Meet Tre Hargett – the Secretary of State from the Greatest State in the Union!

[00:00:11] Welcome back to another episode of The Political Life. Today we come to you from the great state of Tennessee. Unfortunately, Maggie Mick and myself, we are not in Tennessee, but our guest, the Secretary of State Hargett, is in Tennessee, and we couldn't be more excited to have him on. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:36] Thank you. Honored to be asked. I can't believe how many other people must have charged you now for you to reach down and grab me and ask me to be on.

[00:00:43] Well, we won't disclose that, but no, we are very honored to have you on. And Maggie, you want to say hello?

[00:00:52] Hello, Terry. I was actually in Tennessee yesterday, so it was nice to be in the Volunteer State when Vanderbilt beat Alabama.

[00:01:00] You were at that game?

[00:01:02] No, but we were in Nashville for fall break.

[00:01:04] Oh.

[00:01:05] Well, it's always good to see good prevail over evil.

[00:01:11] Well, that was quite a game. Incredible. Incredible.

[00:01:18] So, look, why don't we start off by just, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got into, you know, pursuing a career in public policy and politics?

[00:01:31] Well, sure. I'd be glad to, and I don't want to bore all your listeners too much and talk about me. I must really talk about a lot of other things.

[00:01:36] But, you know, this is, I served 10 years in the House of Representatives. I served just under one year on a public utilities commission.

[00:01:43] And now in year 16 as Tennessee's secretary of state.

[00:01:47] And for me, I've always been interested in public service. I always believed that it was a great vehicle to make a positive impact on the world around you.

[00:01:56] It's what I was interested in from a very early age.

[00:01:59] And when I, you know, I was one of those people, when you looked in a high school yearbook, you know, had a lot of different lines, range paper staff editor, beta club, the student council president.

[00:02:09] And honestly, by the time I got to college, I was kind of worn out and thought I'll never do that again.

[00:02:14] I'm done with being involved. I just want to go get my accounting degree and be done with it.

[00:02:18] That lasted the first year of college. And then I wound up running for student government, wound up being the Student Government Association president.

[00:02:25] And then, you know, went back and just graduated, was working in the private sector when the opportunity arose.

[00:02:32] And a lot of people asked me to run for the state house back in 1996.

[00:02:35] And the incumbent was not going to run again.

[00:02:38] Ultimately, the incumbent decided to run again near the filing deadline.

[00:02:43] But I was fortunate to win my first race out, reelected four times.

[00:02:47] And I term limited myself to 10 years that I wasn't returning.

[00:02:51] The state government was going to be back in the private sector, never to return to the public sector again.

[00:02:56] And lo and behold, the lieutenant governor asked me ultimately to consider serving on the Public Utilities Commission.

[00:03:05] We knew it as the Tennessee Regulatory Authority at the time and asked me what was going to be the remainder of a six-year term, the last year of a six-year term.

[00:03:15] And ultimately another six-year term.

[00:03:17] And I said, hey, I'll come back.

[00:03:20] I'll do my six-plus years.

[00:03:21] And I'm going back to the private sector.

[00:03:23] And less than a year into all that, the seed was planted for me to be the secretary of state should Republicans gain the majority here in Tennessee.

[00:03:33] And lo and behold, after the 2008 election, they did.

[00:03:36] And I believe we had eight other people sought the nomination to be the Republican nominee for secretary of state.

[00:03:45] And I was fortunate that – and by the way, the secretary of state in Tennessee is elected by the legislature.

[00:03:52] So my electorate is small but mighty.

[00:03:57] Direct mail and robocalls and yard signs don't really work in my race.

[00:04:01] So I started campaigning and asked people, hey, if you think I'd give you the best chance to govern and do a great job for our state, then vote for me.

[00:04:11] I said, if you don't believe I'm your best option by all means, go hire somebody else.

[00:04:15] And now here I am finishing up my fourth term as Tennessee's 37th secretary of state.

[00:04:22] Was that Lieutenant Governor Ramsey at the time?

[00:04:26] Lieutenant Governor Ramsey was lieutenant governor at the time.

[00:04:29] And all that came in 2008.

