The video discusses the crucial role of Pennsylvania as a battleground state in the U.S. presidential elections, highlighting the significant resources invested by Trump and Harris in securing its 19 electoral votes. It notes the challenges of delayed vote counting due to state law and forecasts issues similar to those in 2020, with election officials worrying about conspiracy theories and potential violence. Al Schmidt, a lifelong Republican now serving as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State, addresses public concerns and misinformation, reinforcing the integrity and security of Pennsylvania's elections.

Schmidt defends the state's electoral process against claims of widespread voter fraud, primarily driven by mail-in ballot procedures highlighted by former President Trump. Despite conspiracy theories, Schmidt and other officials emphasize the security of their vote counting process, considering the thorough handling of mail-in ballots to ensure accurate results. They urge the public to maintain patience during the voting count and counter misinformation with factual updates and education efforts.

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. pivotal [ˈpɪvɪtəl] - (adjective) - Of crucial importance in relation to the development or success of something else. - Synonyms: (crucial, vital, critical)

Pennsylvania is the most pivotal battleground in the race for the White House.

2. battleground [ˈbætəlˌɡraʊnd] - (noun) - A place or situation of intense activity or conflict. - Synonyms: (conflict zone, battlefield, hotspot)

Pennsylvania is the most pivotal battleground in the race for the White House.

3. conspiracy theories [kənˈspɪrəsi ˈθɪəriz] - (noun phrase) - Beliefs that suggest events or situations are the result of a secret, often sinister, plan. - Synonyms: (schemes, plots, suspicions)

The anticipated lag, which dragged out Pennsylvania's count in 2020, now has election officials bracing for a repeat of conspiracy theories and violence at the helm.

4. voter fraud [ˈvoʊtər frɔːd] - (noun phrase) - Illegal interference with the process of an election. - Synonyms: (electoral fraud, vote rigging, election meddling)

What's the reality? voter fraud is widespread. voter fraud never happens.

5. secure [səˈkjʊr] - (adjective) - Fixed or fastened so as not to give way, become loose, or be lost. - Synonyms: (safe, protected, assured)

Elections in Pennsylvania have never been more safe and secure.

6. ballot [ˈbælət] - (noun) - A process of voting, in writing and typically in secret. - Synonyms: (vote, poll, election)

If a non citizen tried to cast a ballot, would you be able to catch it?

7. intake center [ˈɪnteɪk ˈsɛntər] - (noun phrase) - A facility where items, such as ballots, are received and processed. - Synonyms: (receiving center, processing center, collection point)

So we saw for ourselves at a ballot intake center in Chester county, outside Philadelphia.

8. exploited [ɪkˈsplɔɪtɪd] - (verb) - Make full use of and derive benefit from a resource. - Synonyms: (utilized, manipulated, leveraged)

That window of time between the polls closing and racists being called, I think has shown to be a real vulnerability where people seeking to undermine confidence in those results if they're gonna lose have really exploited those four days, allowed the big lie to take off

9. grainular ['ɡreɪnjʊlər] - (adjective) - Extremely detailed and fine. - Synonyms: (detailed, thorough, meticulous)

For Secretary Schmidt, getting out the message can mean late nights, answering questions about the electoral process in granular detail.

10. vulnerability [ˌvʌlnərəˈbɪləti] - (noun) - The quality of being open to attack or damage. - Synonyms: (weakness, susceptibility, exposure)

That window of time between the polls closing and racists being called, I think has shown to be a real vulnerability.

Pennsylvania election officials bracing for conspiracy theories, protests

Pennsylvania is the most pivotal battleground in the race for the White House, with its 19 electoral votes. It is the state where former President Trump and Vice President Harris are spending the most time and money, a combined $436 million, between them and their allies. It's also where the results could take days to count, due to a state law that prevents mail in ballots from being processed early. The anticipated lag, which dragged out Pennsylvania's count in 2020, now has election officials bracing for a repeat of conspiracy theories and violence at the helm. Lifelong Republican Al Schmidt. He stood up to former President Trump and refused to join attempts to overturn his loss four years ago. As secretary of state, Schmidt is doing everything he can between now and election day to assure residents their votes will count and to take on the lies Trump continues to spread about Pennsylvania.

