Ballots Seized in Georgia? Voting Chaos in Dallas? Here's What to Make Of It.

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:40 Thomas: And welcomed Opening Arguments. This is 1244. I'm Thomas, that over there is Jenessa. How you doing? That

0:00:44 Jenessa: I'm doing all right. Uh. Hanging in there. I went to a really cool conference on neuroscience and the law. So learned a whole bunch of stuff. Stuff

0:00:53 Thomas: Said that, and I was like, wait, is that just you? Like, just something like your mom made a conference and was like, here, honey, here's a, I made a conference for the one person that has these two, like, expertises. No, that's really cool.

0:01:06 Jenessa: I didn't fully suss it out. I might have been the only, I don't think it was the only neuroscientist and lawyer in the room, but I think it was mostly lawyers and some neuroscientists and maybe one or two of, uh, both of us combo people.

0:01:26 Thomas: It seems so niche, but also it's exactly the kind of thing that we talk about here. And it's great. Get any cool ideas or topics for later?

0:01:27 Jenessa: Yeah. Yeah, oh Yeah, there was, well, so they had a lot of formerly incarcerated people talk, which was really cool. Some of whom themselves have degrees now in mental health and psychology, which is great. Some really cool neuroscience on, like, brain development. And a lot of this was focused on law. So, you know, hey, kids, they make bad decisions biologically. So probably be adjusting how we handle a lot of the, uh, criminal justice system, especially 18 is just such an arbitrary line that we draw on, like, oh, you're an adult now, and it's like, that is not how your brain works, not even close. So already knew that generally, but, like, getting, uh, lot of really cool research that is targeted at that question, um, and, and hearing how lawyers are trying to apply this to specific cases and get something done. Yeah, fascinating. So I put some stuff in the document full of running ideas.

0:02:37 Thomas: Nice. Well, that's fun. But what are we going to be talking about today?

0:02:41 Jenessa: Like that at all. Today I got another kind of election roundup for you. Ongoing outline grew once again. Um, wanted to talk about the FBI seizing records in Georgia to try to get voter rolls. That's going on in, I think, 29 states right now. Just list grows and shrinks over time. And, uh, if we got time, we'll talk a little bit about Dallas, oh the primaries.

0:02:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:03:11 Thomas: Show or no, what's going on? What's oh, the primaries. Oh God. Yeah, that's right. That's right, I am curious about.

0:03:16 Jenessa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was some chaos over there. That one's a little messy. Yeah.

0:03:21 Thomas: Yeah. Very interesting election in Tal Rico, and, uh, it I was worried when I first saw Jasmine Crockett's statement. I was like, oh no, are we doing, like, election denialism over the, over primary? But it didn't seem like it was ultimately, it seemed like she was just calling out how, how bad it was and not saying, like, this is the reason, like, I lost or anything. Seems like, I hope, because otherwise that, that would have, that would, would have sucked. Three

0:03:28 Jenessa: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:03:46 Jenessa: Haven't seen anything like that expressed like it hasn't seemed like conspiratorial or anything and real reason for concern. Like And, usual, you're going to see a lot of media that just turns the panic button up to 11 every single time. And I'm going to put you at a three, something like that. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we should talk about it. There's problems.

0:04:05 Thomas: Really? Oh Wow. Okay. I even know if I still have a three. I think it's, I think it starts at around eight. This one goes to 11. Yeah. Okay. We're

0:04:10 Jenessa: Yeah, I'm measuring against a baseline of, you know, terror.

0:04:19 Thomas: Already in, like, a sub-panic mode. That's already, like, starts there.

0:04:23 Jenessa: Perhaps.

0:04:23 Thomas: Okay, all right. Well, uh, we'll take our first break, uh, and we'll get to it.

0:04:32 Thomas: I guess we've had actual elections in between the last time we talked elections, so would make sense. Where do you want to start?

0:04:37 Jenessa: Have. Don't we just start with Dallas because we're just talking about it now. I don't have a ton for you on that because it is recent and they're still trying to hash everything out. The short version. I just assume there's going to be a lawsuit. The injunctions are already filed, basically.

0:04:43 Thomas: Sure.

0:04:56 Thomas: What happened? Yeah.

0:04:58 Jenessa: Vary drastically by state. Way they had been doing it in Texas, which is not something I'm used to, is in the primaries, even on election day, you could just go vote in any open polling place anywhere in your county. And in New York, we kind of have that for early voting everywhere but New York City. So I was like, okay, I mean, that's not that weird. But, like, on election day we assign it, and you know, they have open primaries, so that changes things. So, like, okay, the point is everybody was used to this idea that you could do that. And in the election law, what it said is as long as the Democratic Party and the Republican Party agree that they will do it this way, they can do it this way.

But it has to be, you If one party doesn't want to do it, then they don't. So when the Republican Republican Party said, we're not doing this anymore. We don't like it. Law, they had to go back to precinct -based voting, which is the voting most of us are used to. You're assigned to a polling place. You have to go vote in one specific place.

0:06:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:12 Jenessa: Not that weird, except if you're not used to it.

0:06:15 Thomas: Interesting.