[00:04:32] You may remember 2006, Lieutenant Governor Ramsey should have had the votes to become lieutenant governor, did not get the votes, even though Republicans had the majority.

[00:04:40] And two years later, there was a Democrat that crossed over and helped make Ron the lieutenant governor.

[00:04:47] Interesting story about that, Maggie, is there was going to be an effort that that same Democrat, who in turn got beat because she had supported Ron,

[00:04:57] was probably going to be the next secretary of state instead of me.

[00:05:02] And she had been incredibly loyal to Ron, who is like a brother to me.

[00:05:07] And I told Ron, I said, if that's what you want to happen, then I will work to help you make that happen.

[00:05:11] And then it became obvious that's not what was going to happen.

[00:05:15] And I asked then Lieutenant Governor Ramsey for his permission to start making some phone calls and gaining votes on my own.

[00:05:24] And it worked out, I think.

[00:05:28] What made the secretary of state's office desirable to you?

[00:05:32] What are the unique powers or responsibilities that drew you to stay in public service?

[00:05:39] Well, Maggie, that's a great question.

[00:05:42] It's a question I haven't asked myself in the last few hours.

[00:05:44] You know, here we are in the throes of a presidential election year, and the job has changed a lot.

[00:05:49] And I'm glad to talk about that later on.

[00:05:51] But, you know, honestly, what I was really interested at the time that I was leaving the private sector where I had managed a budget

[00:05:57] that was roughly the same size as the secretary of state's office.

[00:06:00] Our budget now is, you know, approximately $40 million.

[00:06:04] We've got 306 employees in the payroll today.

[00:06:07] At that time, it was 355 employees on the payroll, 445 funded positions.

[00:06:13] So it was very equivalent to the job I left in the private sector while I was vice president of a publicly traded ambulance company in the southern region.

[00:06:22] So, you know, for me, there were a lot of similarities.

[00:06:25] I felt like I could take I felt like I had the great blend of private sector experience plus public sector experience slash political experience to be able to come in and serve four years and help the legislature gain its foothold as Republicans took the majority.

[00:06:45] And once again, I really kind of thought, hey, maybe four years, maybe eight.

[00:06:49] That's the most I'll do.

[00:06:50] And boy, was I wrong about that.

[00:06:52] So but to me, it was attractive because it was a unique opportunity to really help move our state forward in a way.

[00:07:00] And I had no idea at the time, frankly, how many different things the secretary of state was involved in and the true impact you can have sometimes on one and sometimes on millions.

[00:07:12] Between the business licensees and the voting.

[00:07:16] I mean, can you go through the major kind of pillars?

[00:07:19] Sure.

[00:07:20] Sure.

[00:07:20] Glad to do that.

[00:07:21] You know, one of the one of the the duties of our office is we help businesses whenever they get ready to file to become a corporation, nonprofit corporation, limited liability corporation, limited liability partnership.

[00:07:34] Whenever they're lending, you know, a bank or a lender is lending money, we do uniform commercial code filings.

[00:07:40] We do everything like trademark summons, apostils.

[00:07:43] And for those who are listening, apostil is not like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

[00:07:47] It sounds different.

[00:07:48] It's spelled different.

[00:07:49] But it's an international recognition.

[00:07:51] Of a notary and as unique thing that we do and other secretaries around the country do with that.

[00:07:57] You know, we have a broad role and work with all 95 county elections around our state to make sure we run good, fair, honest elections in the great state of Tennessee, making sure that it's easy to vote and hard to cheat.

[00:08:08] I've got right now 15 different administrative law judges that handle property tax appeals, safety appeals.

[00:08:16] Our Medicaid program is a lot of people, and I think it's easy to vote.

[00:08:26] And I think it's a great thing.

[00:08:31] I think it's a great thing.

[00:08:34] I think it's a great thing.

[00:08:44] I think it's a great thing.

[00:08:47] We have a great thing.

[00:08:55] I think it's a great thing.

[00:08:56] I think it's a great thing.

[00:09:15] I think it's a great thing.

[00:09:20] I think it's a great thing.

