On Sunday, CBS’s Face the Nation featured a wildly partisan so-called election “expert” to declare Republican-backed voting reform legislation in states across the country to be a “national security issue” that must be stopped. The leftist pundit fearmongered and repeatedly warned of utter “chaos” if the GOP laws were enacted.
“Since the November election, seventeen states have enacted new laws that tighten rules around casting ballots and running elections,” fill-in host John Dickerson fretted at the top of the segment. Moments later, sounding indistinguishable from Stacey Abrams or Nancy Pelosi, Becker ranted: “So we’re seeing a lot of highly partisan efforts to make it harder for some people to vote....I’m also very concerned about are unprecedented efforts to inject toxic partisanship into the counting of ballots and the certification of election results...”
Desperately trying to scare viewers, Becker direly predicted:
...you’re going to see potentially chaos from things like what we’re seeing in Texas, where they’re introducing efforts to allow for partisan poll watchers to roam free within the polling place, interfering with the process. Where we’re seeing efforts to criminalize activities by professional election administrators who are trying to make it easier and more efficient and more secure for elections to be run. We’ve never really seen that before and it could be potentially a national security issue.
He further claimed that not allowing a laundry list of different voting methods over the course of several weeks leading up to Election Day would spell doom for democracy:
I think another thing that’s really important here is when we talk about election integrity, it is actually good for election integrity when we have more people voting in different ways over a period of time. We don’t want to have a single point of failure on Election Day, where if something goes wrong, we can’t fix it. If we learn of a problem at 1:00 p.m. on Election Day, it’s very hard to fix by the time the polls close. But if we have people voting by mail, people voting early in person, and people voting on Election Day, as we saw in most states in 2020, we can actually find problems early and fix them so they don’t affect the outcome of the election.
It’s not clear what Becker meant by being able to “fix” election “problems” once people were already voting.
Dickerson then helpfully tried to draw a connection being having fewer voting methods and supposed election “chaos”: “...if those ways of voting are limited, then does that mean there’s the opportunity for more chaos? Is this what you were talking about in terms of national security? There’s more opportunity for chaos, and our – America’s enemies love opportunities for chaos.”
Becker wailed: “That’s right. Imagine now we’re in a highly partisan environment, we’re concentrating more voting on Election Day in polling places where there might be long lines, where partisan poll watchers have free reign to engage in chaos, and then we are now injecting partisanship into the counting and certification process, where partisans might be tempted to overturn the will of the people and they are somewhat empowered to do that by their legislators.”
After allowing his guest to spew such paranoid conspiracy theories, Dickerson made it clear which side of the political spectrum Becker was on: “...tell me about what your sense is the prospects of abilities to push back against some of these measures that you find alarming, that Democrats certainly find alarming, either in Congress or at the local level?”
Was there really any need to distinguish Becker from his fellow Democrats?
He certainly didn’t try to dissuade Dickerson of the notion that he was in league with Democrats: “Yeah, we don’t have many ways to fight back at this point...maybe Congress does have a small window here, where Republicans and Democrats of goodwill can come together on a – on some kind of bill that actually could establish a foundation for democracy that could get fifty votes.”
Throughout the past several months, Becker has routinely appeared on CBS to deliver Democratic Party talking points disguised as objective analysis. Featured in a June Evening News report, Becker worried that it would soon be too late for Democrats to rig elections with radical federal legislation. In April, the broadcast brought on Becker to warn against the “really bad” voting reform law in Georgia. Back in March, Becker went on CBS This Morning to proclaim: “...all of these efforts in the states like Georgia are based on the big lie....President Biden was absolutely right yesterday when he called the effort anti-American.”
The liberal media hype attacking modest election changes has become completely unhinged. There’s never any attempt to reign in over-the-top rhetoric. Instead, hosts like Dickerson egg on wild claims from pundits like Becker.
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Here is a full transcript of the July 18 segment:
11:20 AM ET
JOHN DICKERSON: Since the November election, seventeen states have enacted new laws that tighten rules around casting ballots and running elections. In an effort to keep Texas from becoming the 18th, Democrats in the state legislature staged a dramatic protest, flying to Washington, to block Republicans from passing a more restrictive voting law. To help us put those challenges into perspective, we’re joined by David Becker, the director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. Welcome. Nice to have you here, David.