0:06:15 Jenessa: So showed up at the wrong polling place and they couldn't vote there because it's the wrong polling place, and there was so much confusion. Traffic to the website of multiple county boards crashed their websites, like people are trying to look up, "Where do I go?" And they can't find out because the website is down because everybody else is trying to figure it out. Um, basically a judge issued an order, there was an emergency. Um, Democratic Party leaders, you know, this is mostly happening in cities where there's, uh, of people trying to get online to vote and polling places are close together, and was particularly in Dallas. So

0:06:59 Thomas: You said get online. I know that's the New York way of saying it, but when I say here, get online. They can't vote online, right?

0:07:06 Jenessa: No, no.

0:07:07 Thomas: You mean like get in line, as I would say, as the non -New Yorkers? I think maybe the East Coast says. It's a weird thing. I didn't notice it until a while.

0:07:16 Jenessa: Oh, is that like a language thing? You say in line?

0:07:17 Thomas: Yeah, it is. Yeah. We say get in line. Yeah? It took me a while to figure that out.

0:07:21 Jenessa: Mean, I wouldn't not say that.

0:07:23 Thomas: No, I'm not calling it out. That's how you folks say it, you big city slicking folks say it. But in that one context, it sounded like you were saying like getting online to vote, but like dying, like getting, loading your AOL CD-ROM and like getting there to, just clarifying.

0:07:25 Jenessa: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes, there is no state in the nation that has unrestricted internet voting. So, yes, they get into a line to vote. And those lines are long and everyone is confused, um, a judge ordered that some of these polling places, you know, whatever they had jurisdiction over, to stay open an extra two hours so that people could get in and vote if they were like, "Oh God, where do I go? Where do I go?" Um, the polls close in Texas at 7 p.m. Like, come on.

0:08:09 Jenessa: In New York they're open till 9, I think. Some places are open till 10. Like, morning people going to bed at seven, like, come on. The judge gives that emergency order. There's obvious chaos, like, this is not unusual. This happens all the time, you happened in Georgia in 2020. There was, like, a water main broke in one of the polling places

0:07:42 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah and that's how we stole the election. Yeah we're like, thank

0:08:33 Jenessa: And Everybody, oh my god, clearly. So this is not an unusual practice, and then the challenge, um, some one of the Republicans is, uh, to challenge it. And so the ballots that were cast after 7 p.m. have been segregated, they've been set aside, and they will decide whether or not they're going to count them. Um, the judge's order was illegal, was not justified, then those ballots were illegally cast after the polls closed.

0:08:33 Thomas: God. Yeah yeah fair enough.

0:09:06 Jenessa: Think it's pretty obvious that was entirely justified. What is the point of all this? Is exactly the kind of shenanigans you do need to be worried about, because it's completely legal. It was written into Texas election law that the only reason you could vote at any polling place anywhere in the county, including on primary election day, was because the two parties agreed. And so all it took was the Republican Party going, "We don't like that anymore," and mass confusion happens, and a bunch of people's votes might not got counted, um, so many that it would change the race. So like I think, um, Crockett and Talarico have both expressed how disappointing and concerning this is. When we get to the general, you know, obviously the same concern, but if it primarily affects city areas, that could be very concerning.

0:09:48 Thomas: Yeah. Does Does it also apply in the general, or is it just a weird thing that applies in the only in the primaries because of the open primary thingy?

0:10:13 Jenessa: Feel like it must only apply to the primaries because

0:10:16 Thomas: I think you should look that up before what it's worth, AI says no because the parties run the primary elections and the general is not same thing. That's AI. Well, you know, yeah.

0:10:18 Jenessa: Know.

0:10:27 Jenessa: Certainly the specific rule about like party stuff has to be about the primaries there'd be no reason why for the general election, Democrats and Republicans would get to have anything to say about it because independents are running in the general. So it has to be, if there is a rule like that in the general, it can't be the same rule. That would not make sense.

0:10:33 Thomas: Right.

0:10:51 Thomas: All Well, we'll keep an eye on that. Yeah, it's confusing and it's also changing by the minute.

0:10:57 Jenessa: Good news is part of why it's so great that we have different rules in all these different States is this is why it would be freaking impossible to try to hack an election nationwide, because worked in New York election law for three years, and I still am like, oh God, how does elections work in Texas? Extremely difficult to figure out. So the point of all this being, this is the kind of thing to be on the lookout for, because it was entirely legal for them to do this. And it created a ton of chaos. Relying on this idea that people who are not terribly privileged, people who Are busy, are not going to get the news not going to get to notice that something changed. And people who have the the privilege to show up at the polls at 11 a .m. and notice that, oops, I guess I should have gone to this other polling place.

Just go get in the car that they own and leisurely drive to the other side of town. Like, those people are still going to get to vote. This kind of oops little mix -up did not ruin their day. But somebody who, the polls close at 7, I get out of to work at five, I work on the other side of town, I finally got home at 5 30 5 45 on public transportation, like, all of a sudden this is an extreme burden on somebody. So

0:11:25 Thomas: Right.

0:12:22 Jenessa: Lot of media wants you to freak out about the idea that something extreme and outrageous and illegal is going to happen, and I am far more concerned that every legal avenue is going be pursued to make your life harder. And that's already our lives, right?

0:12:22 Thomas: I feel like that's the Republican Party platform, actually. Every legal avenue will be pursued to make your lives harder because suck it, libs. That's why. Damn, you got us.

0:12:49 Jenessa: There's Yeah, it's barrier you've ever experienced to voting, probably 90 % of them weren't necessary. Necessary. So, did have to probably leave the house at some point. You know, maybe if you were doing an absentee, you could apply online. But at somepoint, like, I don't know, you had to get an envelope. No, you don't. They should send you the envelope.