[00:09:44] You know, those are really kind of the hallelujah moments that really remind you that God has you right where he wants you at that particular point in time.

[00:09:53] So why don't we jump into the election process?

[00:09:59] There's a number of questions that I wanted to ask you about.

[00:10:01] But what what what changes have you seen as to how you have to approach it today as to as opposed to when you first came in?

[00:10:13] And, you know, Jim, that's a great question.

[00:10:16] You know, for I can't speak for other secretaries, but I'll break it down for people.

[00:10:21] So now I'm in my 16th year.

[00:10:22] It's almost like two different eight year time periods.

[00:10:25] The first eight years, you know, the issues we dealt with at the time see so minuscule to what we have now.

[00:10:33] And social media has amplified that the way that the different TV networks, you know, really, in my opinion, don't provide as much news now anymore and really are more advocacy TV in many ways.

[00:10:46] In 2016, whenever then President Obama said that he was concerned about the integrity and the security of the upcoming election, it was like somebody had, you know, honestly torn down a curtain, torn down the veil somewhere.

[00:11:02] And also people started doubting in that.

[00:11:05] And then you had candidates from both parties, you know, questioning the integrity and legitimacy of how votes were going to be counted and who was going to get to vote and things like that.

[00:11:15] And social media has just totally changed the landscape of it.

[00:11:20] You know, when I got elected 2009, you had Facebook.

[00:11:23] You didn't really have what was known as Twitter at the time.

[00:11:27] You know, you had you have, you know, web web blogs, you had people who go online and post things and really those kind of cater to the people who are really interested in that particular topic.

[00:11:37] But now the ability to get so much information and not all of it accurate really changes our ability to run elections.

[00:11:46] In fact, you know, just this past week, I had a phone call from a lady who said, I want to know what you're doing to keep all the illegal immigrants from voting.

[00:11:56] And I said, well, ma'am, I said, you know, if we know of an illegal immigrant, someone who's not here legally in this country, who's on the voter rolls, we'll remove them.

[00:12:05] We have removed them.

[00:12:07] And she, you know, insisted to me want to know that that wasn't enough.

[00:12:10] What am I doing?

[00:12:11] And I reminded her, I say I reminded, I told her for the first time.

[00:12:15] I said, well, we have a law in place in Tennessee that if you can point those names out to me and it can lead to a conviction, you'll get a thousand dollars per infraction.

[00:12:23] For infraction and said, so, you know, give me the list of names and we'll be glad to research every one of them.

[00:12:30] And she said, well, I don't want the money.

[00:12:31] I said, well, that's even better for me.

[00:12:32] I said, I don't have to pay you.

[00:12:34] Just give me the names.

[00:12:35] I said, but the bottom line is, I said, we've done what we can do.

[00:12:38] I said, if you know what people tell us.

[00:12:40] And one of the real frustrations, there's a lot of people talking generalities.

[00:12:44] And they'll say, well, we don't want the illegal immigrants to vote.

[00:12:47] But yeah, and all the people that call me, not one person is named.

[00:12:50] Give me the name and address of one illegal immigrant.

[00:12:52] They know of this register so that we can follow through on that.

[00:12:56] And it cuts both ways.

[00:12:57] It cuts from the left.

[00:12:58] It cuts from the right.

[00:13:00] And that's one of the things that I have seen is that there's so much more hyperpolicism around the extremes of what people say that isn't matched with reality.

[00:13:13] You know, I mentioned that one side of it.

[00:13:15] On the other side of it, each and every week at least, I probably have at least one video out there from somebody who calls me the king of voter suppression.

[00:13:24] You know, and the thing we're trying to do is make sure that every eligible Tennessean has the opportunity to register a vote, then ultimately go and cast that vote and know that it's being counted once, no more, no less.

[00:13:36] And we're the referees of state.

[00:13:38] We're the referees of election.

[00:13:40] You know, in an ideal world, after a football game, nobody is talking about the names of the referees.

[00:13:46] And after the elections are over, we really don't want anybody to know who our names are.

[00:13:50] We just want to be able to go do our job and have everybody feel comfortable knowing at the end of the day that the election results were legitimate.