DAVID BECKER [EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR ELECTION INNOVATION AND RESEARCH]: Thanks. Great to be here, John.
DICKERSON: There’s a lot going on. So just put us – give us the basic perspective of what’s going on with all of these different voting rights efforts?
BECKER: So we’re seeing a lot of highly partisan efforts to make it harder for some people to vote. They do appear to be targeted in some ways to ensure that in particular the Republican Party right now might be perceived to have a better chance of winning some elections. But what I’m also very concerned about are unprecedented efforts to inject toxic partisanship into the counting of ballots and the certification of election results that occur during election and after an election, where you’re going to see potentially chaos from things like what we’re seeing in Texas, where they’re introducing efforts to allow for partisan poll watchers to roam free within the polling place, interfering with the process. Where we’re seeing efforts to criminalize activities by professional election administrators who are trying to make it easier and more efficient and more secure for elections to be run. We’ve never really seen that before and it could be potentially a national security issue.
DICKERSON: So I’ll get to the national security issue in a second. But, essentially, do we have two baskets of concern here? One is limits and challenges to just getting to the polling place and the right to vote. And then the second is what you do after those votes are cast and who gets to oversee them and who gets to question them and that kind of thing. Are those the two basic categories?
BECKER: I think that’s basically right.
(...)
DICKERSON: So back to your – the two categories you were talking about, the problems with voting and then the problems after the vote is cast. Republican leader – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said these are commonsense measures out in the country. They’re just trying to unwind the measures that were brought in under the age of COVID and – and sort of restore things to the way it was before. Is – is that an accurate characterization of the scope of things that are being suggested?
BECKER: I don’t think it’s entirely accurate. I think what we’re seeing in light – it’s always a good idea after an election to look at what actually worked based on facts, and maybe consider ways to improve that. And there are ways to increase integrity while also increasing access. What we’re seeing here are things like in Georgia, for instance, where they ran not only the most successful highest turnout election they’ve ever held, but they actually ran two of them within a two-month period of time. But they did this with paper ballots for the first time in two decades, and they were able to count every one of those presidential ballots three times, three different ways once entirely by hand. We should be applauding those efforts.
I think another thing that’s really important here is when we talk about election integrity, it is actually good for election integrity when we have more people voting in different ways over a period of time. We don’t want to have a single point of failure on Election Day, where if something goes wrong, we can’t fix it. If we learn of a problem at 1:00 p.m. on Election Day, it’s very hard to fix by the time the polls close. But if we have people voting by mail, people voting early in person, and people voting on Election Day, as we saw in most states in 2020, we can actually find problems early and fix them so they don’t affect the outcome of the election. That’s a very good integrity measure.
DICKERSON: So is – so if – if those ways of voting are limited, then does that mean there’s the opportunity for more chaos? Is this what you were talking about in terms of national security? There’s more opportunity for chaos, and our – America’s enemies love opportunities for chaos.
BECKER: That’s right. Imagine now we’re in a highly partisan environment, we’re concentrating more voting on Election Day in polling places where there might be long lines, where partisan poll watchers have free reign to engage in chaos, and then we are now injecting partisanship into the counting and certification process, where partisans might be tempted to overturn the will of the people and they are somewhat empowered to do that by their legislators. This is something – this could be a void that our adversaries see and try to exploit in some ways.
DICKERSON: So in about the last thirty seconds we have, tell me about what your sense is the prospects of abilities to push back against some of these measures that you find alarming, that Democrats certainly find alarming, either in Congress or at the local level?
BECKER: Yeah, we don’t have many ways to fight back at this point. We’ve – we’ve gone seven months into the year. Clearly, one thing we need to do is everyone needs to stand up and say this election was valid, it was secure, and applaud the election officials who ran it. But, secondly, maybe Congress does have a small window here, where Republicans and Democrats of goodwill can come together on a – on some kind of bill that actually could establish a foundation for democracy that could get fifty votes. So far we haven’t seen an election bill that could get fifty votes. And so the filibuster is not necessarily relevant at – as of yet.
DICKERSON: Alright. I’m going to have to cut – cut you off. We’re out of time, David. Thanks so much.
