A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For more about what this ruling means, we've called back David Becker. He is the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that focuses on election administration. David, so what have you heard from officials who are running elections? What's their reaction to this ruling?
DAVID BECKER: Election officials feel a sense of relief across the political spectrum, across the country. I've talked to many of them just in the hours since this decision came down. And while many of us were expecting the Supreme Court would reach this conclusion, there was absolutely no way to implement these rules in time. Even the Postal Service had promised they would have aspects of their rules, including this portal through which the states would send lists to the Postal Service, ready by last week. It apparently still is not ready.
It is still not available to states, even if they wanted to use it. So while we expected it, it was still a sense of relief that the states could continue on with their work. They are very busy right now preparing all aspects of the - for the election, as we're only now today 49 days before the election, and many of them are preparing mail ballots to send out.
MARTÍNEZ: Forty-nine days away. You just heard Hansi Lo Wong, our reporter, talk about how if you get a mail-in ballot, return it ASAP. Is that still good advice?
BECKER: Yes, that's very good advice. Mail balloting will be available to voters who - just like it has been in past recent elections. About three-fourths of the states offer mail balloting without any kind of excuse. They can use it pretty freely. If you choose to vote that way, you should request your ballot early. You should track your ballot. Most states and counties have ballot-tracking apps that you can track it on and vote it and return it as quickly as possible.
And if possible, return it in person. Many states have drop boxes or drop-off locations where you can deliver your mail ballot directly to the election officials without putting it in the mail. And, of course, there are other options available for voters as well. Forty-seven states offer some kind of early in-person voting. That's how I personally choose to vote. It's a really - another very convenient option for people who want to vote.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, the president has argued that restricting mail-in voting was necessary to prevent fraud, even though he used a mail-in ballot in the August Florida primary and also in a special election just this past March, so twice this year. But remind us of the data on voting fraud.
BECKER: Yeah, that's right. He's voted twice by mail already this year. Presumably, he'll vote a third time by mail. And the first time he was actually physically in Palm Beach County. He could have gone to an early voting site, but he chose to vote by mail. So he clearly thinks it's secure enough for his very important ballot. The data on voter fraud is that it happens extremely rarely. I'm a former voting section attorney at the Department of Justice, and it's one of the, frankly, most foolish crimes someone can commit. You will get caught. It's very easy to find people who commit voter fraud. Even places like the Conservative Heritage Foundation have looked for voter fraud for nearly 50 years and compiled all of the evidence they can possibly find.
And they found about a thousand possible cases out of near - out of billions of ballots that have been cast over the course of the last 50 years or so. It's very rare. When it happens. Election officials catch it and they investigate it and prosecute it. And mail voting is just as secure as other methods of voting. It gets verified twice, both when the ballot goes out to the voter and when the ballot comes back in through either signature verification or some kind of ID comparison.
MARTÍNEZ: David, why do you think that evidence isn't enough for the people that argue against it?
BECKER: Gosh, I don't know. Hey, I mean, it's really hard to figure out why we've seen so much disinformation around election fraud and voter fraud, when the reality right now is that our elections are more secure than they've ever been in American history, thanks to the public servants, the election officials around our country who run them, both Republicans and Democrats. We have paper ballots in every state except Louisiana, which means those paper ballots can be recounted and audited to confirm the machines work. Our voter lists are more accurate than they have ever been.
So we've got this really secure system that we've developed over our 250 years. And yet, it seems like particularly those candidates who lose elections have now embraced this conspiracy theory about our elections and have found some value in that, telling their own supporters, their own voters that I didn't really lose - the election was stolen from me. When, of course, that's not true.
MARTÍNEZ: So what other steps is the Trump administration taking right now around midterm voting that maybe you and other election officials are kind of keeping an eye on?
BECKER: Well, all of the steps the administration has embraced over the course of the last nearly 20 months have largely failed. These - the president signed two executive orders - both have been blocked. The DOJ has tried to sue states to seize voter data they've lost. And so what we're seeing now is the administration really focusing on just a wave of disinformation aimed at election officials, perhaps preparing for an election that they might lose. And I think this is largely failing again. If you look back at the primaries, look how well they've been going. Large turnout, very few controversies, very few problems. I expect we're going to see...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
BECKER: ...Very high turnout and a very smooth election in November.
MARTÍNEZ: David Becker is the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. David, thanks.
BECKER: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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