Transcript: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Al Schmidt on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Oct. 27, 2024

The following is a transcript of an interview with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Al Schmidt on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 27, 2024.

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MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the top election officials in two battleground states. Arizona, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes joins us from Phoenix, and Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Al Schmidt joins us from Harrisburg. Welcome, and I appreciate the two of you having this conversation in a bipartisan manner. You are in non partisan roles as the top election officials in your states. So very quick question to both of you. Secretary Fontes, first, will you commit to certifying the election results even if the winner is of the opposite political party?

SECRETARY OF STATE ADRIAN FONTES: Yes, without question, that’s our duty, and I believe all of my colleagues across the country would do the same?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Schmidt?

SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH AL SCHMIDT: Absolutely without any hesitation whatsoever.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Now that we’ve set the table on the very basics here, I want to ask you about some of the recent news. The FBI director said this past week, it is incomprehensible and unacceptable that election workers have to be worried about their security. But here we are, and we know the Department of Justice, just this past week, did indict individuals for making threats to workers in both of your states. Secretary Fontes, one of my CBS colleagues is reporting Maricopa County is significantly increasing security and using drones, using fencing and other measures. I’ve read news organizations say there are going to be snipers on top of tabulation centers. First of all, is that true? That seems extraordinary, and is that based on specific threat intelligence?

SEC. FONTES: Well, first and foremost, the authority and jurisdiction over the specific tabulation centers are within the counties. My office provides support for all of them, and frankly, we don’t get into the specifics when it comes to our safety and security protocols, particularly the source or frequency or nature of any of the specific threats. We are in the kind of a circumstance right now where we’re taking whatever precautions are necessary to ensure not just the security of the vote, but of all of our employees, our workers at the polls, at our tabulation centers, and of course, keeping first and foremost in mind the safety and security of our voters.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Can you say, at a minimum, whether that’s increased from what you had to do in 2020?

SEC. FONTES: It’s absolutely, completely different from 2020. In fact, I remember in 2018 our greatest security threat was a rattlesnake in the parking lot at the Pinnacle Peak precinct. So this is a radically different set of circumstances that we are dealing with, but we are prepared, and we’re going to have a secure election.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secreatary Schmidt, what have you had to do in the Commonwealth?

SEC. SCHMIDT: As part of the lessons learned from the experience of 2020, the Shapiro administration organized an election threat task force that I lead made up of federal, state and local partners in law enforcement and election administration, so that if any of the ugliness returns that we experienced in 2020. Everyone will be ready. In 2020 it was, as Secretary Fontes said, so different than before, and many of us had to scramble to figure out when threats were incoming, where do we refer them to, and and all the rest of that. Now we have open lines of communication. Everybody is very clear about what everyone else’s responsibilities are, so we’ll be prepared. Should, again, any of that ugliness return.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Schmidt, you heard me discuss with Senator Vance, the specific intelligence that the ODNI and the FBI revealed on Friday about a fake video made by Russia to trick people into believing that ballots were being destroyed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. How concerned are you about what US intelligence has uncovered, and why do you think they’re targeting your state?

SEC. SCHMIDT: Well, I’m, I’m very concerned, and it’s and it’s clear that bad faith foreign actors are seeking to undermine confidence in our election results, and it’s no surprise that they’ve targeted several of the so-called battleground states and Pennsylvania. The video that you’re referring to from Bucks County, to anyone who has years of experience in election administration, was conspicuously fake. But if you don’t, it’s so easy for people to be sort of deceived by by others trying to undermine confidence in our system of government. So it’s important that that our counties remain vigilant, that our Commonwealth remains vigilant, and our federal partners remain vigilant, and to call out any of these sort of efforts to deceive our voters.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Fontes another specific warning from US intelligence was some of the mind hacking, the lies being sown in the minds of potential voters. And one specific thing that US intelligence says Russian influence actors are doing, are posting allegations about the possibility of “illegals,” undocumented people, voting in this country. You are a border state. We have heard a number of Republican officials, including on this program, try to argue that this is a real concern. Elon Musk is arguing that and amplifying that, what are you doing in Arizona to make sure that non-citizens are not voting in federal elections, which is already against the law?

SEC. FONTES: Well, first and foremost, if and when something like that happens, it is absolutely vanishingly rare. No system is perfect, and I’ll admit that right off the top. But the allegation that this is something that might turn an election or is something much bigger than it is, that’s the nonsense that we are dealing with. And unfortunately, we still have candidates, elected officials and folks with large megaphones lying. They are directly lying to the American public, and they are basically playing the role of useful idiots. Now we know for sure two foreign enemies who want to sow distrust in our democracy. They want us to be losing that civic faith that we have in one another as Americans and dividing us further. Again, the source for a lot of this information and misinformation, I should say, is coming from outside of the United States. It gets amplified by folks in America who are helping those folks, and that’s just bad, and it’s bad for our democracy. It’s bad for business, it’s bad for the law and education and science and everything else. So what I encourage folks to do is stop being a Russian puppet. Look to the folks who are actually doing the work, ask them what’s actually happening, and go with the truth, instead of amplifying lies from foreign adversaries.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Schmidt, what are you doing to make sure that non citizens are not able to vote which is already against the law?

