- Election integrity is a hugeconcern for many Americans

following the 2020 presidential election.

The debate over how electionsare managed federally

and at the state levelisn't ending any time soon.

The Robertson School ofGovernment at Regent University

is hosting a first of its kind

virtual conference on the topic next week.

Michele Bachmann is dean of the school

and she joins us now for more.

Dean Bachmann, welcome.

It's great to have you with us.

- Thank you, Wendy. I'mvery excited to be with you.

- Well, as the organizer of this event,

why is election integrityimportant to every American?

- Because every American's vote matters.

We're a very unique nationand what we're known for

is that we get to choosethe leaders of our country

and we get to choose thelaws that we live under.

And if we lose our vote,

if we lose the integrity of our vote,

then we've lost our choice.

- What are the most important topics

that you all will discuss?

- Well, H.R. 1, people havebeen talking about that

and that is essentially a bill

that would give one partyrule into the future.

It would take away ourright to have a secure vote

and secure elections.

That is not good

because we would be acompletely different nation,

we would be ruled by one political party,

and we would not effectivelyhave a choice in the future.

- All right, so you have an all-star cast

for this conference.- Oh, we do. (laughs)

- Who are some of thesekey experts taking part?

- We're thrilled.

We have Dr. Ben Carson,for whom election integrity

is an extremely important issue,

we have the commentator Mark Steyn,

who is the guest host for Tucker Carlson.

We also have Eric Metaxas,

who's a great conference speaker, author.

So we have great people.

We also have expertsfrom Heritage Foundation,

we have three secretariesof state who'll be there.

It is literally the finest cast of people

who we can bring together

who are experts in thetopic of election integrity.

- All right, so in the wake

of the 2020 presidential election,

how do you convince somevoters that election integrity

is even possible?

- Well, it is a problem

because there are 75 million voters

who wonder if their votecounted in this last election.

They're not sure that it was secure.

There were so many problemsin state after state

and I think what really gave people

a question mark in their mind

is the fact that we weren'tallowed to talk about it.

People were fired from their jobs.

People had to, they werethrown off Twitter, Facebook.

We believe in freedom of speech,

that's what our Constitution guarantees.

We should be able to talkabout something as important

as our vote and who our leaders will be

and what the laws willbe that we live under.

If we lose that, we losewho we are as a country.

That's the gift thatwe've had for 400 years.

It was the Pilgrim fathers and mothers

and the Mayflower Compactwho gave us that idea

of rule by the consent of the governed.

If we lose that, we lose what America is.

That's how important this is

and that's why I believe wegot the top talent in America

to be a part of this conference.

Eric Metaxas, Mark Steyn, Ben Carson,

huge A-list group of speakers,

because they know if welose the ability to speak

and the ability to vote,we'll never be the same again.

And we're here to offerhope and solutions.

- So what is the primarygoal of the conference?

What do you hope willhappen after the conference

because of it?

- Well, we want this tobe a high profile issue

so people understand what is at risk,

that they could lose their vote,

they could lose their freedomof speech and expression,

and so we want people to know the process.

And the process will be at theUnited States Senate level,

we have to keep the ruleknown as the filibuster

so that that gives us a 60 vote threshold

so that we can keep ourright to vote in the future.

- So the event is Tuesday, March 23rd.

It's free, open to the public.

- It is. Just register online.

It's from noon to 6:00 p.m. Eastern time,

but to go Regent.edu/electionintegrity.

We have the flyer available

and all the times when thespeakers will be coming.

It's a six hour conference,

but you can go in andout of the conference

for the speakers you want to hear.

And we'll archive all the speakers

so you can watch them later.

- Wow, it sounds fascinating.

I definitely wanna tune into this.

Michele Bachmann, dean of theRobertson School of Government

at Regent University.

Thanks so much for joining us.

- Thank you, Wendy. I appreciate it.