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Early voting begins in WH race amid court challenges

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    Is voter fraud a big concern?

  • Duration 4:21
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Twenty minutes past the hour on studio -- the first voting in the race for the White House is under way right now even though Election -- is still will much more than a month away.

Handful of states already accepting absentee ballots by mail and tomorrow Idaho and South Dakota are set to start in person early voting already.

It's not without controversy of course Democrats in the swing states of Florida and Ohio -- challenging the Republican legislation that cuts down on the number of early voting days.

Opponents say the restrictions could -- -- turnout of low income or minority voters but supporters say it would help limit cases of election fraud.

Doing -- political science professor George -- George Mason University just -- DC Michael McDonald is with us.

He's a non resident fellow at the Brookings Institution which described itself as I mentioned earlier as a nonpartisan public think today good to see you sir thank you.

Strictly with you voter fraud huge.

Problem.

Well as far as we can tell where the vote fraud does -- it occurs primarily a mom absentee voting so what's starting right now.

And some of the positive and implemented don't really directly addressed.

The the sources their main part of what we see in the system and but there's not much of it is there or is there a lot how would you qualify.

Very well I mean we've had millions and millions of voters in the last years and the likelihood -- broke broke vote fraud occurring.

Is -- -- on the order of winning the lottery on the order when it will winning the lottery is like eleven.

Eleven billion or something -- not -- yes it's a very rare and frequent sort of thing but when it does happen we are concerned and election officials to take these allegations seriously they investigate them fully.

Usually what happens if the allegations come out and then afterwards we find out that maybe someone signed on the wrong.

Line on a whole book or something of that nature and that's the source of the air wasn't really that vote fraud -- all right so.

Engaging in generally generally speaking of the court's been siding with.

More opportunity for people to vote or less opportunity for people to vote.

That's a very difficult question to answer it's mixed I mean the courts -- certainly upheld.

Photo identification laws and in Indiana for example very important case out of there.

But we just had the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court.

Overturned RA implementation of a a -- and Pennsylvania we don't know -- exactly that what's gonna happen there because a lower court has to make another ruling.

But it certainly appears as so that -- product educational be suspended at least for this one election Pennsylvania so he can see.

These directions -- muddied depending on which court you're talking about.

OK we we go through and everything about loading data and have a decent picture I guess of who is most likely to vote early it's -- tell us who these people who are being made -- voting now war.

For the people.

Over voting now we're voting by mail are on in historically and even in 2008.

I tended to be Republican candidates are Republican voters -- said.

And you know there are some exceptions of course Oregon -- all by mail and -- -- votes mostly by mail.

Colorado mostly by mail so.

I mean I'm not talking about those states and document states -- there may be a mixed motive voting both in person and mailing and election in person early voting.

You see.

Republicans by and large voting in her it by mail and so.

The votes are doing right now we can actually see this in statistics have North Carolina.

We see more Republican registered Republicans have voted so far by mail and North Carolina -- registered Democrats.

Do that as time goes on.

If it becomes very clear that people in some states.

Have all -- had a lot easier when it comes to voting than people in other states.

Is there have been a push it all on the national level to say hey just because you live in North Carolina doesn't mean you audio lot more time to vote than somebody who lives in Idaho or whatever.

You know that's what our founding fathers decided upon -- when they wrote the constitution.

They said it's really up to the states now that the federal government can come -- and and sets a minimum guidelines for -- in fact.

We used to have early voting in this country -- we used to vote over several days it wasn't until the 1840s that.

The federal government set a uniform day of voting for that first Tuesday -- first Monday.

In November or so prior to that we had early voting we had voting over several days.

-- -- see how this all plays out Michael O'Donnell with us for bookings it's Brookings Institution -- thank you thank.

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