Chris Piper: How Virginia Protects Election Integrity
On this episode, Thomas and Michael are joined by Chris Piper, former Virginia Elections Commissioner and now COO of the nonpartisan Elections Group. Chris explains how Virginia's Department of Elections prevents voter fraud in multiple ways--from strict protection of Internet-free voting machines to coordination with other states and the "Master Death File" that keeps track of recently-deceased Virginians.
Episode Transcript
Chris Piper
On this episode of Pod Virginia
Thomas Bowman
Election security.
Michael Pope
How do Virginia elections really work? And what would it take to conduct election fraud?
Chris Piper
Some of the accusations out there about widespread fraud would take the likes of Tony Soprano, the godfather.
Thomas Bowman
We're joined by the former elections Commissioner, Chris Piper.
Chris Piper
The massive amount of work you would need to do to corrupt all of those people and for nobody to speak about it is pretty amazing.
Michael Pope
You are listening to pod Virginia stick around. I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
I'm Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia, the favorite podcast of dimpled Chads everywhere.
Thomas Bowman
Was that a hanging chad reference Michael?
Michael Pope
Pregnant chad, hanging chads, you know, that's, that's all ancient history, the very old school voting technology, we're going to be much more modern. Today we're going to open up the hood of Virginia's election system and see how it works, how it really works. And we've got the best guest here to help us understand the mechanics of voting in Virginia. He's the former chief election official in Virginia. And he's now the Chief Operating Officer at the elections group, a nonpartisan organization of former election officials; Chris Piper, thanks for joining us.
Chris Piper
And thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Thomas Bowman
It's great to have you here, Chris. Give us a broad overview of what your responsibilities were, how that agency works. And what goes into managing a Virginia election?
Chris Piper
So as the Commissioner, the chief election official for the Commonwealth of Virginia, my responsibility was to oversee the operations of the Department of Elections, and the Department of Elections is responsible under the Code of Virginia for the uniform application of election laws throughout the entire Commonwealth. As you know, Virginia has 133 counties and cities. Each one of those has a three-member electoral board; two members are of the governor's party, one member of the party that got the second most votes in the last gubernatorial election. And they are a supervisory body that appoints a general registrar, and the registrar in that jurisdiction is responsible for the day-to-day operations and the administration of the election at the local level. But they do all of that with the guidance and support of the Department of Elections. And the Department of Elections is responsible for maintaining the voter registration database, whereas we maintain the overall system. The registrar is responsible for the registration of all the voters in their jurisdiction. But we are also responsible for developing the forms that people register on. We develop the online registration system and things along those lines. So really, it's a partnership across the board, but in Virginia, the Department of Elections provides. I love it; I call it the McDonald's model, right? If I go to a McDonald's in Wise County and get a Big Mac, and then come back to Richmond and have a Big Mac here at McDonald's in Richmond, it's going to taste the same. Well, essentially, the role of the Department of Elections is to make sure whether you're voting and Wise, Fairfax County, Virginia Beach, or Winchester, you're going to have the same or similar experience, you're going to be treated equally under the law. And that's the role of the chief election official in the Department of Elections.
Michael Pope
Are you going to bring back the McRib, though? That's the real question.
Chris Piper
It's actually coming back for one final tour, I think.
Michael Pope
I'm wondering, a lot of our listeners came to Virginia from other states. And they will bounce what they think about elections based on their own experience from where they came from. And a lot of states elect their chief elections officer. In fact, right now, we're hearing all over the news election deniers are on the ballot to become chief election officials. How does Virginia sort of differ from other states, and how do they organize elections?
Unknown Speaker
Right, so there are about 35 states around the country that elect a Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing elections along with a couple of other responsibilities depending on the state. But typically, that's their chief job, to oversee election administration at the state level. And then in Virginia, we are similar to like North Carolina and some Maryland actually, believe it or not, there's a board, who isn't like a policymaking board. In Virginia, the chief election official is appointed by the governor and works at the will of the governor. So that's a little bit of a different policy that Virginia has. But essentially the position that I was in was not elected, but it is essentially at the will of the chief executive in the state.
Thomas Bowman
Alright, so Chris, let's examine some of the common concerns that you hear when talking about election security, and maybe how Virginia handles them and whether or not it is a problem in Virginia. So one thing that gets alleged all the time, every election, is that, oh, well, a bunch of dead people vote. But when they actually do an audit, of course, not a lot of dead people vote, if any. So how do you know dead people are not voting in Virginia?