[00:13:57] And that's very hard whenever you have people on both sides right now who are laying the groundwork to be able to question the results of the election.

[00:14:05] In 2009, that didn't happen.

[00:14:10] You know, in the 2008 presidential election, people weren't questioning whether or not Barack Obama won the election or not.

[00:14:15] And now it feels like regardless of what happens in 2024, there's going to be a group of people out there that question legitimacy of the election.

[00:14:23] And that's very sad.

[00:14:26] I heard an interesting piece yesterday on the quality assurances and a concept of RLA that I wasn't very familiar with, but the risk limiting audits.

[00:14:36] I think that there's probably variation state to state of how you do those assessments.

[00:14:42] But can you kind of go through for our listeners what the official actions on kind of those audits look like?

[00:14:48] And do you use them in Tennessee?

[00:14:50] Well, sure.

[00:14:51] And this is actually 2024 is the first time that we have done those random audits here in the state of Tennessee.

[00:14:57] We got legislation passed a couple of years back that would allow us to begin doing that.

[00:15:02] And what it really means is that we pick a handful of counties.

[00:15:06] We do a draw on the election day to determine which counties we're going to do those audits in to be able to make sure that machine totals match any hand count totals to make sure also that performances, excuse me, procedures and processes were followed throughout the elections.

[00:15:23] So think of that as a performance audit as well.

[00:15:25] And it's one more tool in our toolkit to try and help Tennesseans have complete confidence in how we're running our elections.

[00:15:33] Because one of the things that people will say is that, well, yeah, I go up and I touch screen, I touch something on a screen or I bubble in, you know, like I'm taking the ACT exam, what have you.

[00:15:46] But I don't know that my vote was really counted.

[00:15:49] And randomly audits make sure that you're able to go back and verify that the counts matched up.

[00:15:56] And also it's important, too, that we put money in our budget a few years ago.

[00:16:00] You know, we asked the General Assembly and the governor to do this.

[00:16:03] They put money in that creates a verified paper audit trail in all 95 counties in the state of Tennessee.

[00:16:10] We used to use what are called DRE machines, direct record electronic devices.

[00:16:15] And those were kind of the old touch screens that you pushed and their accusations made about some type of algorithm being in those and how they were counted.

[00:16:25] And I didn't have a lack of confidence in those machines.

[00:16:29] But it was kind of like if you went to the Apple store and took your iPhone 5 in and said, hey, I need you to fix this for me so I keep using it.

[00:16:36] They look at you and say, we don't work on that anymore.

[00:16:39] And so our machinery was getting to the point where election companies weren't even selling those anymore.

[00:16:45] They didn't want to make parts for them anymore.

[00:16:47] And so we said, hey, we've got to get with the program and step up and use newer machinery that includes this verified paper audit trail.

[00:16:55] So there's a lot of different things like that we do to ensure the integrity of Tennessee's elections.

[00:17:00] And one of the reasons I believe that Tennessee now for three years in a row has been ranked by the Heritage Foundation as number one in election integrity.

[00:17:10] I don't know.

[00:17:11] What I saw that you do, I think you do vulnerability scans.

[00:17:17] Does that, what are vulnerability scans?

[00:17:20] Yeah, thank you.

[00:17:21] That's a great question.

[00:17:23] It's kind of an inside baseball question, but I'm glad you mentioned it.

[00:17:26] So, you know, every, we work with the count, every county out there has the ability to use, you know, the software that we, the software companies that we contract with to be able to go and do scans.

[00:17:39] It's also working with the state and federal department, Homeland Securities that can be able to do scans of their election software to make sure that they haven't been attacked or infiltrated with some type of malware that could infiltrate the voter rolls.

[00:17:56] Many people probably know those as Albert sensors that have the ability to show whether or not you've been penetrated in any way and whether or not somebody has done something untoward with your election, you know, your voter rolls.

[00:18:10] Now, the election machines themselves, they're not connected to the internet in any way.

[00:18:13] And in fact, in Tennessee, when we buy the election machines, we mandate that they not have that connectivity capability because we wouldn't want anybody to be able to use Bluetooth in any way or be able to walk up and plug a USB in and try to insert malware into the election machines.