The story will continue in a moment. What's the reality? voter fraud is widespread. voter fraud never happens. There is no evidence whatsoever that voter fraud takes place in any way that is widespread at all. If a non citizen tried to cast a ballot, would you be able to catch it? That's just not something that happens, because when it gets identified, there are severe consequences, whether it's prosecution and or deportation from the country. We met Secretary of state Al Schmidt last month in the state capitol in Harrisburg. We have to win Pennsylvania. The night before, former President Trump held a rally just a few hours away where he stoked fears about voting in Pennsylvania. Now we have this stupid stuff where you can vote 45 days early. I wonder what the hell happens during that 45. Let's move the cds. Votes. We've got about a million votes in there. Let's move them. Have you heard what the former president said last night at his rally here in Pennsylvania? No. He seems to be saying that there is cheating going on with mail in ballots here. There is nothing. Elections in Pennsylvania have never been more safe and secure, with a voter verified paper ballot record of every vote that's cast, whether you vote in person on election day or you vote by mail.

Schmidt once had his own doubts about election security in the last. Before becoming secretary of state, he spent a decade on Philadelphia's board of elections, where he investigated hundreds of claims of voter fraud and and changed his mind whenever it has occurred, however rarely, it's to affect some very down ticket race that is decided by a handful of votes. It's not to decide who the president of the United States is, or who the governor is, or who a senator is, or anything else like that. As secretary of state, Schmidt is visiting each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. Are you registered to vote in Pennsylvania? Your voice matters. Part roadshow, part public relations tour. Spreading the gospel of election security. Election day is November 5. You can vote by mail in advance, including a stop at a fair in deep red Columbia county. Nice to meet you. He spent more than 35 minutes trying to convince these local republicans that they can trust the voting system. But dead people voting in Philadelphia, you have a public record of when somebody died. You have a public record of when they cast their vote. They have found cases where dead people have voted. The only cases that I've encountered are when a voter has cast their ballot by mail and then passed away in between mailing and their vote and their vote being counted.

And you can see that, you know, former President Trump's got the rallies and he's got the microphone and he's got the audiences, and he can spread his message to thousands, if not millions of people. And you're here at the county fair and you've got a stand and you're doing it one to three voters at a time. Yes, you're one and a timing it. You kind of can't compete. But it's also important to have that one on one contact to go to a county fair, to engage with people to answer their questions. I love you. Philly democratic Governor Josh Shapiro told us that choosing Al Schmidt, a lifelong Republican, as his first cabinet pick last year was intended to send a clear message of all the cabinet appointments that you could have made first. Why was it Al Schmidt? I made a commitment during my campaign that I was going to appoint a pro democracy secretary of state. What were your marching orders to him? Do your job. Make it so legal, eligible voters have access to the ballot box, and that we, again, have a free and fair, safe and secure election. When you think about secretaries of state, the role, you tend to think that it respectfully, is a boring job, a mundane job, an administrative job. How's that working out for you?

It is. I mean, elections should be not something to dread. They should be something to celebrate. And voters should feel confident that if they cast their vote, whether it's by mail or in person on election day, that their vote is going to be counted. So in 2020, it took four days to call the election in Pennsylvania. What took so long? When you have half of your voters vote by mail, like we did in 2020, counting those votes takes time. We saw for ourselves at a ballot intake center in Chester county, outside Philadelphia. So this is the actual envelope and these where the ballots are returned in. And this is a sample correct? Yes. Elections administrator Karen Barsoom showed us how each ballot arrives inside two different envelopes. 94 ballots in one tray. Processing them is a tedious task, which, under Pennsylvania law, cannot start until 07:00 a.m. on election day. So when we do open it, there is another envelope. So, hypothetically speaking, if we have 100,000 mail in ballots, we have to deal with double the amount of envelopes, which is a long process, and then the ballast comes out and you can't count it folded like that. Correct. We will need to have a whole different team unfold them back, fold them to get the creases out as good as we can. How long does it take to process each ballot? Several minutes. It's not like done in a sack.

