CEIR executive director on executive power and election security

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - David Becker, Executive Director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about executive power.

Brennan brought up her previous interview with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), where he, along with some Democrats, said President Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to undermine or interfere with the upcoming election.

Brennan also brought up President Trump's recent post saying American elections are being rigged, stolen and a laughing stock around the world.

When asked what he thinks of the statements, if both parties are undermining confidence in our election, and what election officials he speaks to are feeling and thinking right now, Becker said:

"It's very hard to predict where this is going...But we can look at what's happened already. The President has signed an unprecedented executive order regarding elections trying to dictate policy to the states. That's now been enjoined, blocked by three different federal courts. His Department of Justice is seeking highly sensitive data on hundreds of millions of American voters, is suing 24 states and D.C. Two federal courts just in the past few weeks have blocked that. The remainder are still to be heard. The cyber security apparatus that Senator Warner talked about, that had been built up under the first Trump administration to assist election officials, has been dismantled. So when I talk to election officials, they're very concerned about this. I think it's safe to say this is unprecedented. We have never seen a president try to exert executive authority over elections in the states like we have. And of course this is contrary to the Constitution, which specifically grants states the authority to run elections under Article 1, Section 4, the elections clause. Congress can also act, and if Congress does, of course, those laws will be followed. But both parties have tried to pass sweeping bills in the last five or six years and have failed."

During the interview, Brennan and Becker talked about election security.

Bringing up her previous interview with Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), Brennan said while he condemned one portion of a video regarding former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, the congressman defended the other portion regarding election software and security, where it describes the problems with the technology and the things that were anomalies, like last year, key states stopped counting at a certain time.

This prompted Brennan to ask Becker to fact check some of the information, and he said:

"This is a very common methodology for those that are spreading lies about the elections, defying, just throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. And the rest of that video, in addition to the ending, was also troubling because it was a lot of disinformation, just blatantly false. We have paper ballots in the United States. 98% of all Americans vote on paper ballots. The only exclusion is the state of Louisiana, which is moving to paper ballots. That means those paper ballots can be checked against whatever the machines tally, and they are checked. Famously, in Georgia, those paper ballots in 2020 were counted three times, three different ways, once entirely by hand. Over five million ballots counted by hand in five days with observation from both campaign and observers. There's no way to get around the fact that this is the, 2020 was the most scrutinized election in American history. And every time when courts reviewed it, when people who lied about the election were taken to court, the work of election officials withstood that scrutiny. It's really remarkable...not only are our elections not rigged, they're as transparent and verifiable and as secure as they've ever been, no matter whether you like the outcome or not. And we're seeing disinformation being spread, in this case, by the President of the United States, targeted at his own supporters, at others who might not like the outcome of elections. And, unfortunately, some are believing it."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Becker, click here.