MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's take a closer look at the implications of the Supreme Court's decision with David Becker. He's the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. That's a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that focuses on election administration. Hello.
DAVID BECKER: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So as we just heard, this legal fight is still going on. What do you consider to be the main unresolved issues?
BECKER: Well, I think Hansi laid it out very well. We still don't know from the courts whether this is legal or not. I think it's pretty clear this is an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to seize power over election administration from the states, which the Constitution says it cannot do. And the Supreme Court here said it was not ruling on whether this was legal or not. It just was a very narrow technical decision on whether or not the issue was ripe at this moment.
I think that's disappointing, really, because as we know, there's still an existing injunction out there with regard to all of the states. This only blocked the injunction that affected 23 states and D.C. But those states were really trying to be diligent. They were saying the president waited to sign this executive order until after the primaries had already started.
The Postal Service then took two whole months to even publish proposed rules, and that rule became final last week, before this order actually was issued. And so what they're really saying is, despite your diligence, states, you have to wait until the very last moment as you're busy preparing for an election. And it's not weeks until mail voting starts. It's actually next week when the first mail ballots start going out. Every election official in the country is busy preparing for this election.
I think ultimately, the cases that are still pending and probably some new cases that were actually invited by this Supreme Court opinion will likely stop this order from being executed for 2026, but it's also very possible that we're going to see a lot of confusion and chaos about it, and that might have been the administration's intention.
MARTIN: So how should local elections officials think about this ruling? Does it change anything about how they approach their work and what they do right now?
BECKER: I've already spoken to a lot of them and they're very confused and concerned about this. And it doesn't matter whether they're Republicans or Democrats, whether they support the president or oppose the president. Election officials around the country are doing a very, very difficult job of preparing for a midterm election in which we might see the highest turnout of any midterm election in American history. We're going to see well over 100 million voters cast a ballot in this election. And that's a lot of work. And this throws some chaos into the mix as they're considering what happens.
I think the next two days, though, will calm this down to some degree. I think we're going to see a new lawsuit filed by the states, likely. I think we're going to see a new order issued by that Boston court on the injunction that has not been blocked yet, to make clear that the Postal Service and the federal government is still prohibited from instituting this unprecedented, radical alteration regarding mail voting practices. So I think what we're going to see election officials do, and what I'm advising them to do, is to just continue to prepare for this election as they've always done. I think that's likely going to be - that's going to be the way it's going to be executed.
MARTIN: You know what's interesting, though, is that the people who defend what the president has been doing in this space point to the fact that turnout continues to rise. And they say to that, well, then, you know, whatever the president's intentions are - and they don't dispute his intentions - then they say, well, but people are still turning out, so what is the problem? What would you say to that?
BECKER: Well, I think one of the things we know is - and Hansi mentioned this - is that noncitizen voting is extremely rare. My organization studies what the states are reporting when they look into noncitizen voting, and every state finds extremely few individuals who are registered to vote or casting a ballot as noncitizens in the United States.
Second, we also know that the federal government has really bad data on this. When they've reported data out to the states about potential noncitizens, it's very common that they're reporting out even sometimes well over half of the individuals are documented citizens. So the federal government is getting this wrong.
So of course turnout has been good lately, but this is a radical change, and that could change that, and it could put barriers in front of many eligible voters who are citizens just because the federal government isn't very good at this. And secondly, the federal government has no constitutional power to do this.
MARTIN: Before we let you go. Only about 20 seconds here. You work with people of both parties. Is it possible that both Republicans and Democrats would be equally affected by the chaos that you are anticipating or that's possible?
BECKER: Yeah. I think it's definitely political - it's politically balanced here. If anything, it might actually affect Republicans more because it might affect people in rural areas and older individuals who really rely upon mail voting to vote because they can't get to a polling place to cast a ballot.
MARTIN: OK. That's David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. Thank you so much.
BECKER: Thanks, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