0:13:02 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

0:13:14 Jenessa: Some point, you know, there's there's a little bit of effort. You have to remember that when the elections are and that you wanted to vote and research your candidates. But like, you should not have to be jumping through a hundred hoops to be able to do this. So on the one hand, I think this is a great way, like, to remind ourselves of the very legal, real problems that could be caused. Um, the other hand, like, go into conspiracy land of this was legal, that's what's more scary about it, you know?

0:13:45 Thomas: Okay.

0:13:45 Jenessa: Like, somebody didn't like show up and shut the The polls down are like secretly changed. It wasn't a secret. It's just the news doesn't get out to people.

0:13:53 Thomas: Yeah. I'm glad you said that because I definitely didn't understand what was going on there. And it's important because the thing we need to do is different. Like, the thing мы need to до here is get the word out. Like, if this was a legal thing they had the option to do, you know, that sucks. But, like, that's them's the breaks.

0:14:02 Jenessa: Hmm. Yes. Right.

0:14:09 Thomas: I mean, it's good they got the the seven o 'clock, you that thing like it's good that They got that but like, ahead of time, the thing to do was to try to inform as many people as we could, right?

0:14:18 Jenessa: Right. And clearly that did not happen to such an extreme that it was causing many, many people to not know where to go, so of all we need to ourselves be on notice about what election laws are changing in my state and when that change happens, not just making our own voting plan but talking to our friends, our family, our neighbors about, hey, did you know our polling, if my polling place moved, my next door neighbor's polling place removed, do they know that? So

0:14:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That's a way everybody in Texas could could maybe help a little bit make sure spread the word. So, like, it's different for the general, but, you know, we'll keep an eye on it. Yeah. It would make sense. Yeah.

0:14:54 Jenessa: I'm pretty sure, but I'm not 100 % sure someone who works in Texas election law, let me know, please. Someone definitely knows better than me.

0:15:00 Thomas: Oh, In, I'm We can't make Jenessa be an expert in every state election law. Yeah.

0:15:11 Jenessa: God, kill me. Yeah.

0:15:12 Thomas: Uh, okay, well, that's kind of a relief, though. And do we have any sense of how many votes, and if it would have changed anything, if those votes would change? Like, I kind of doubt it, but, um, that's just my impression.

0:15:24 Jenessa: Between Tallarico and Crockett is enormous. Like, of ballots we're talking about here is not even close to that. You know, always, always I want to remind people that the gap on local little elections is very frequently small. There's one we're watching in North Carolina. Granted, it's a Republican primary between two people who somehow both got Trump's endorsement against each other. I don't even know what that that means, um

0:15:30 Thomas: Oh. Huh. Didn't know he did that. Oh, did he start doing that? So he, so he wins either way. Smart.

0:15:53 Jenessa: He tried to hire one of them to get them out of the race, and that guy turned it down. So endorsed the one guy, but at the end of the same tweet was like, also the other guy's great, both just great candidates

0:15:54 Thomas: Wow. I just Hope that they both have fun. I just, you know, we What's important is that both candidates have fun. We

0:16:06 Jenessa: Yeah. Yeah. Um, race is down. It's a state Senate seat, and it's down to two votes with 189 provisional ballots to two to I'm pretty sure the, it's the Republican, like, president of the state senate in North Carolina versus some sheriff, and it's down to two votes. 109 provisional. Hey, if you walk into that polling place and they're like, oh, we don't see on the voter rolls, do a provisional ballot, you might be the person who changes the election. So it comes to a local race, every single vote counts. Um, this is absolutely not going to change the Senate results. The point is that people deserve to have their vote counted. And,

0:16:21 Thomas: Are you serious? Oh wow, holy crap. Wow. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

0:17:01 Jenessa: You this needed to be communicated more clearly.

0:17:04 Thomas: But that's a relief. It sounded like shenanigans, and it's shenanigans, but in the, like, actual, like, okay, it's still within the rules. They're just doing, they're the acceptable amount of shenanigans. Yeah.

0:17:17 Jenessa: Shenanigans. It's things we on an individual level can combat much more easily than like if somebody actually broke the law and, and then we're like, oh God, what do I do? Um,

0:17:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, let's move on to the next thing. That's, I am kind of relieved by that though. So that's good. What's, right. So what's next on the agenda?

0:17:36 Jenessa: Yeah. So what I got next for you is, take pick of one of, like, 20-ish lawsuits going on where the DOJ is trying to get the voter rolls from states. I think New Jersey is the last one they just added to the the list. What the hell is that about? Um, bad insofar as this is just totally inappropriate behavior. They don't need this information. Why would they do, like, cut it out, you interfering? Um, help to explain what is the difference between the public and the private voter rolls. So most of what's on the voter registration is public information.

0:18:11 Thomas: It off.

0:18:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:23 Jenessa: Name, address, the fact that you are registered. Many states, what party you are registered under. Never do this without someone's consent, but I can look up for my clients, um, back years, in this election they voted in person, in this election they noted absentee, in this election they tried to vote and they were asked to vote by provisional ballot because there was a problem. Like, that's public. Um, it's not in a spreadsheet on a government website where somebody could just find all of that. Um, look up your, presumably your own information, you put in, like, your name, your birthday, your zip code, and then they'll tell you, here's your assigned polling place, you are listed as actively registered, you're registered to vote with this party, blah blah blah. So in theory, if I knew all of that information about you, your name, your, the zip code where you're registered, your birthday, I could find that about you.