Unknown Speaker
Well, I can tell you that we have the department at the end of every election, general election has done a post-election report. One of the things that we do as part of that is review the list of those who voted and compare that to the list of deceased individuals. But even more than that, let me actually take a step back if you don't mind. I think one thing that's important for your listeners to understand is election officials often get frustrated because we'll go to a cookout in the summer. And you know, somebody asked me, what do you do for a living as well, I work in elections. And they said, Well, what do you do the other three years? You're not working on elections? And, of course, it's funny, right? But it's actually kind of frustrating because what people don't understand is that administering an election is a full-time job, especially in Virginia, because we have statewide elections every single year. But I think more importantly, what I want to get across is that I think of election administrators a lot like emergency managers, right? We don't ask emergency managers what they're doing when they're not, you know, dealing with a hurricane or a tornado or something like that. We know that they're planning, that they're preparing, that they're preventing or cleaning up from the latest emergency. And that's essentially what election administrators are doing day in and day out. I have yet to run across a scenario that either a conspiracy theorist or just a concerned voter has come to me with that; I can't say, yeah, we've got an answer for how to prevent that. And so I want to make that very broad point; it's really critical for listeners to understand this is what we do, we breathe, preventing fraud, and running safe and fair elections day in and day out to your point about dead people. Not only do we conduct that assessment every year. But more importantly, prior to July 1, we get a list of voters who have passed away in the Commonwealth of Virginia, both from the Bureau of vital statistics as well as from the master death file. So the Social Security Administration obviously needs to know who dies, right? So they have a master death file. And we would get that monthly, we would also get the Bureau of Vital Statistics list from Virginia. So we know monthly who has passed away. Beginning July 1, after a bill was passed in the latest General Assembly session. That list actually comes now weekly from the Bureau of vital statistics. So the list of those who have deceased is constantly updated. So it's really almost impossible for somebody not to get caught up in that and be removed. So that's what I'm that's the broader point I'm trying to make is we're constantly working to make sure that those lists are accurate and up to date. And just real quick, I'll point you to the 2018 JLARC study that was done on the Department of Elections, where they reported that our lists maintenance, making sure that our voter lists were accurate and up to date. They said we had robust lists and maintenance practices, and they made some recommendations as to how we could improve that, and we implemented those during my tenure in the Department of Elections. So really, we do a great job. I think of keeping those lists up-to-date and accurate.
Michael Pope
I like the idea of the master death file. It sounds like a good heavy metal band. So what if you had an election official who was corrupt or incompetent and didn't want to throw out the names on the master death file mean like. Is that done at a local level at a state level? What if there was an election official who screwed up or intentionally didn't throw names out specifically for the purpose of having dead people vote? What are the safeguards in place to prevent that from happening?
Unknown Speaker
Let's take a look at that. First of all, you could have maybe an incompetent election official or a corrupt one, maybe, maybe. So what happens is the master death file, the Bureau of Vital Statistics list comes down to the Department of Elections. So that we split it up, we decide we determine which voters belong to which jurisdictions. And so now you've got 133 different people managing that list. So first of all, you need all 133 to be corrupt for the entire list to be, you know, completely ignored.
Michael Pope
Well, wait, let me put you on pause there. That's the entire list. So what if there is a local election person who wants to rig a local election? And they don't throw out the names in their jurisdiction? They're one out of 133? What's the safeguard for that one local, local elected official not throwing out the names of the master death file?
Unknown Speaker
Right. Yeah, that's where I was headed. So it's basically when the department loads that list, we have a record of who's been which voters were lists loaded into that list. If we notice that no activity was being done or handled on those lists being dismissed for whatever reason, there are flags that can be thrown up that would alert us to the fact that somebody was not doing their job. So we would be able to easily flag that. And, of course, everything that's done within the voter registration system in Virginia is auditable. So what that means is if you know John Doe is doing something corrupt, or, you know, with malfeasance, you know, intentionally, we'll have a record of that, number one. Number two, if they're not doing anything, we have a record that they're not doing anything. So in that sense, that's why the department and the centralized nature of Virginia's elections are so critical because we have that kind of insight into the day-to-day operations.
Michael Pope
Alright, I definitely want to ask you about undocumented people. This is actually the thing that I personally hear most from my neighbors where I live; people who are skeptical of elections is they believe that undocumented people are voting. What safeguards are in place to make sure that people who are not documented citizens are not casting a ballot?
Unknown Speaker
Well, the first and most critical safeguard is to register to vote, right? You are required to sign under penalty of law, whether it's electronically or on paper, that you are, in fact, a citizen. And if you sign that piece of paper, saying you are a citizen, and you're not, you are potentially in violation of a class; I think it's class one felony, I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's a serious violation, it's a felony. And so that's your first safeguard.
