changed. Clearly, people want more convenience. I just think that we should have some rules of the road. Let’s have people vote early, more than voting by mail, so at least the election is conducted under the supervision of some election officials. So you’re not just putting into the mailbox where the US post office is going to be, you know, subject to its vagaries or…

Rick:

US post office, was that a fraud [inaudible 13:58] did you plan that? That’s good.

John:

Well, let’s just put it this way, Rick. The post office doesn’t deliver every piece of mail. If you had a lottery ticket, if you wanted to redeem it, would you send it in the mail?

Rick:

No, no, no, thinking.

Voter Fraud

John:

Well, Social Security Administration in 2013 stopped sending Social Security checks to the mail, because so many were getting lost. I think you’re playing Russian roulette. In some places, not everywhere, but in some places, you’re playing Russian roulette with a very dysfunctional local Postal Service.

Rick:

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Okay, last question for you, John. And I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. And when it comes to mail-in voting, do they have some sort of marker on your ballot so they know that that’s used so that they know they don’t get two from you, or they somehow check you off when it comes in?

John:

There is a barcode similar to what you’d have on groceries at the store. And they do a pretty good job of catching that. So a former fraud that doesn’t usually happen is where people send in an absentee ballot and they try to show up and vote in person. But still, you can have all kinds of things go wrong. You can have people manipulating, intimidating, coercing people. If a ballot is outside the purview of election officials, it’s not safe, and by the way, it’s not secret.

Rick:

Yeah. So it’s not so much that a person is going to get to vote multiple times with their own name. The dangers are that number one, that they go out and do this harvesting thing where they go manipulate the votes from people that may have not voted in the first place, or didn’t know…

Ballot Harvesting

John:

And they have no relation to them, and they’re paid political operatives. You got invitation to trouble you. You’re paying people to go harvest votes, and the mischief that can happen in that is just immense.

Rick:

And then the second one would be just the destruction of balance that are for the other team, right, that they could actually get rid of, or prevent your ballot from actually getting to the place that it’s actually counted.

John:

Well, people who ballad harvest, I suspect that they think they might be able to steam open the ballot, maybe see if what’s the right way and if it doesn’t vote the right way, maybe they’ll just forget about it.

Rick:

Yeah, it’s just ripe for fraud. Well, a lot of great information on this at nationalreview.com; go read John Fund. John, appreciate your time today, man. Thanks for coming back on.

John:

Thank you, Rick.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Biographical Sketches

Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes for parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman. Friends, the list goes on and on.

This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks to John Fund for joining us today, back with David and Tim. Guys, obviously, I mean, it is he said the exact same thing you all did. And that is, you know, if you’ve been doing this forever, and you got to figure it out, like some of these States like Utah and others that have been doing it, that’s one thing. But for the States that are just now trying to figure out, this is a very dangerous thing. And David, you mentioned it earlier, I mean, this is what will disenfranchise people because people that are trying to vote might not get their vote counted as a result.

David:

Yeah. And as he pointed out, there’s 20 States now doing all mail voting, the selection, and it had been down in single digits before this. And so we’re looking at doubling, tripling the number of states that are doing this and that means that two-thirds of them are doing it for the first time, which this is not a good time to be experimenting with how well this works. But it even goes with so many things that we’ve looked at.

Lethal for the Nation?

Tim:

And I must point out too that he points out this is the experiment that COVID is the cover up for this experiment, right? Because if we’re looking at the COVID numbers, and we have been fairly upfront on this program about some of our thoughts with some of this Coronavirus stuff, especially when you look at the computer modeling that originally came out and was so flawed, was estimating millions of people were going to be dead this year and by the summer and all these crazy things.

And what we’re seeing now is that in terms of lethality for the nation, this is not one of the more lethal things we deal with on a common basis in the nation. And yet we are pretending like we can’t do anything in any kind of normal fashion and culture because of Coronavirus.

And not to diminish this, obviously, there’s people listening who’ve probably lost family members and things have happened, and we’re not trying to belittle those moments. It’s very tough that people have had to deal with something like this, but recognizing that this is a respiratory virus, that it impacts people who are number one elderly, and number two who have levels of pre-existing conditions that make them more vulnerable to something like this.

But the vast majority of Americans can show up and vote in person. But as John pointed out, that COVID is kind of just the excuse for a lot of this new implementation of stuff that people kind of wanted to do already. And it certainly does seem to set things up where there could be a lot more voter fraud than we’ve ever seen before.

David:

And so many of those who are pushing this widespread voting have been people who have supported universal voting. I mean, they want illegal immigrants to be able to vote. They don’t want voter IDs. They just want everybody to vote. Well, yeah, you should vote if you have a vested interest in this and if you’re a citizen and if it’s going to be your tax dollars doing things. But we’re just throwing it open where that we’re not even sure who’s voting anymore.

If You Are 18 or Older, You Should

Tim:

Well, and yeah to be to be more specific, it’s not just if you have a vested interest in this. It’s no, if you are 18 years or older, if you are a legal US citizen, then you have a vested interest in this and you should register to vote and you should vote in every election that you are eligible to vote in.