[00:18:31] That's one of the big misnomers that some people have is they think that the election machines are connected to some server somewhere in some foreign country or even here in downtown Nashville and all the votes that flow from that machine come to some central place.

[00:18:45] That's not what happens in Tennessee.

[00:18:49] Interesting.

[00:18:50] Very interesting.

[00:18:51] And then I was going to, so about 30 days left.

[00:18:56] What's it like for you from now till election day?

[00:19:01] I would imagine it's a bit of a sprint.

[00:19:04] Well, it is a sprint.

[00:19:05] And, you know, of course, it was made more interesting by the tragic events of Hurricane Helene just a little over a week ago.

[00:19:12] We've got six counties that have, you know, suffered tremendously.

[00:19:18] We've got a couple more that they've had some damage as well.

[00:19:20] But just last week, I made a visit to the six counties affected most to talk to their election officials about things they were doing to make sure they're going to be able to conduct the elections upcoming, whether or not they're going to have to merge polling precincts anyway, whether or not they're going to have to move in locations.

[00:19:39] We're fortunate. We probably will have two or three polling locations among those six counties that we're not going to be able to use.

[00:19:46] We've got about in one county, we've got about six households that, you know, we can't reach.

[00:19:52] The United States Postal Service can get to them right now and trying to figure out how we're going to be able to vote those people.

[00:19:58] There are also people who are requesting an absentee ballot that we know went out in the mail, you know, in the midst of that storm.

[00:20:07] And frankly, there's no mailbox to deliver those two now.

[00:20:11] So disgusting process is to make sure that every Tennessean who won't voter who wants to be able to cast a vote is able to cast a vote.

[00:20:19] So those are really the things that are on our mind first and foremost right now, as well as, you know, anything we can do to help the personal needs of all those election workers out there.

[00:20:31] One of my big concerns is you've got people who might would have worked the polls in the past.

[00:20:36] You know, they're busy trying to put their lives back together and they're not really thinking about, hey, I got it.

[00:20:41] I'm ready to go put in a 12 plus hour a day to go work the polls.

[00:20:46] But it is heartwarming.

[00:20:48] I was in Greene County, Tennessee on Friday.

[00:20:50] And there's a lady over there who she lost everything.

[00:20:54] And she called the Election Commission and they just knew when she called, she was going to be able to say, look, I don't even know where I'm going to be, where I'm going to live or anything.

[00:21:03] She says, I'm just calling to make sure y'all still have me on the calendar to work early voting.

[00:21:09] And that just kind of hits you and chokes you up, frankly.

[00:21:13] And we're hearing stories like that of neighbor helping neighbor.

[00:21:17] And when I was in one of the hardest hit counties the other day, I mean, this is a place that right now they don't have a post office.

[00:21:24] They don't have reliable Internet service in their community.

[00:21:28] The Election Commission somehow was spared from the flood.

[00:21:34] And when I'm talking to the county mayor and the election administrator and the road superintendent, they're all like, oh, we're going to make sure people get to vote.

[00:21:46] We're going to make sure this election is going to happen the way it's supposed to happen.

[00:21:51] But, you know, then when they tell you stuff like this gives you chills and it makes my my dedication and commitment to do my part and support them and the rest of the counties in the state, it really deepens that resolve.

[00:22:04] Yeah.

[00:22:04] Yeah.

[00:22:05] Yeah.

[00:22:05] There are 13 offices in Western North Carolina that are just like you just described, trying to figure out how do they figure out the infrastructure to get people what they need to vote.

[00:22:19] So we've got one county where he was the election administrator who had a one week, one week old child.

[00:22:28] And he's watching the flood and figuring out, hey, is it going to crest?

[00:22:32] What's going to happen?

[00:22:33] What's going to happen?

[00:22:33] And made the decision that morning that we've got to go start moving stuff.

[00:22:38] And so he is he is essentially vacated his office, moved it to higher ground, talked about somebody else who saw him at the courthouse square, who saw him moving stuff.