Michael Pope
But nonetheless, people could sign that even if they are not citizens, right? I mean, like, there is the opportunity there for the person to break the law and sign that, you know, sign that document.
Chris Piper
Certainly, they can. Now I would say over 90% of our registrations these days don't come in on paper in the first place. They're electronic. So that happens at the DMV. And again, they will click, and they will note that they're not a citizen. As soon as that notation is made, it's sent over to the Department of Elections. We then filter that down to the jurisdictions, and again, even before then, that individual's information is flagged as being a noncitizen. So that's in the database, and we'll know right away. Now they can become a citizen and get that paperwork all updated. And that can remove that flag, but at that point in time, they're flagged as a noncitizen, and they wouldn't be allowed to register to vote until they get that information updated. Virginia is also required to participate in the Safe program. This is a department of homeland security database where noncitizens are registered. It's a little bit interesting because in order to do a search on that system, you have to have their green card number and if you have their green card number then you know they're not a citizen. So it's a little bit of a misnomer, but at least we have access to that database, should we need to do a check on it. So there are safeguards in place. You know, I will caveat everything I say with the fact that I believe in, and I know for a fact, because I've been in this business for a very long time, widespread fraud is impossible. Is it possible occasionally for somebody to get around the system here or there? Perhaps, but it's very rare instances of it are typically caught. But the kind of widespread fraud that is being alleged, that would overthrow, you know, 10,000, 50,000, or 100,000 votes, is simply not possible.
Thomas Bowman
Michael, real quick to chime in on the potential for undocumented voters. My experience is people who think that they don't actually know a lot of undocumented people. And the reason for that is for undocumented people, the last place they want to go is an official government website or DMV, or department. But the people who have undocumented relatives in the country are also not interested in communicating with the government is actually a really big problem. Beyond elections, you know, for Census reasons, for policy reasons, and community safety reasons, like forget immigration, like it's about safety here. So there's actually, like, it tells me more about the person who's afraid of an undocumented person voting because that means that they don't know any undocumented people or people who know undocumented people, either.
Michael Pope
I would say, I mean, having met and talked to these people over a number of years, it's not that they haven't met people who are undocumented. They might not know that they're undocumented and might not have ever had a conversation with that person about the facts or the details about what you're saying, like, there's no way on earth they would go to the DMV and try to sign a document, I understand what you're saying. But yes, these people, I mean, there is an undertone of perhaps racism here and why they're thinking.
Thomas Bowman
Let's just call it ignorance, and like, it is what it is.
Michael Pope
So there's a, there's a document that they would need to sign. They would break the law by signing the document. The election officials would have a database that would show that that individual is not in fact, a citizen of the United States when the registration was being processed. Is that kind of safeguard? Or are there more? I'm just wondering, like the way you laid out the fact that the names would show up in a database, is that at your local elected official or at the state level, or maybe both, and they would cross-check each other? How does that work?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it comes into the state system, and then it's filtered down to the locality for their review. The local general registrar in every jurisdiction in Virginia has ultimate authority over who is registered and who is not registered. I would also say that you know, while not totally publicly available, actually, a voter registration list is is is available for review in every general registrar's office. So any individual can come in and check on that. Candidates, parties, third-party groups that are that work in the election, and voting apparatus, can purchase lists and they're reviewing those lists. So there's, there's a lot of safeguards, I would actually say, you guys that we found, in our experience over the many years that I've worked in elections. We find that more people mistakenly click that they're not a citizen, and then they're removed from the voter registration rolls. There's a process that happens, mailing goes out to that individual and says, Hey, you know, you said you're not a citizen; you have 14 days to respond. And oftentimes, they don't respond, and then they go to vote, and they're told they're not on the list. And that's been a that was a frustrating situation. That happened, I think, a whole lot more than noncitizens applying and registering to vote and actually casting a ballot. Luckily, now Virginia has instituted same-day registration. So that kind of situation should help. It will not prevent an eligible citizen from voting. But, I thought, honestly, those innocent individuals that made an honest mistake got caught up in this problem way more than folks who intend to register to vote as an undocumented or illegal aliens to cast their ballot. It just it's very rare. And I mean, all of the points that you all made are situations where I think that those are safeguards already built into the system.