I want that whole record, I'd probably have to file like, uh, it's FOIL in New York. It's FOIA on the federal level, but like that, public. Um. Candidates get this information very often. So if they have to go door knock and they want to get signatures and those signatures have to come from a registered voter, how did they know to come knock on your your door because that is public information.

0:19:43 Jenessa: If that's all public information, why isn't the government happy with that? On the private database? Your driver's license ID or your social security number, the thing that the state board of elections or your secretary of state, whoever administers your elections, they are using that information to make sure you are who you say you are. If I were a candidate and I got the giant list, there's like 50 Thomas Smiths on that list, right? Know, in theory, I should be able to say, there's a Thomas Smith at this address. I'm pretty sure it's you. But if it was someone who was very concerned about voter fraud and was like, well, I can't prove it, the thing that would prove you are this very specific Thomas Smith is your social security number. That's how I know for sure, and that is how your state board of elections does know for sure that you are who you say you are. The

0:20:15 Thomas: Yeah, at least. Yeah No good problem solved,

0:20:50 Jenessa: Problem is in fact solved. They check these things. So just the public information, it is not very easy to just go, aha, I see a man with a Hispanic last name, I bet they're not a citizen. Now, of course, that is exactly what they're doing. But Um, tons of people with the last name Hernandez, most of them are U.S. citizens, some of them aren't, permanent residents who can't vote, some of the people who can vote may well be undocumented immigrants, none of them are on the voter rolls if they're not citizens, whatever.

Um, if you are conspiratorial and you believe there are undocumented immigrants on the voter rolls or people who don't even exist on the voter rolls, you would need that private voter roll to prove it. Nothing on there the government doesn't know about you already. Federal government knows your social security number, they would have no problem getting a hold of your DMV ID, right? Yeah. So I want to quell any fear that they are going to get a hold off this database and, like, do something bad to you, like, because they now, they know you're social, it's the federal government, they know you're so

0:21:06 Thomas: Right? Mm Mm-hmm. Damn it. Yeah They kind of have to yeah

0:22:02 Jenessa: Sure, like, that's not new. Um, the bad thing is the, through and targeting people who have a Hispanic last name, that's the real concern that I have. Or if, God forbid, you, a person who is not a citizen, ends up on the voter rolls on accident. They never have voted. They just, by some technological error, they've ended up on the sheet. They did vote, it would be a crime and it would Be a deportable offense, but they haven't. So

0:22:02 Thomas: Yeah Yeah, by the way is freaking crazy. I mean, in reality that should be like nothing. Like, oh, you tried to vote and you can't, that can't do that. But they make it a crime because of all this bullshit they're trying to do. I guess I know they've tried to make the penalty super high to scare people. In reality, I just don't think this is that big of a deal. No.

0:22:49 Jenessa: With intent, with knowledge would be be a different story. Um, Certainly not in the sense of that anybody is actually trying it. Um,

0:23:04 Thomas: But I mean, even if somebody literally did it, like, just, I'm just talking about how much, how they're trying to make, like, this intense crime. I just think it should be like jaywalking. Like, oh, you tried to fill out a piece of paper and you weren't allowed to. Who cares? It just should be, like, we caught it.

0:23:20 Jenessa: Talking about actually voting, so

0:23:22 Thomas: Am too. I'm saying they are punishing. They made it so the punishment for, like. Like if someone accidentally votes when they shouldn't, is like death penalty. I'm was intent, I'm saying even если a Latino person is like, I am going to steal the election, I'm an illegal immigrant, I' m the nightmare that Trump warned about, and that person writes stuff on a piece of paper, should be like a $5 fine. Care. It's I not a big deal is what I'm say. Now, if someone was organizing like a of like vast illegals in quotes that were voting, okay, sure, you might have a different thing.

My point is just they've over, like, criminalized this. It's because part of their narrative, and they want it to be this scary thing that's happening. And then what will happen is, like, one old lady who wrote in Trump for her dead husband, you launched into the sun because of the, because of the penalties are so steep. You saying in the same way that, like, being here, quote unquote, illegally isn't a big deal at all. Like it's conservatives have made that out to be like this massive crime because it fits their their agenda. And I'm saying I don't think

0:23:30 Jenessa: It was a genuine accident, if Yeah.

0:24:26 Thomas: Voting is that big of a deal, even if you did it on purpose and you shouldn't have. I just don't even think it's that big a crime.

0:24:32 Jenessa: Certainly coming from a deterrence perspective of, like, you know, when you fill out an affidavit ballot, it says on the front, like, I solemnly swear under penalty of perjury, blah blah, I am 18, I am a citizen, I risk, that is, like, a thing that would be even remotely plausible to actually worry about is, I have lived at this address for 30 days. I am not, in fact, trying to vote at my vacation home twice, you know, whatever. I understand that if I knowingly lie on this form, it's like, penalty up to, I don'don't know what the numbers are in New York, but, you know, it's a felony. It's jail time. It is a deterrent thing.

0:24:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:12 Thomas: It should be a five thousand dollar fine or something. You know, it doesn't. I don't think you need to threaten jail time. Yeah I like you shouldn't nobody should be doing time for this. That's what I'm say. Anyway, but we can move on.

