SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Once again, Pennsylvania is the biggest battleground state in this year's presidential election. And once again, misinformation and outright disinformation about Pennsylvania elections is circulating.
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AL SCHMIDT: Over the past 24 hours, we've seen several videos shared widely online that lack proper context or were inaccurate, leading to false narratives.
DETROW: That's Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican, in a video message decrying what he called bad faith actors who, quote, "exploit fears about our elections and manufacture outrage." Though he did not mention anyone by name, hours earlier, former President Trump had posted a message online that began with - Pennsylvania is cheating. Now, four years ago, Trump lost Pennsylvania and other key states to Joe Biden and responded by casting doubt about the outcome and trying to overturn the result. Trump is signaling he may try similar tactics this year, which is where people like Pennsylvania's former governor Tom Corbett come in. Corbett is now with a group called Keep Our Republic.
TOM CORBETT: It is an effort to demystify what I think a lot of people didn't understand, never knew, never bothered to know because it wasn't necessary, except for what happened in 2021.
DETROW: That would be January 6, 2021, the culmination of Trump's attempts to overturn the election results. Corbett is a Republican, though Keep Our Republic is a bipartisan group with the goal of educating the public about the elections process from when the polls close until the certification by Congress of electoral votes on January 6, 2025. Earlier this week, I asked Corbett if education was really the issue.
There have been people like you pointing out how clear the court record was, how clear the evidence was, and yet there has been a real persistence in Republican voters, especially, in saying, no, the election was rigged; no, the election was stolen. Do you think it's an education issue?
CORBETT: Well, I think it's an education issue to maybe undecideds that are out there or people who haven't made up their mind or who are not part of one group or another. It's also an education issue to the media. And I think it's been very successful. I've seen a lot of reporting covering this now in the last six months. Obviously, that's because we're closer to the election as we speak here today. And it's necessary to continue to try and have a voice out there in my mind that explains the process to people. You're not going to overcome somebody standing on the bandbox and screaming this or that one way or the other. But having a group of individuals who have served in positions, such as myself, or U.S. attorneys or federal judges, out there as a counterbalance - that, I think, is extremely important.
DETROW: Are you planning on running for office again at any point?
CORBETT: No, I'm not planning on running for office.
DETROW: The reason I asked that is I'm wondering, do you think a Republican with a goal of running again could be making the argument that you're making right now, given the dynamics?
CORBETT: Well, the dynamics and politics are always changing, as you well know. And frankly, I think President Trump's dynamic is one that if he is unsuccessful may pass from the present-day politic, may not. I don't know. But I have no intention of running 'cause I'm 75 years old. And I think that's old enough to be in any office, and we should be moving on. We have a lot of young people out there that could do the job just as well or better.
DETROW: I want to talk about what happens over the next week or so and what happens from Election Day on in a minute. But first, I just want to ask one more question about the way that the false narratives about last election have kind of dug into place. Have you had a face-to-face conversation doing this project where you've changed somebody's mind? And if so, what was the most effective argument?
CORBETT: Well, yes, I mean, friends of mine who believe that it's all rigged and everything, I think I've changed their mind in that because I've used my background as a prosecutor. And I said, you know, you can allege anything you want, but you have to be able to prove it. And four years into this, there hasn't been any evidence that anything was rigged, that anything was done to create a different outcome. I'll oftentimes say, has there been cheating in politics in the past? Sure - but not to the magnitude that somebody is saying that the entire election is rigged. And I think my statement of that and my reputation convinces people to at least believe that statement, even though some other people say, well, they're going to hack into the internet. Well, they can't - at least not in Pennsylvania, and I'm pretty sure that's the same in the other 49 states and the territory of Puerto Rico.
DETROW: What are your biggest concerns? What are your biggest worries about next Tuesday onward in Pennsylvania specifically when it comes to the vote tallying, when it comes to the results, when it comes to how those results are framed?
CORBETT: I think I'm worried about violence on the outside, whether that might be foreign influence. I'm worried about people trying to intimidate, maybe intimidate people when they're in line at a polling place or to intimidate the election officials. I'm worried about the lack of civility that we see. I think - I mean, I'm an optimistic at heart. I think the vast majority of the polling places, we're going to be fine. I worry about some of the polling places that, you know, may have a reputation of being a little tougher to go to or to present yourself to. And you have to worry that somebody's going to, again, continue to say, well, everything's rigged, and, you know, the vote has already been determined. It hasn't been.
I think one of the positives now, though, is early voting. A lot of people have already voted. I'm very confident that between that process and the new equipment that they have, the Election Count Reform Act and the money that was supplied between the federal government and the state to the local election officials to continue to have overnight counting of the ballots are going to be very helpful in the long run.
DETROW: I do want to ask as you talk about how people view elections, how people think elections are fair or not, the potential of violence of the polls, all of these things - do you think all of this is a Donald Trump problem, or do you think it's a broader problem?
CORBETT: I think it's a broader problem.
DETROW: Yeah.
CORBETT: I think President Trump has brought it to everybody's attention with some of his presentations and allegations. We have a problem with where we're looking for our information because of the internet, because of the cellphones, and where you're divided as a country between red team and blue team with people in between. And we're not being open enough to listen to what the other team has to say.
DETROW: That's Tom Corbett, the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania. Thanks so much for talking to us.
CORBETT: Thank you, Scott.
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