[00:22:50] And they pitched in, they started helping, they grabbed a dolly and they're all moving election equipment, election files and everything and relocated somewhere else.

[00:22:57] All the while his wife is home with their their one week old child.

[00:23:02] Incredible.

[00:23:04] So speaking of you've got 306 employees in your office, not all of them work on elections, but then you also have folks that volunteer and work the polls selfishly each cycle.

[00:23:17] But there's been a lot of threats to folks that work and volunteer and spend the time ensuring safe and fair elections.

[00:23:26] Before we came on the air, we talked about in King County, Washington, how they've stocked up on Narcan.

[00:23:32] And I think your office received a suspicious package, one of 16 offices a couple weeks ago.

[00:23:38] How are you, you know, how much time and resources are going to just protecting the safety and well-being of your staff at this point?

[00:23:47] And is that also a new kind of novel threat to elections in this cycle or or did you start seeing this in 2020 as well?

[00:23:56] Well, you know, we started seeing it back in 2020.

[00:23:59] In fact, 2020 was the first time that I ever had security all day long.

[00:24:06] You know, I've always been one of those people that much to my wife's dismay thinks I'm bulletproof and I won't accept security.

[00:24:12] I won't accept any of that.

[00:24:13] But 2020 was the first time that I and my family had done that.

[00:24:18] And, you know, there are a lot of things that we thought we never have to think about.

[00:24:21] You mentioned that suspicious package.

[00:24:23] You know, the young lady in our office that opened that, you know, she's 925 years old.

[00:24:29] And she opens that package and she's sitting there thinking, am I going to die?

[00:24:34] What is this?

[00:24:35] I mean, I can only imagine what went through her mind thinking this is the this is the job I chose to come do.

[00:24:41] And I'm passionate about being a public servant.

[00:24:43] And all the only thing I did wrong today was happen to open the wrong piece of mail.

[00:24:48] And so that, you know, it makes a lot of different things go through your mind.

[00:24:52] You know, I'm a firm believer if somebody untoward really wants to do something bad.

[00:24:58] I mean, I think we've seen a lot of things just here in the last couple months that they're going to find a way to do it.

[00:25:04] The key is to not make it easy for them.

[00:25:06] You know, we take all the precautions we're supposed to supposed to take to be able to protect our employees with and also working with all 95 counties around the state.

[00:25:16] You know, they work with their respective law enforcement officials to make sure they have the proper protection.

[00:25:22] But Maggie, one of the interesting things, too, is on Election Day, if you have police around a polling station, that's a big turnoff for a lot of people.

[00:25:31] And they get concerned about their safety, security or get concerned that they're going to be harassed in some way.

[00:25:40] You know, one of the weirdest things that happened to us a couple of years ago was we had one of our polling places that on the backside of it was a police training.

[00:25:50] So there's a lot of police cars on the other side of it.

[00:25:52] And next thing you know, our phones started ringing off the hook about how we were trying to intimidate voters from voting in a certain location.

[00:25:59] We're like, what are you talking about?

[00:26:00] Sure enough, we got footage of it.

[00:26:02] And, you know, on a completely different side of the building, there were some police cars because there was some in-service training going on.

[00:26:08] So, you know, one of the hard things for us is what is that right balance?

[00:26:13] You know, we never want to be perceived as being out of touch.

[00:26:18] But at the end of the day, I want the people who come in and are working 12 plus hours a day for what feels like probably just over minimum wage to not fear for their safety when they come into vote.

[00:26:37] So to those election workers, do you have a pep talk for them or anything that you would want to say to them as they get ready to?

[00:26:44] Yeah. Well, I'll just say we can't do it without you.

[00:26:48] I mean, you name one other business out there that takes its best employees and where they have success, do a great job for you.

[00:26:58] And then you say, hey, great job.

[00:27:00] Hope you'll come back in 15 or 16 months to help us run the next election.

[00:27:04] Yeah.

[00:27:05] And I mean, that's hard.

[00:27:06] So, I mean, and the concern I have, too, is we got to raise the next generation of election workers.

[00:27:12] You know, if you walk into a polling place right now, the average age of poll work, I guarantee as well above 60 years old.

