Voting Rights Legal Battles & Midterm Election Politics with Bob Bauer, Ben Ginsberg

Dasha Burns (0:14)

Welcome to Ceasefire, where we look to bridge the divide in American politics. I'm Dasha Burns, Politico Playbook co-author. And legal battles over voting and election administration have dominated the midterm campaign season so far, with more disputes likely to come after election day. So joining me to talk about election disputes, past, present and perhaps future, are two veteran election lawyers who've had a front row seat to some of the highest profile cases in American politics. Democratic Attorney Bob Bauer, White House counsel during the Obama Administration and former counsel to the Democratic National Committee. And Republican Attorney Ben Ginsberg, National Counsel to the George W. Bush Presidential Campaigns and former counsel to the Republican National Committee. Thank you both so much for joining me here today. Thank you for having us. Okay. You two sit on opposite sides of the aisle. You were in opposition on a number of cases. But you started working together in 2013 when President Obama appointed you as bipartisan co-chairs of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

So how did this working relationship start and have you thrown things at each other in the past?

Ben Ginsberg (1:24)

We've hurled verbal insults, perhaps.

We were opponents on many, many election cases over the years. I have to say we always had a civil relationship during that.

SPEAKER_2 (1:37)

Except for the verbal hurling.

Ben Ginsberg (1:39)

Except for the verbal hurling. But that was all done in the right spirit. And we actually negotiated the 2012 presidential debates. I was representing Governor Romney. Bob was representing President Obama.

We found that the campaigns had common cause against the people who were putting on the debate.

Dasha Burns (2:00)

So you ganged up against the organizers?

Ben Ginsberg (2:03)

Yeah. Whether that was successful or not is a matter of history.

And then after the 2012 election, there were some issues involved in that. Bob asked me if I would join him.

Dasha Burns (2:20)

Bob, is that true?

Bob Bauer (2:22)

It is true. Actually, President Obama asked him to do it, but certainly with my warm recommendation, not over my protests.

Dasha Burns (2:29)

Excellent. Well, you know, I'm curious what we'll get into the stuff that we're seeing today, but I would love for you to sort of compare and contrast. What are some of the issues that were rising up? What were the trends you were seeing around voting issues back in the day, a decade or more ago versus what we're talking about today?

Bob Bauer (2:49)

I would begin by saying, and we looked at this closely, particularly with reference to long lines and other administrative dysfunction in the electoral process. Our system is spread out over thousands of voting jurisdictions. The budgetary support for our professional election administrators is not what it should be. So putting on a good election, which election administrators try very hard to do, is not easy. And we came out of that experience, and the report that was drafted presented a whole host of recommendations for best practices and reforms that were really went to the question of how could these elections be administered as efficiently as possible. And the key was, the key was not just to modernize them and enhance efficiency, but to treat voters the way that our best businesses treat their customers.

And that was essentially, I think it's fair to say Ben, one of the rallying cries of this commission.

Ben Ginsberg (3:49)

It was. Well, what's important is the voter experience. Each party wants to be able to get its supporters out to vote, to be able to cast ballots. And it's important to make it easy for people to vote, but to be sure that legal voters are voting. And within that general rubric, there's lots of rooms for things that could be done better to enhance the voting experience.

Dasha Burns (4:16)

Now, I warned you both that we were going to get into the time machine today. So I want to take a look at 2014

You both appeared together before the Senate to discuss the recommendations that you came up with. Watch.

Ben Ginsberg (4:30)

Elections and voting is an area where there can be conflict between Republicans and Democrats, but it's also a subject where Republicans and Democrats can agree on the basic principle and on common sense solutions to make the voting experience better.

Bob Bauer (4:45)

Election administration is a topic of public administration and needs to be treated as such. And the voters ought to be considered very much as we would consider any other recipients of services provided. That is to say, elsewhere in their lives Americans think a good bit about customer service and about how customer service is rendered to them and their roles as consumers and in other walks of life.