0:25:17 Jenessa: It's around there It's Anyway, um, of all that being, um, hard to look at, them trying to get a hold of this stuff that really only has information they already have, which is like your ID numbers, and go, "Well, why do they want that?" And start thinking through some really nefarious, terrible things, and It's starting to turn into, like, a 5D chess scenario of, like, what they might be up to, and I am sorry to tell you, they're never that smart. They're ever scheming, they're always just that just election denial stuff again. They are just consulting the same people from 2020 who were writing all the same conspiracy documents.

Those people are still coming to the White House and talking about all of the reasons 2020 was stolen and it. The only real explanation is you think you're going to find a person on there who either doesn't security number, has a fake social security number, is dead, is not a citizen, whatever. No other real significant value to it. The public voter rolls have so much of your private information on them. Um, it's important to note in most states, they have procedures. If you are, for example, a domestic violence survivor, um, you can have your information not public. So

0:25:42 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Nice.

0:26:57 Jenessa: Can tell your state board of elections like, "I would like to not be able to look up my own information on that database because that would mean somebody else who definitely already knows my birthday can look me up in that database. And I don't like that." Um, states hide your voting. Obviously, none of them can tell anybody who you voted for because they don't know who you voted for, um, but they can tell who, when you voted, and that may be public in your state. Like, New York is one of the more public about all the stuff you've done. So it's very uncomfortable, but that the government already knows that stuff. They want, want the private ones because they believe that your secretary of state did a good enough job of removing people from the voter rolls. Why are the states then fighting it? Because, screw you, because get out of here, because I'm not giving it to you, because this is private. And

0:26:57 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like if they were trying to get a bunch of information from scientists to prove, like, warming is fake. It's, like, just stop, just cut it cut it out yeah

0:27:54 Jenessa: Yeah. Know. Some, some states have already given it voluntarily. You know, take right? It's the red states. Don't mind one bit. And is not imploded there. But it's not good because this is all the cultural shift of acting like this is okay and normal. That the federal government should have their nose in any of this. That they have any right. That they Have any business.

That there's any point to that, and it's part of normalizing and justifying the idea that our elections could or should be nationalized. That's what Trump is pushing. That's the real danger there. What you don't have to worry about is that somehow the DOJ is going to kick you off of the voter rolls. What they're not doing is getting, like, direct editing privileges, access to the database. Like, they would be able to do is be like, "We're going to challenge that person's vote," and it would still have to go through the normal challenge procedure of, "They're not dead. That is a real person. I don't know why you have convinced yourself that's it's not a real voter."

It's a real voter. They're staying on the voter rolls. Bad. It's concerning. It is a culture problem. Don't 5D chess this thing. There is still conspiracy theorists. That is what is going on here. Support your states that are fighting this. League of Women Voters and ACLU are signing on to a lot of amicus briefs fighting this along with attorney generals.

0:28:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:24 Thomas: Attorneys General. You got to say it right.

0:29:26 Jenessa: Damn it, every time. I try to just say AGs to to stop myself.

0:29:28 Thomas: Yeah. Well, this, yeah, it's A's G. Okay.

0:29:33 Jenessa: Damn it. There's no escape.

0:29:33 Thomas: You can't. So, no, this is good news. This is more, I do feel like there's a theme here and I don't want to get too but it does feel like the theme is like, you know, some stuff that we we might've thought was a huge deal is not as big a deal as we thought, which is nice. I don't know. I like that. It's good.

0:29:51 Jenessa: I think that's because so much media is just five-alarm fire on everything. And I'm Like, it's, it's not, not a fire. It's a fire, like, I'm worried. I'm just not, you know, panicked. The concerns are real. I just, uh, I don't want people to think the, burn the building has not already burned down. You can go inside and vote. Please, please, God, do. Um, will keep us on that theme

0:29:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:18 Thomas: Right. Is that our next topic? Okay. Well, why don't we take a quick break and then we'll talk Georgia. This is something that, I'm um, really curious to hear because I do feel like I've heard some, some stuff about this and, uh, you might be further talking us off the ledge. We'll find out after the break.

0:30:36 Thomas: Well, it's been a minute now. Refresh us on what was going on here. Yeah.

0:30:40 Jenessa: So, Fulton County, Georgia, for some reason the target of Trump's ire in 2020. It's one of four states that tipped the election, but as we all know, Trump was calling Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and saying, I need you to find me 11,000 And Whatever, 27 votes, however many it was, and Keep in mind, Republican-elected Secretary of State was saying, I don't know what that means, but to whatever extent it's illegal, I'm not doing it. I don't know what, what you're talking about. How would one find a vote? No.

0:30:59 Thomas: God. Freaking Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that guy's a hero, honestly. I think he voted for Trump too, but it's like, it's awesome that he did that. There's, it's really good that he stood up to Trump. And, uh, since then, I think he gets death threats every single day. Yeah.

0:31:23 Jenessa: Yeah. Yeah, did the right thing. Wouldn't be surprised. Has never let this go because he can't let anything go because he's a child. FBI just shows up unannounced at the elections office and seizes, with a, a warrant, a whole bunch of ballots and, uh, the envelopes that absentee ballots came in and all kinds of paper records and at one point Tulsi Gabbard shows up, the director of national intelligence is here at your tiny little county board of elections office to take all the paperwork. It's

0:31:38 Thomas: Yeah. Uh-huh. I Tulsi See Gabbard is there. Yeah. Yeah.

