In Agenda, we interview two experts who have opposite views on the risk of electoral fraud and political interference.
The first is Jeffrey Davis, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland and Baltimore County, UMBC, who warned in The Atlantic magazine that President Trump's allegations of electoral fraud could be a way for him to question the election results.
The Atlantic has taken a political stand against President Trump.
Reports: The risk of electoral fraud affecting the US presidential election is small
In several reports, researchers claim that the risk of electoral fraud affecting US presidential elections is very small, such as one from the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent legal institute in New York.
Davis believes that one reason for the opposition to postal voting is that Republicans traditionally benefit from low turnout.
The other expert Agenda interviews is the lawyer Hans von Spakovsky, who works at the influential conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
President Trump called von Spakovsy a "real expert" on electoral security when he appointed him a member of the advisory committee in 2017 to protect the electoral system.
The committee was set up after Trump, without presenting evidence, claimed that 3-5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election.
The committee was disbanded in 2018, but von Spakovsky is often interviewed in conservative media, where this year he sounded the alarm about the risk of many mistakes and a lot of cheating if 80 million Americans will vote by mail due to the corona pandemic.
von Spakovsky has been criticized for using incorrect and exaggerated information
Heritage Foundation has a database that has registered more than a thousand judgments in the United States for election fraud in recent years.
von Spakovsky has been criticized for using incorrect and exaggerated information about the extent of cheating by, among others, Professor Richard L. Hasen at the University of California.
Hasen has said that "thanks to von Spakovsky and a few others throwing petrol on the flames, the myth that democratic electoral fraud is common has become a Republican public good."
Democratic politicians demanded that von Spakovsky be fired from the Election Security Committee when it emerged that he had argued in an email to the presidential administration that no Democrats, mainstream Republicans or academics should be appointed as members, because they do not take election fraud seriously.