Thomas Bowman
Chris, there's one high-profile attempt to vote fraudulently. Of course, Virginia was the place where this person voted legally, we think. But Mark Meadows, who was registered to vote in multiple states at once, how does that happen? How does Mark Meadows or somebody like Mark Meadows get caught? My understanding is that on an individual level, it's relatively easy to do this. But at scale, it's harder. And you also would need co-conspirators willing to go along with it. And then, more importantly, not talk.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I would say that some of the accusations out there about widespread fraud would take, you know, the likes of Tony Soprano, the godfather, and a number of other mob bosses, to make these things happen. It's just it's just impossible. And I'll tell you why. Just in Virginia alone, you think about it; you have the entire Department of Elections, which is about when you add in the contractors, and everybody else is working, that's 80 people, you have the state board of elections within another five, three electoral board members times 133 localities, plus the 133, General registrar's, and their staff. And now, by the way, on election day, and in the early voting period, you're talking about hiring well over 20,000, 25,000 poll workers, we call them election officers in Virginia, and the massive amount of work you would need to do to corrupt all of those people and for nobody to speak about it is pretty amazing. To your point on the Mark Meadows situation, you know, there's a simple solution to that. And Virginia figured it out a long time ago, we were a founding member of what's called the Electronic Registration Information Center, otherwise known as ERIC. What the ERIC program does is share our voter registration list along with our DMV list with other states. And when we started, there were only seven other states, including Virginia, it was four Republican states and three democratic states. And by that I mean, the chief election official was from either the Republican Party or Democratic Party. And now it's up to 32. States, including the District of Columbia, and sharing that voter registration list. What's so great about that is, if I moved to Wisconsin, one of the first things I'm going to do, is probably register to vote. And I'm definitely going to visit the DMV, right? I need to get registered, I need to get my car registered, and I need to get my license updated. And all of that happens at the DMV. And so by sharing the voter registration list with Wisconsin and all the other states that are involved in ERIC, and the DMV list, what happens is I'm gonna get a notification in Virginia, and Virginia is gonna get a notification that Chris Piper has registered to vote and visited the DMV and claimed residency there in Wisconsin. And that starts a whole process that's outlined in a federal law called the National Voter Registration Act, better known as a motor voter. But that starts a whole process in which we confirm with that individual did you, in fact, move to Wisconsin, and that begins the process of removing them from the list. You'll note that Mark Meadows was in North Carolina, but North Carolina has yet to join ERIC. So it made it a little bit more difficult. But had they been a part of ERIC, that whole thing would have been caught and processed very, very quickly. This is a voluntary program. But it is it's been an amazing asset for the states that belong in it. And I'm proud to say that I was working in the Department of Elections back when we joined. I wasn't the chief election official. But I was working as a staffer there. And I was very proud to see this program get stood up, and I was a proud member of their board. I was the chief election official in Virginia. It's a great program, and it's the best thing that America has going for it to prevent the kind of fraud that some people allege.
Michael Pope
Chris, can I ask you about the potential for hacking, like using the internet to hack voting machines? This is another thing that I hear all the time from voters is that some Wizkid hacker could use his computer to go in and change election results. What are the safeguards standing in the way of that happening?
Unknown Speaker
Well, first of all, the biggest safeguard we have is that our voting tabulation machines are never connected to the internet. They are literally just tabulating the votes. Then they spit out a piece of paper that the election officials that are a bipartisan team of election officials in the polling place or at the central counting facility are then tabulating those results from that piece of paper. It's never connected to the internet and can't be hacked by some foreign agent. And that's your first safeguard. And by the way, while they're tallying those results that are printed off on the paper, there are typically observers from both parties watching over their shoulders to ensure that everything is proceeding as normal. The bigger the other thing that's in place, chain of custody. So these voting machines are locked and stored in a secure location, they're locked with a special locking mechanism. So when it's broken, If that seal is broken the election official No. And that machine will be taken out of commission until it can be thoroughly tested and ensured that it's, it's still operating properly and has not been messed with. There is a strict chain of custody procedures that are in place. So once that machine is taken out of wherever the secure location is, it is tracked through the entire process. By the time it got to the polling place and delivered back to the clerk's office or the registrar's office in Virginia. Again, the whole process is tracked. It is under the watchful eye of trained election officers who are sworn to uphold the oath of their office. And more importantly, I want to reiterate these last two points or iterate these last two points. The first one is logic and accuracy testing. This is a public meeting. In Virginia, it's actually not as public, but party officials are requested to attend logic and accuracy testing. And what they do is they run these machines through every single machine that's going to be deployed on election day. They run these machines through a variety of tests to ensure that they are counting the ballots correctly and that it is reporting accurately. And that it throws out ballots that are not marked correctly. And that, again, then it really just ensures that these machines are operating in the way that they're supposed to be operating. Once they're tested, they're locked in, they're sealed until they're deployed for use in the election. And again, the chain of custody is really, really important there. The last point and this is to your question. Specifically, you'll see a lot of articles and people pointing to these DEF CON election hacking scenarios. And those are all great to help us understand some of the vulnerabilities that exist in these tabulators. But ultimately, understand the reality of what these hackathons are doing. They're giving unfettered access to a voting machine. And then they're able to go in there with all of their equipment and take the thing apart, put it back together, do all of these things to it in a way that there's no possible way they would have access to a machine in this in this manner. Think about it. If I've got it locked and sealed in a secure facility. It's got a chain of custody law that follows it from that facility to the polling place and back. And then it's tested and tested again. And then think about it in the polling place. I mean, is there any point in time when all those election officers are going to have their backs turned for 30 minutes while some kid with their laptop comes in, takes apart the machine, and hacks it so that it spits out errant results? That's just not possible. Very last, very quick point. Virginia requires 100% paper ballots. Why is that important? Because let's say there is some question about the results of the election. Well, we have paper receipts, we have the actual ballots that were cast on those machines, we can go back if we need to hand count, or at least as required in Virginia law, do an audit a post-election audit on those ballots. We can do that. Because in Virginia, everything has an auditable paper trail.