0:32:17 Thomas: Is like not cool, right? I

0:32:20 Jenessa: It very intimidating to have the FBI show up, to have them take your records. The director of national intelligence is here. What is going on? Okay, did they get a search warrant? Well, the affidavit was sealed, and U.S. District Judge J.P. Booley ordering the FBI to reveal their reasoning, meaning unseal that affidavat for the warrant, because elections officials were saying, I don't understand how or why you are here, um, vaguely saying things about 2020 and the statute of limitations for any crime that obviously was not but could have been committed in 2020 is up. Did you get a warrant to come in here? And oddly enough, the federal government did not oppose the unsealing of that warrant. They just said, okay.

0:33:16 Thomas: That's Interesting.

0:33:18 Jenessa: So we got the, and the affidavit. If you're going to get a warrant, somebody has to put their name to it and sign an affidavit that says, you know, under information and belief, here's the things I know personally, here's witness statements, all the things that leads me to believe there is probable cause that a crime was committed and the evidence of that crime is in this location. Um, affidavit, as suspected, it is 100 repeats of 2020 election denial. There is nothing new inside of it. They did not find new information. They are not alleging anything unique or special. It's not about something that they think happened in 2022. It's nothing.

It's The same shit, and sure enough, there are people who were involved in 2020 election denial who were kind of already talking about the fact that they They were involved in drafting this thing and their fingerprints are all over it. When they have it redacted where there's the black bars and it just says like witness one, witness two, but it'll be like witness two is a woman who works for the state board of elections. She was first put in that position in 2022. She worked as a physician before that. And I'm like, all right, so this is not, I mean, I could figure out

0:34:03 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:34:42 Jenessa: Who that person is in four seconds. This is not helping anyone. Affidavit just says all the same election denial stuff you've heard before. I don't even want to get into it, because it is pointless to debunk at this point. I'll link in the show notes is a really great NPR article that does go through it and really just cites to an FBI report that has already debunked this stuff. It's from 2021. And thanks. So simple and straightforward. Allegations in it were true, it would justify looking at these records if the statute of limitations weren't up. And if you hadn't left out, you know, this witness said this thing and And it did lead to the opening of an investigation, and then you don't leave off the end of the sentence, and then that investigation was almost immediately closed as unfounded.

0:35:11 Thomas: It's like, yeah, make it easy for us. Yeah.

0:35:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:44 Thomas: That

0:35:44 Jenessa: So, like, someone could get in, and I hope will, well, you know, it's going to, not under this administration, someone should be getting in huge trouble for even putting this together. Together, Raymond Evans, special agent with the FBI, uh, the person who gives the affidae but says rather quickly in here that reason they're doing this investigation is because of a referral sent by Kurt Olson, presidentially appointed director of election security and integrity. Um not an agency at all. Trump just appointed that guy as special government employee.

0:36:20 Thomas: Sounds real. Get to the bottom of all this. Yeah. Oh,

0:36:31 Jenessa: He's just a not person. But I googled that guy just to refresh my memory, and the first thing that pops up is a New York Times article with the subheading, even in a government full of conspiracists, Kurt Olson stands out.

0:36:47 Thomas: Man, yeah, I recognize the name.

0:36:49 Jenessa: Guy is like election denier, sends a referral to the FBI to go get this stuff. Again, we are back in the territory of what are they up to? What are they doing? What are THEY going to try to do with this? Literally, it's the same thing. Why is Tulsi Gabbard here? She is literally investigating whether Venezuela somehow stole ballots. I wish I was kidding. Patrick Byrne, 2020 election denier, blames Venezuela. After Maduro was captured, that guy was called into the White House. It sure seems like they're still pursuing, did Venezuela steal the election?

0:36:49 Thomas: Oh.

0:37:32 Thomas: God, dude.

0:37:33 Jenessa: Kind of the only reason national intelligence would have a single thing to do with the 2020 election. Election, uh, a Wall Street Journal article speculating that this is a possible reason, because otherwise what the hell is anyone doing here? Um, are still actively working with the people who say, obviously the ballots, I, I don't, what even was the allegation that somehow Venezuela collaborated with Italy.

0:37:58 Thomas: I don't know. Space lasers. Who knows? Yeah.

0:38:00 Jenessa: And space lasers. Yeah, it's nothing. Who even cares. Yeah.

0:38:02 Thomas: In the, in the ballot Uh, Matic, Smart Matic, I don't know, some

0:38:07 Jenessa: It was all blaming Dominion somehow, and then who even knows. So Again, what is the real concern? What is the not so real concern? Okay. They definitely cannot change the results of the 2020 election. I don't even know what that would mean. We have since had a different presidential election. I guess there's a couple senators still in their seats, but as far as I'm aware, pretty much every election law is like, once we've certified it, like answer would be a separate legislative impeachment kind of scenario. You wouldn't like undo an election three years, four years, five years later. You cannot with paper records take you off of the voter rolls. The absolute best they could ever do is if they somehow convince themselves that a vote was illegal. They could try to challenge on an individual basis with the Georgia Secretary of State to take somebody off the voter rolls, and that would go through the normal procedures. There's nothing in there.