[00:27:20] And I'm probably underselling it.

[00:27:22] We've really worked hard to get high school and college students in the last few years.

[00:27:27] This really started during the pandemic.

[00:27:29] We lowered the age for people to be able to work the polls.

[00:27:32] And it's really cool that we've gotten to see so many 16-year-olds who they embrace technology.

[00:27:37] And if we can just get one 16 or 17-year-old in every polling station, it lights the whole place up.

[00:27:44] I mean, the 65 to 70-year-olds, they love the energy.

[00:27:48] The 16-year-olds, they feel like they're part of something bigger.

[00:27:51] And I hear from a lot of people nowadays that they want to be part of something bigger and feel like they're making an impact.

[00:27:58] Come work the elections with us.

[00:28:00] And I promise you're going to get a front-row seat to how our form of government works.

[00:28:04] And also, I tell people, if you're concerned about the integrity of our elections, then you need to become an election official and come help us conduct these elections.

[00:28:14] And without fail, a lot of people have taken me up on that.

[00:28:18] And I have people around the state who say, you know, I heard your call for people to do this, and I didn't believe in our elections.

[00:28:26] And they said, I've seen it firsthand now.

[00:28:29] And for somebody to be able to manipulate the outcome of an election here in Tennessee would be almost impossible.

[00:28:36] But as far as pep talk, I just tell people we can't do it without you.

[00:28:39] We try to find the good and praise it, like Alex Haley used to say, is find the good and praise it.

[00:28:45] And, you know, I love telling the stories like the lady in Greene County, as tragic as it is, who called in and said, hey, make sure I'm on the calendar.

[00:28:53] I'm going to be there.

[00:28:54] And we've got, in every county, we've got stories like that.

[00:28:57] We've got people who've been working 45, 50 years.

[00:29:01] And we just try to make sure that we hold those people up as heroes because they are, in fact, election heroes.

[00:29:06] They are.

[00:29:07] It's really important for my husband and I to take our kids in.

[00:29:10] This will be Hank's first to go in, but we've always taken Birdie.

[00:29:14] And to see her, you know, to bring her in.

[00:29:17] And she hears us thanking them for their service and for being there and seeing us, you know, mark up our sheets.

[00:29:25] It's just, it's very important to pass on to our children as well.

[00:29:29] Maggie, I'm glad you said that because I tell you something I try to do when I go to the polls.

[00:29:33] I try to thank everybody.

[00:29:35] And anybody I haven't got to thank personally before I leave.

[00:29:37] And frankly, it's kind of funny.

[00:29:39] My polling place, which is less than half a mile from my house, I don't think they really know who I am.

[00:29:46] So it used to never fail.

[00:29:48] There was always something that would go wrong when I went to vote.

[00:29:50] And so I would say, well, that's not really how it is.

[00:29:51] I said, I think you need to double check that.

[00:29:53] I never told her who I was.

[00:29:54] And I always make sure I tell people before I leave.

[00:29:57] I say, hey, thank all of you for working because we couldn't do it without you.

[00:30:00] I couldn't come vote today if you didn't come to work.

[00:30:03] And I would encourage every listener that you have, when you go to vote, if you vote in person, be sure to thank the election workers.

[00:30:12] Because if you went to the polling place and there was nobody there to check you in, nobody gets you over that machine, nobody gives you our voted sticker at the end of the day, we couldn't have these elections.

[00:30:23] Yeah. Well, if we have 50 secretaries of state like you, I think our elections are in good hands.

[00:30:30] And I think those people that, you know, question it would feel a lot better if they meet and listen to secretary of states like you.

[00:30:39] Well, Jim, if I can tag onto that a little bit, you know, there are Democrat secretaries of state out there that don't see the world the way I see it.

[00:30:47] And they would also say, well, Trey, you don't see the way I see it either.

[00:30:51] So, you know, we have difference of opinion, but there are different laws in different states.

[00:30:56] You know, the state of Washington, who, you know, I'm not necessarily not ideologically in agreement with a lot of things going on out there.

[00:31:04] But they've had vote by mail in place for many years, and that's how they've been accustomed to do it.