Thomas Bowman
Chris, I want to wrap up with some insight, perhaps on something in the news. Right now, we're hearing a lot about this delay that the Department of Elections has a backlog of over 250,000 applications for voter registration that came from the DMV. Can you speak to, with your knowledge, that problem? Is this malfeasance? Is this incompetence? Or is this something that has that we've known about as a problem? What's going on here?
Unknown Speaker
So I think it's it's too early to say, I think, and my recommendation would be to do what we did the four years that I was there and conduct a thorough post-election report, not just on this issue, but on all of the issues that came up during the election, in the pre election process. While elections, I think, are fair, free, and secure, they're still ultimately run by humans, and humans are not perfect, and there are always ways we can improve. So I strongly suggest a thorough review of the entire election. And specific to this issue is a thorough examination of exactly what went wrong. I have yet to see a really clear explanation of exactly what happened. What I can say is that you know, while we all strive to ensure that our technology is working without issue, it's not free of flaws either. The biggest issue in 2020 just happened to be the last day of voter registration, and a stinking backhoe in Chesterfield County cut through a fiber line and shut off my entire internet for the state, so or at least for our access. So people couldn't register. They couldn't register at the DMV, and they couldn't register online. And that was completely out of our control. I'm not sure exactly what's happened. I do find it obviously concerning, like everybody else. But at the end of the day, as I mentioned earlier, Virginia has same-day registration. So if something like this happens, Virginia worked very hard over the last couple of years to ensure that there are backstops for the voter. I'm proud to say in the four years that I was the chief election official, we went from one of the harder-to-vote states to one of the easiest-to-vote states. But we also did it in such a way that ensured security and prevented this kind of widespread fraud. So honestly, it's a problem. But the good news is, is that Virginia is well positioned to ensure that the voter still has an opportunity to cast their ballot.
Michael Pope
Great, we really appreciate you joining us and walking us through all these things. And one last question, what should people have in the back of their minds when they're thinking about election security in Virginia? What should they know about the election, Virginia's election system that prevents voter fraud, or the kind of election changing type of activities that people are worried about? What should they know about Virginia's election system that stops that from happening?
Chris Piper
We spent a lot of time today talking about the facts and countering the myths and disinformation that's out there. But I think the most compelling and important thing to note when it comes to election security, election administration is not a job you get into because at eight years old, you're like, man, I really want to run elections one day, you know, it's one of these things where you're passionate about, the American system of government, you're passionate about helping people, you're passionate about ensuring that people's voices are heard. And you kind of fall into this role because of that passion. The fact of the matter is, guys, elections in Virginia and around the country are run, almost without exception, by people who are your friends, your neighbors, these are the people that you sit next to in church on Sunday, you see walking their dog down your neighborhood streets, there are people that you're sitting, standing behind in the grocery store, right? These people are just like you, they're passionate about ensuring a safe, fair, free election, and they're doing everything within their power to make sure that your vote counts. And it counts the same as each and every other eligible voter out there. They're working hard every single day to protect the election. And I think that's the biggest, the greatest strength of our system. These people are working to really, I think, defend democracy at the end of the day. And I couldn't be more proud to have worked with these people for the last four years. And in my new role, I continue to work with them from around the country. They're just amazing people. And you can trust them, I assure you.
Michael Pope
All right. Well, that is a great place to leave it. Chris Piper, thanks for joining us.
