GOP Senator Gives Trump BAD NEWS On The SAVE Act

Don't further undermine the confidence of the American people by saying, my goodness, they can't get this implemented, the election must be invalid. That is not America that I signed up, that is not an America that anybody should sign up for. I have been trying to explain for nearly a year that the SAVE Act, whether it's the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, the new SAVE legislation that's being proposed in the House, SAVE goes to Hollywood, SAVE goes to Hawaii, whatever the sequels are, all of them are fundamentally flawed and impossible to implement by this election. Now let me explain why. In addition to actually having experience with legislating, ratifying, and implementing voter ID law in North Carolina, I also happen to be a partner at Pricewaterhouse, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and IBM Global Business Services. My entire career has been founded on implementation. When you look at implementation, you look at the complexity of what it takes to get anything done, even the most simple thing. The reason why businesses pay firms like Pricewaterhouse to do what we do is because details matter, planning matters, execution matters. Now let's talk about the SAVE Act, or the SAVE America Act, or whatever the heck they're calling the next thing that they're talking about putting in the reconciliation bill. Mr. President, states fit into two categories when it comes to how they administer elections. There are 41 states — I'm going to have to do this differently, I'll have to write this — there are 41 states, Mr. President, that administer at the county level — and I'm doing this to better explain it to my friend, the senior senator from Utah — 41 states at the county level. What does that mean? Well, in North Carolina, it means that we have 100 counties, and we have the state. We have 101 election entities that would have to implement whatever we put into law in North Carolina. If you multiply that by the 41 states that do it the same way, we have almost 4,000. Let's narrow it down because somebody said we overestimate. We have over 3,000. It's actually somewhere around 3,600. 3,000 governmental entities that have to implement the letter of this law, okay? So we'll just go with 3,000, keep it low. Now, we have nine states that actually administer at the state, county, and municipal level. That actually adds about another 7,000 governmental entities that would have to implement the letter of this law, whatever the law is, all right? Mr. President, the election is going to be held on the second Tuesday of November, right? We're August, September, October, right? So we have fewer than — let's just call it 100 days before the election. You're telling me that whatever proposal is being considered in the House can come and get done in the House, which it hasn't done, come to the Senate, get ratified, come to the Senate, get passed, go to the president's desk. Let's say all that. Let's just say a miracle occurred. We take it out of the crockpot, put it in the microwave. We get it done in two weeks, right? Okay, well, two weeks from now happens to be about the first week of August. So that would be August, September, October. Three months to implement — three months after ratification — to implement complex voter ID policy that is generally administered at the state level in time for this election. Well, it can't be implemented on day one, right? South Dakota actually starts voting 46 days before the election. Number one, you got to go back and tell these 10,000 different entities, we don't know what the timing is, we got to implement this stuff. So your early voting, your absentee ballot voting, the people that requested ballots, the military members overseas that are actually getting teed up with the current laws, that's all off the books. And we're going to get you something new in 60 days. Folks, I've done implementation work. The math doesn't work. I have to believe that these people who are Ivy League educated, qualified to go to the Supreme Court, can do basic math. It can't be done. It can't be a serious effort. And if it is a serious effort, I would suggest that they engage somebody who's actually implemented it before, instead of assuming that they can, because they simply can't. And so when I have somebody put a microphone up in my face and say, why are you against voter ID? I'd say, first, do your homework. I ratified it. I fulfilled a promise. We have solid elections in North Carolina. I'm against it because people are selling you a bill of goods. When I had this discussion with the senior senator from Utah, it was like, well, you know, I understand that it doesn't work in practice, but it should work in theory. Well, I don't work. He didn't say that, but that's effectively how he responded to it. I don't work in a theoretical world. I grew up in a trailer park. I worked as a management consultant. I worked in a practical world. And in a practical world, I don't care how much you want voter ID done, the only thing you're going to have in this election is 72 members of the Senate who already have voter ID in their states. Did you know that? You'd think that we didn't have any. 36 of our states already have voter ID. You want to sit down here and talk about how you upped the bar and you give people a year or two to get it implemented? Fine. But don't fool the American people into thinking you can implement something of this complexity over 60 days. My God, it needed to happen two years ago. As a matter of fact, the senior senator from Utah's legislature has recently changed their policy, which I think they should have called for years ago, of mass mailing ballots to everybody, right? This should be fairly simple. You're only going from mass mailing ballots to saying, hey, you got to request them, right? They've decided to take three years to implement that. I would ask the senior senator from Utah, why don't they speed it up? Why don't we do it this year? If we can do something as expansive of all this that they've tried to do and the three different sequels to say that, you can certainly do that in Utah, can't you? Because the effect of this bill would be to eliminate it anyway. So get her done. Do it now. Or let's start being honest with the American people. We should figure out a way to get every state to get to voter ID. We should put in grants that say, if you hit this threshold, we will help you implement the implementation. And if you don't, we're going to spend that money to audit your elections. That's fine. That's good governance. And that's given the states the option to decide whether or not they want to up the ante and increase the integrity of their elections or expect an audit from the federal government if they don't. That is what I would be advising my client. This is what I'm advising my client right now, the president of the United States, like CEOs that I've advised before. Mr. President, these people are misleading you if they're telling you that this can be implemented by November. The only thing that will occur is an undermining of the integrity of our elections right now. So folks, from North Carolina, our state motto is to be rather than to seem. This seems like a legit proposal, but it isn't. And it hasn't been for the last year because you couldn't have gotten it done with 10,000 election entities if we'd passed it last July. So let's be honest with the American people. Let's focus on getting every state to have voter ID. Let's provide funding that lets the states opt into it and have a consequence if they don't in terms of audits. But let's stop the charade. Let's stop the distraction. Let's get the government funded. Let's use reconciliation if we need to. But let's not clog it up with another piece of policy airdropped by a member of this Senate or the White House that will undermine this bill, undermine what we need to get done before the election. And so, Mr. President, the fact is we're not going to have 10,000 people doing things radically by election day. What we're going to do if we continue down this path is to convince the American people that you can't count on your election results. And that is dangerous. That is irresponsible. If you see voting improprieties in your state, report them. There are tools right now to investigate them. But don't further undermine the confidence of the American people by saying, my goodness, they can't get this implemented. The election must be invalid. That is not America that I signed up. That is not an America that anybody should sign up for. We got to do it right, and we've got to do the work. So, Mr. President, if I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wills of government until people cop a clue and do the math. Thank you, Mr. President.