Benjamin Hovland

And he's still trying to sow as much distrust as possible.

Benjamin Hovland, former commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission, who was pushed out by the Trump administration this year, said, "What you're seeing is using the apparatus of government, using federal agencies, using taxpayer dollars to push that narrative that only undermines confidence in our democracy and ultimately hurts voters and election officials." Trump keeps claiming widespread election fraud.

He's also placed at least 25 election deniers in critical county-level election positions across the country.

You guys, what we're covering here is the fix, and the fix is he is trying to get this fix in, and that's why we want to shine a light on it.

Mr. Trump's Homeland Security Secretary recently pushed for an investigation into whether a commonly used voting machine can be trusted, casting doubt on digital voting systems.

This is far from over, said Benjamin Hovland, who was ousted from the Independent Bipartisan Election Assistance Commission by the Trump administration this year.

Mr. Hovland acknowledged that the Supreme Court's decision mitigated real-world impact on voters and election workers, particularly since voters in some states have already begun to mail in their ballots.

But he said Mr. Trump's actions were alarming.

Um, but I do think that the work of the agency is not over, and I do know that there are still great people there.

And so the legacy that, that Ben Hovland and myself and the two Republicans, Don, um, Palmer and Christy McCormick, have built, um, in the last seven years, I think will be the foundation for elections moving forward.

And I say this all the time, that Americans should have no fear about the way that the election will function this way r- in November of twenty twenty-six, because election officials have done their jobs in terms of making sure that they, those who are eligible to vote, should be able to p- cast their votes and have those votes counted accurately, and I have no doubt that that will happen.

The, the questions I have is, you know, will the results be taken, um, on face value? Um, and so what will be the reaction to that?