That window of time between the polls closing and racists being called, I think has shown to be a real vulnerability where people seeking to undermine confidence in those results if they're gonna lose have really exploited those four days, allowed the big lie to take off. And that's when you start hearing about truckloads of ballots, and that's when you start hearing about, you know, zombie voters. And that's when all this other stuff really starts pouring in. There have been widespread calls to bring Pennsylvania in line with the majority of other states where election workers get a head start on opening envelopes and flattening ballots ahead of election day. Why hasn't that changed? You've had four years. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is unique in that we have a divided legislature. We have a democratic House and a republican Senate. So getting anything done related to election reform has certainly been a challenge. The message is what? Be patient with Pennsylvania. The message is, please be patient. Our counties are working night and day to count their voters votes. They're doing so as quickly as they can and with integrity.

Our job is to make sure we are constantly just providing the truth to voters. To be a. For Secretary Schmidt, getting out the message can mean late nights, answering questions about the electoral process in granular detail. It takes time to count millions of votes, and it's not, as we saw at this law school in Harrisburg. We're much better prepared today, four years later than we were. Hes teamed up with fellow Republican, former Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett. The former president has a refrain at his rallies. He says Democrats rigged the election in 2020 and hes not going to let them get away with it this year. Evidence. Bring it. Any us attorney, any district attorney, bring the evidence and show them not what you want. You've got to convince a prosecutor in a court. You've got polls that show some 34% of Americans, nearly 70% of Republicans, who still to this day, believe that Joe Biden didn't win the 2020 election. But I can't change that because they believe it, because they've heard it so many times.

You've said there's a huge amount of people in the middle that can be influenced by the extremes. Is that who you're trying to educate? Yes. The extremes were not going to change, but right here and in a close election, that's very important. We won Pennsylvania twice. We won it twice. We did much better the second time than we did the first time. He continues to say that he won Pennsylvania twice. Donald Trump won in 2016 by about 44,000 votes, and Donald Trump lost in 2020 by about 80,000 votes. I understand that he's a sore loser. I understand that he wished he would have won in 2020. But attacking this system, made up of our neighbors from communities all across Pennsylvania, Republican and Democrat alike, is not the answer.

Former President Trump is refusing to commit to accepting the results if he loses. If he does refuse, what happens here in Pennsylvania? What does that look like? I think it can look, unfortunately, like what it looked like in 2020. With violence in our communities, with threats to public officials, good public officials like Al Schmidt and the republican and democratic clerks of elections. Am I worried about that? Am I concerned about that? Of course I am. Country of the giggers in 2020. As the presidential election hung in the balance, all eyes were on the Pennsylvania Convention center in Philadelphia. Outside, police and protesters surrounded the building, while inside, Al Schmidt oversaw the counting of a record 375,000 mail in ballots, most of them from democratic voters.

We're winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount of hours. After the polls closed, then President Trump demanded the counting. We don't want them to find any ballots at 04:00 in the morning and add them to the list. Okay? We were working day and night. There was one television that was working, and I happened to be passing it when I heard that speech. So immediately brought together our communications team to begin through social media platforms, assuring the rest of the world, whose eyes were on Pennsylvania that our vote counting was going to continue. But at that point, you've got the president of the United States saying, stop the count. Did you ever feel like you had to stop the count? No, not for a second.

After four days, the race in Pennsylvania was finally called for. Joe Biden. And with that, he won the White House. Former President Trump went after Al Schmidt by name on Twitter, and violent threats from Trump's supporters followed do you remember the first threat that made you go, I gotta take this one seriously? There were threats early on that were pretty generic in nature, but as days went on, they became a lot more specific. Providing my address, graphic descriptions of, you know, what they would do to my family. They used a picture of your house at one point, I understand, listed your children's names repeatedly. You had to move your family out of your house for safety. Yes. They had to relocate for a period, and we had security around the clock for many months.

Given all the threats that you faced personally, I've got to ask why you would agree to take this job. Well, everything is on the line. Our entire system of government, our country as it was founded, is on the line.

Politics, Leadership, Global, Election Security, Misinformation, Pennsylvania Elections, 60 Minutes