SEC. SCHMIDT: Well, Margaret, I was a Republican Election Commissioner in Philadelphia County for 10 years. And I assure you, and I assure your viewers, and I assure voters that I care as much about election integrity as anyone possibly could. I investigated hundreds of allegations of vote voter fraud over that time, whether it involved double voting or allegations of people voting for dead people or non-citizens, and what that research showed time and time again was how incredibly rare it was that it occurred and how easy it is to catch whenever there are incidents of it. There are safeguards in the system from tooth detail to make sure that that voter fraud in the few instances it does occur, is identified, investigated and responsibly prosecuted.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Schmidt on Friday, the Lancaster County district attorney did report incidents of voter registration fraud among a group of about 2500 ballots. What can you tell us at this point about how many of those ballots were actually fraudulent and what happens next? Who’s behind it?

SEC. SCHMIDT: The county reached out to us right away, as soon as they became aware of it for guidance. As far as we can see, the county is is pursuing this investigation responsibly. The county hasn’t concluded that investigation, so I can’t speak to the number of cases yet. We will be relying on them to make that determination and be supportive of our county partners. As part of our commitment, I visited 67 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties to sit down with them and make sure that if there are additional resources, they need additional equipment, or anything else like that, we provide that to them so that we have a free, fair, safe and secure election in 2024 just as we had in 2020.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And it was notable in my interview with Senator Vance that he said he was confident in Pennsylvania, but when I asked about litigation, he raised the possibility of non-citizen voting and said they would be open to litigation if that were to happen.

SEC. SCHMIDT: Well, the good thing about our judicial system, which is really where our disputes should be settled, is it is always something of a “put up or shut up” moment when it comes to providing actual evidence of actual problems, and that when people are involved in litigation and lawsuits, they have to present that evidence. And I think that’s why, time and time again, in many dozens of cases, in 2020 every one of those cases upheld that our elections were accurate and were not susceptible to any sort of widespread voter fraud or anything like that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Fontes. 95% of all ballots cast in battleground states will be recorded on paper; however, President Trump said this on Joe Rogan’s podcast about a conversation he just had with Elon Musk.

[JOE ROGAN DONALD TRUMP INTERVIEW SOT]

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He said to me that unless you have paper ballots, it can never be an honest election. That’s a big statement.

JOE ROGAN: It’s a big statement.

DONALD TRUMP  10:22  

We should go to paper ballots. You’re done by nine o’clock in the evening. Right now, we have the sophisticated machine that goes up to heaven. It goes all over the place and down and around, and they say we’ll need two weeks to figure out who the hell won the election.

[END SOT]

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Secretary, do you want to set the record straight? And how long will it take you in Arizona to know the results?

SEC. FONTES: Well first, I’m glad that Mr. Trump agrees with the security of Arizona’s elections, where we have 100% paper ballots, and have had so in Arizona for several decades. Number two, it’s going to take us as long as it has always taken us, while we have more voters, and in many cases and counties, a lot more voters. The time that it takes us to process our ballots is based on doing it right the first time, not doing it quickly for news cycles or for the sake of political satisfaction. We will have official results in about 10 to 13 days. But everybody knows that the networks and the newspapers will make their prognostications whenever they see fit based on their math, and that’s just the way it works. We’re perfectly confident that we’re going to have what we need when we need it, which is when it happens and it will be accurate.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Schmidt, how quickly will you know the results in Pennsylvania?

SEC. SCHMIDT: Pennsylvania is at something of a unique disadvantage in that our counties cannot begin processing mail in ballot envelopes until 7am on election morning. Plenty of other states red and blue alike allow that process to begin days, if not weeks, in advance. But a couple things have changed since 2020. Counties have acquired additional equipment that assist with the processing of those ballots and ballot envelopes. They have a lot more experience than they had in 2020. Which is the first time any of us encountered in Pennsylvania, mail ballot voting in a large scale. And also the percentage of voters, while it’s still widely embraced, the percentage of voters voting by mail has decreased since 2020 during that peak COVID environment. So there are several factors that will, I think, contribute to knowing results earlier, even though the law hasn’t changed. But as Secretary font has said, it always comes down to, and has always, ever come down to how close an election is before you know who won and who lost.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Exactly. And as our, Anthony Salvanto, our CBS Elections and Surveys Director, was telling us, this is a tight one. So, we will be watching what’s happening in your states very carefully. Thank you for level setting with all of us. We’ll be back in a moment.