They don't already know about you, your social security, your DMV ID, whatever. Can't figure out who you voted for. With, we've got the absentee ballots and the envelopes they came in. There is a very strict, it's federal law and it's the law in all 50 states, your ballot is anonymous. So you vote in the polling place, you check in on a poll book, but then they hand you a blank ballot that's the same as everybody else. Right? You do paper. I think, I think everybody does paper at this, like you put the paper in the machine or you hand mark paper. It's probably somebody who's still doing digital machines, but there's a paper record somewhere.

Vote absentee, you put that ballot in an envelope, right? But when it gets there, they look at the envelope and they mark down this person voted and the envelopes got, you know, you signed it. And then they take the ballot out of the envelope, and they separate them. And they never put them back together again. And there would be no way to put them back together. Again, the ballots all look the same.

New York state election law, we very specifically have rules that if there are identifying marks, so obviously your name, if you wrote your name on the ballot, or anything that would obviously make your ballot identifiable, it is an incurable error. The ballot goes in the garbage, like

0:38:11 Thomas: Yeah, Dominion. It's Bullshit. Yeah.

0:38:36 Thomas: Right. Yeah, right.

0:40:30 Jenessa: Is to prevent either bribery or coercion. So if you were trying to get someone to vote a certain way, they can't prove to you how they voted. Your ballot is unidentifiable. So there's actually a quote from Brad Raffensperger, uh, asked at one point, like, couldn't we, should put serial numbers on the ballots, because because then we could track it and, like, prevent what? And Raffensperger said, well, that would be illegal because that would prevent the anonymous ballot that you are legally entitled to.

So you lived in Fulton County, Georgia and voted in 2020, they're holding your ballot. They can't connect it back to you. They cannot not figure out who you voted for. So saw somebody talking about that, like, that that was a concern, and I just, I looked everywhere for any possible way that could happen and ended up coincidentally finding Raffensperger specifically talking about how that's not possible. So like, it's, it's not a thing anybody has to worry about. What am I worried about? They just showed proof of concept that with a total lack of evidence, total conspiracy theory nonsense, but a federal judge who doesn't pay attention to the news, I don't know, or in

0:41:45 Thomas: Yeah, lots of mega judges. Yeah, yeah.

0:41:47 Jenessa: In the conspiracy, yeah, like a normal affidave. It looks like what I'd expect. If I had a bunch of witnesses who all told me these very very suspicious things, that can, like, create enough of a story to be probable cause. And even if it turns out to be false in the end, that doesn't mean you didn't have probable cause at the time, right?

It looks like a normal affidavit if you don't already know these are either from the very beginning, have since been proven false, are things that, like, that's just a normal thing that happens during the operation of elections. It looks suspicious if you don't know how elections work. Um, various ways this has been debunked, if you don't know. The guy writing it knows it's been debunkt, or he has his head up his ass. Like, it's impossible to not know this. Hasn't been debunks. They've shown a proof of concept that they could do this again.

The next election, they could find a judge somewhere who will give them the warrant to grab the stuff. Again, will that let them figure out who you voted for? No. Will that let dem delete a ballot? No, because in the moment you vote, and as long as you didn't vote provisional, you just scan your ballot and it's counted and we're good. But if if they take away those records, what if there's a recount? You're supposed to do a hand recount and you have the paper records. Something the officials in Georgia have complained about is the chain of custody is broken now because I don't trust you people.

0:43:17 Jenessa: So you bring it back to me, I don'T know that those records are what I said they were. Now they might not like who Who knows what's in those boxes anymore? My concern coming out of this, is is scary because it shows they could have these total conspiracy theories and still manage to get a hold of this stuff anyway. And are they going to do with it? Slow down and muck up the process.

You know, when you go to certify most, I know how New York State does it. I now know how Georgia does it and Texas does it the way that you do audits. I learned today about how North Carolina does it everybody. It seems has a similar kind of audit procedure in New York.

We take about 3% of the ballots and we rerun them through the machine, and we double-check that all the machines give the same answer, and that that matches the hand recount of those 3%. And as long as everything matches, hooray. If something ever didn't, oh God. And we go figure out where that machine was and you fix it.

I don't have the ballots, how could I do my audit it that I'm legally obligated to do by a certain date? So it going to steal an election? No. Is it going to kick you off the voter rolls? No. Is it going to reveal your otherwise anonymous ballot? No. Could it just throw mud in the wheels and slow everything down and cause problems and give them cover to claim interference, make it easier for them to make up these lies? Yes. That's, I think, the real fear here. Um, a fire still extremely bad for democratic norms. Um, some of the stuff I've seen that is like a super super panic like right now this day I have to freak out, I know.

0:43:17 Thomas: Yeah, well, That's, that's good. I had heard that one guy talk about, like, this is how you can gerrymander more effectively, or this is how you build more of a database of you what and what, but, but it sounds like you're, you're saying there's no way to identify who voted for whom, and was Mark Elias I heard talk about this in a way that scared me a little bit. It sounds like you don't really think that's quite warranted.

0:45:34 Jenessa: Yeah. Went and listened to that interview as well. So he talked about Georgia and then very shortly after talked about these lawsuits to get the voter rolls. And it's the voter roll specifically that he was talking about as possibly being involved. I just don't agree because the public voter rolls have your name, your address. And in many states, what party you're registered for is part of the public. I wonder if he I don't know what state he lives in. If he lives in a state where your party registration is on the private side, not the public side, maybe that would make you think, oh, God, getting the private side would be worse. In New York, that part's already on the public part. So

0:45:52 Thomas: Okay. Gotcha.