[00:31:10] And they put their safeguards in place and they have their laws in place to be able to conduct those elections.

[00:31:16] And that's how they want to do that in the state of Washington.

[00:31:19] And I can't impose what we do in the state of Tennessee on them any more than they can pose their desire for us to do it their way.

[00:31:27] And so that's one of the things that is the beauty of our system, too, is it creates firewalls in different states.

[00:31:35] You know, the Electoral College creates firewalls as well against a widespread fraud.

[00:31:41] So, you know, there's a lot of great secretaries of state and election officials on both sides that are all around this country who take their jobs and their oath seriously.

[00:31:53] I have one more question before we get to our capstones, if that's OK, Jim.

[00:31:56] Sure.

[00:31:58] So artificial intelligence in elections.

[00:32:01] Pros and cons.

[00:32:04] Well, I'm having trouble figuring out the pros.

[00:32:07] OK, that's fair.

[00:32:08] You know, for us, the cons of it, it is so inexpensive now to be able to create the deep fakes, to be able to put out misinformation,

[00:32:19] to be able to make what are realistic looking messages that can mislead voters in their attempt to be an educated consumer with their vote and cast their vote at the time and date and manner in which they want to be able to do that.

[00:32:37] You know, we have done some things in our elections office to try and warn election workers.

[00:32:43] We put something out for less than $100.

[00:32:46] You know, we put something out that went to all the election officials around the state and looked very realistic about how easily somebody could take a well-known figure like myself or another election official and put out a message to make it look like the polls have been closed or election day has been moved to another day.

[00:33:03] And, you know, I would say, well, I knew what to look for, but a lot of people out there don't.

[00:33:07] And we're election officials.

[00:33:09] So what really scares me is the thought that somebody can put these videos out or not just videos, phone calls like what happened in New Hampshire and put things out that can really mislead voters and cause them to have a distrust in the election process and how we count the votes.

[00:33:29] Thank you.

[00:33:30] So the capstones, all of our guests travel quite a bit.

[00:33:35] And like you mentioned, you've got relationships with folks around the country, other secretaries of state.

[00:33:41] Where have you last traveled to and what was the best meal that you had or best restaurant?

[00:33:46] And where are you headed to next so that if someone wants to reach out to you on LinkedIn and give you a restaurant tip, you can get a good meal?

[00:33:56] My last trip, I just returned from New York City.

[00:34:00] I spent about 48 to 60 hours up there this past weekend.

[00:34:04] We went to, I said this past weekend, made our presentations to the credit ratings agencies and was able to go to Francis Tavern while I was there.

[00:34:13] That's a place that we go every time.

[00:34:15] We go.

[00:34:16] Unfortunately, I didn't get to eat this time because I was stuck on phone calls, handling elections issues.

[00:34:20] A lot of everybody else enjoyed a great meal.

[00:34:23] So I did not have any special meal while I was there, believe it or not.

[00:34:29] I was busy working.

[00:34:31] My next out-of-state trip right now, I guess if I look at my calendar, probably the Council of State Governments is going to be in New Orleans in December.

[00:34:43] So that's on the calendar and there is no shortage of good places to eat in New Orleans.

[00:34:50] All right.

[00:34:50] Well, they can send you a travel tip and you'll just share it with me so we can go.

[00:34:55] Well, thank you, Secretary Hargett.

[00:34:57] Grateful for your time.

[00:34:59] Thankful for your leadership and everything that you're doing to ensure a safe and secure election in the state of Tennessee.

[00:35:07] We are grateful for you.

[00:35:09] Well, Maggie, I appreciate you and Jim having me today.

[00:35:12] It's a privilege to be on your show.

[00:35:15] I want to go ahead and apologize in advance for the ratings dip, but it may take you a couple episodes to get over.

[00:35:21] But, you know, I was always told I had a face for radio.

[00:35:24] Now I'm just told I have a face for podcasts.

[00:35:26] So I look forward to running into you again sometime soon.

[00:35:31] Thank you very much.

[00:35:32] Great having you on.

[00:35:33] Thank you all very much.