So it’s not to say that this is what some people shouldn’t, some people shouldn’t, no, no, if you’re 18 or older, If you’re a legal US citizen, you should register to vote and you should vote. That’s everybody that this pertains to, and that will impact. With that being said, obviously, not everybody in America is 18 years and older and not everybody’s a legal citizen, not everybody is registered to vote.

So there are some people in that situation that are not eligible. And yet, many of them are receiving ballots that is allowing them the opportunity to vote in something that they don’t have the legal authority or the constitutional right to vote in. And this is where there should be a very big distinction. And this is where just one of the many areas where you could see potential problems for voter fraud.

Rick:

Quick, right, guys, we’ll be right back. We’re talking about the mail-in ballots and the other attempts to skew the election, we think with fraud. I mean, the some of the other sides have already been caught doing this. And it’s just a bad idea to make it so easy to cheat. Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live.

This Precarious Moment

Hi, this is David Barton. I want to let you know about a brand new book we have out called This Precarious Moment: Six Urgent Steps that Will Save You, Your Family, and Our Country” Jim Garlow and I have coauthored this book, and we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now, issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration, and race relations and our relationship with Israel and the rising generation Millennials in the absence of the church and the culture wars, and where American heritage is, our godly heritage.

We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack and we give you both biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference. These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So you can grab the book, This Precarious Moment and find out what you can do to make a difference. This Precarious Moment is available at wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us, final segment of the day. And so David, Tim, what can people at home do about this? Do they just make sure they go vote in person? Is that the best thing to do?

David:

Yeah, go vote in-person, definitely go vote in-person. Do what we’ve seen for the last three weeks. If you see bags of mail laying around, if you see ballots in the trash, report it to the police. We’ve already seen a number of postal arrests on this. And by the way, I thought his comment about the US post office was great. I mean, he’s exactly right. That is not the safe place.

Tim:

I thought it was great to that he pointed out that some counties are better and worse than others. Because one of the things we know, we talked about the public school system sometimes and how broken it is and it is, but there’s great people that work in the public school system.

Not Reliable Enough for Social Security Checks

There’s great people that work in the post office, even though generally speaking, I’m using UPS more than the post office because there are just levels of incompetence in the post office because it’s a government run institution, and there’s union protection for people who are grossly incompetent what they do. And we’ve seen this in some cases, where people are discarding mail, and they’re throwing it away. And this is a problem.

As John Fund out, the US government stopped sending Social Security checks through the post office in 2013 because they recognize this was not a reliable system. And again, this is not to discount the fact there’s some very reliable counties, some very great individuals who work for the post office, but generally speaking, the post office no, not the most reliable system.

And so we’re saying something that we wouldn’t send a lotto ticket through, we wouldn’t send cash through, government doesn’t send Social Security checks through, and yet somehow we’re going to say this is who we are entrusting the election of the president of the free world to? That doesn’t make very much sense.

And I thought, John Fund pointed out really brilliantly too. One of the problems with some of the system that’s happening right now is you don’t know, at the end of the day, if some of what happened was due to incompetence or corruption. Right? And this is again, one of the reasons that some of this is so bad too. Dad as you’re mentioning the solutions you vote in-person, if you get a mail-in ballots, and you live in a state where you can vote in person, or you can at least deliver that in-person, go delivered in person.

If you are in a State that you can vote in person and you don’t need the mail-in ballot, destroy that mail-in ballot so that it can’t find its way into somebody else’s hands that could do something corrupt. You can sign up to be a poll watcher, you can be there when people are actually voting and you can try to protect the integrity of the election by making sure you’re seeing there’s not people cheating. There’s ways we can do to get involved. And certainly, you can contact your local county officials to find out more of what you can do to get involved in your area.

Protecting The Integrity of Our Elections – With John Fund

Rick:

Well, friends, every single one of us can make a difference in this election. Everyone has a role to play. It’s not just voting. It’s making sure that your vote counts, showing up to vote-in person if at all possible, but it’s also sharing with others information that will allow them to cast an informed vote, encouraging them to know that their vote really does count, it really does matter.

And I haven’t told the story on here on the program very often, it’s been a long time, but I lost my first election for the legislature by 20 votes out of 30,000. Now, that’s a close election. I ended up having a recount, and I won by 36 votes, from 20 votes down to 36 votes up. Friends, every vote counts. Don’t forget the President of the United States in the year 2000 was determined by 537 votes in Florida. 537 votes determined President of the United States.

We don’t know how closest election is going to be, it could be a total landslide. That’s what I hope happens. I hope there’s a massive wave and that the American people wake up and that we’re no longer the silent majority, but the vocal majority. But you know, it could be close and we don’t know, your vote counts. Every Christian has a duty to vote.

These are freedoms that God has given us. And the question is kind of like a talent and the parable of the talents. Are we one of those servants that work the talent, used it, multiplied it and was faithful with the talent? Or are we burying this talent of freedom, the freedom to choose our leaders? Are we burying that talent and thereby being the wicked and slothful servant?

It’s up to us, each and every one of us, what are you going to do? Make a difference, be a part of the solution. Use this freedom that God gave you. Get out there and be a part of the solution and saving America’s constitutional republic. I hope you’ve enjoyed our program today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.