0:46:16 Thomas: But what about in Georgia? So,

0:46:25 Jenessa: Don't know. I'd have to look it up. Um, right now presumably have the private, not just the public, that they seized, and they have it from certain red states that have turned it over voluntarily, and they're suing to get it in many, many states. It's already been dismissed by judges in multiple states by now, but that, you know, it's going to take a while to creep through the courts, as always. Um, the states where people do register by party and where that is not part of the public record, would getting the voter roll that does more specifically identify the party registration in that limited subset of states help me gerrymander better?

0:47:12 Jenessa: Demographics are are already so telling. Have to do it by geography. I So mean, they're already gerrymandering so unbelievably effectively that it's hard to imagine it getting even worse. But I mean I never say never. But yeah, more importantly, Elias, when he was talking about this, was not referring to Georgia. He was referring to the lawsuits to get the voter rolls. So it's not about getting a hold of the ballots that he was concerned for the gerryandering thing. Um, was expressing concern that getting the voter rolls, which is one of many things that happened in Georgia, um, a thing that would affect gerrymandering. I am just skeptical that that would have a major impact on gerryandering, but am not a gerrymandering expert, so I could be wrong about that. Um,

0:47:58 Thomas: It sounds like, I guess, overall, you're saying most of this is just old-fashioned 2020 bullshit denialism, and it's not necessarily doing much for them in terms of a new, ongoing, like a fresh new scheme. Team, yeah.

0:48:07 Jenessa: Yeah. You dig and you dig and you dig and there's just, there's nothing at the bottom of it. Of, like, what really lines up is they captured Maduro and they brought Patrick burn Byron, b -y -r -n -e however you say that, 2020 election denier who blames Maduro, comes into the White House and now Tulsi Gabbard's in Georgia and we got to look at the ballots a second time and, oh, like, it's, it's all lining up. And that affidavit very clearly includes election deniers that we all know and love at this point. Um, once again, do not 5D chess these people. They're not trying to do something really super duper smart. They are genuinely trying to prove that a bunch of undocumented immigrants were sent here from Venezuela to steal the election for Joe Biden. Like, that's what's happening. Um, sure, somebody there doesn't believe that and is like just doing their job and I'm sure somebody is thinking through all the ways they could use this to their advantage to do smarter things, but

0:49:23 Thomas: They have the 5D chess people too. I just I guess This this in particular, it sounds like, isn't Isn't that this

0:49:26 Jenessa: They have them. This in particular. Is not terribly serving towards that end, except Is very much the JV team. I think the varsity team will be able to look at this and see the amount of chaos this could cause if you did the same thing in 2024, in 2026, and on and on and on. Um, thing to do would be to start creating more protection against this and to be prepared for this. Um, M. Salinas, United States Magistrate Judge, read this and thought, oh, okay, and

0:49:33 Thomas: Is the JV team.

0:50:00 Thomas: Yeah, there's something here. Yeah.

0:50:04 Jenessa: Didn't fact check this and is oblivious or is also an election denier, like that's a problem. We have to find a way that you can't walk in there with one-sided information and have a judge sign off on a search warrant and

0:50:19 Thomas: Well, I mean, that's kind of, search warrants, that's kind of how they work. Yeah.

0:50:23 Jenessa: I know, that's the problem is this is what we have to figure out a solution here for, how this is not going to happen for the rest of our lives. Um,

0:50:25 Thomas: Now They seize those and they just have half of them. They haven't given them back or anything.

0:50:34 Jenessa: As far as I'm aware. Yeah, that's just, it's just there, and that's why the elections officials are like, so I, for all I want them back, but I won't know, I won't trust you with what, whatever the hell they are when I get them. Um,

0:50:35 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. Good thing we had that election a long time ago.

0:50:52 Jenessa: Yeah, it was, it was 2020, it's, it's six years old now. The statute of limitations on literally everything is over. Not that there was a crime we already investigated it too

0:50:56 Thomas: Jesus. Yeah, we stole it fair and square. You can't do anything about it. Take that.

0:51:05 Jenessa: Late. No takesies backsies. Um, mean, it's really bad for democratic norms. I think that's the thing I would want to focus on the most is, is a symptom, symptom of a deep illness in the system that we are doing this, that this is happening, like, that's the five alarm fire to me, not any one specific outcome that we're worried about, but more that sign of the times, I guess. It's

0:51:30 Thomas: Right, so it sounds like we're, what was that, three for three in terms of, you to see here? No, I didn't want to say nothing to see her, but not as bad as maybe we thought it was.

0:51:37 Jenessa: Yeah. Yeah, uh, media environment is saying, oh my god, we're dying.

0:51:45 Thomas: Are, but, not more than you thought.

0:51:50 Jenessa: Yes, be on alert, but perhaps not red alert.

0:51:51 Thomas: Yeah. All right. Well, that's that's good. Good news, as always. Thanks so much for the breakdown. For listening, everybody. And we'll see you on Wednesday.

0:52:09 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon.com/law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments@gmail.com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.

0:52:42 Thomas: Is episode 18 no no not even close this is Episode 1240 damn it I

0:52:49 Jenessa: Might've missed a whole ass digit and then a day passed. Yeah.

0:52:56 Thomas: I don't know space lasers who knows yeah