Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow, that's a lot that
Speaker 1: we don't know about the twenty twenty four election, like
Speaker 1: who the candidates will be, or which campaign fatal or
Speaker 1: work is gonna lose. But as someone who headed up
Speaker 1: youth issues at the White House, I can tell you
Speaker 1: that if history is any indicator, we already know what
Speaker 1: one of the big talking points is going to be
Speaker 1: every election. It's like, Oh, the young people are coming,
Speaker 1: and people are coming, and usually they don't come. They
Speaker 1: just don't show up. Are you hearing me? Nieces? I
Speaker 1: was having this conversation to night. So this convention was
Speaker 1: not there in their twenties, was not made for us.
Speaker 1: We didn't, I think, because you don't vote. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you don't vote, never ever vote. Why would people cater
Speaker 1: to you if you never come out. Sorry not to
Speaker 1: be annoying, but we're with NBC News and I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to figure out anybody you're going to vote an
Speaker 1: election on November sixth, anybody, anybody, nobody's gonna vote. What
Speaker 1: can get younger voters to actually turn out to vote,
Speaker 1: you know, out for what he got you? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: young people aren't going to be voting Now, the point
Speaker 1: is the media loves to whine about young people not voting,
Speaker 1: but what gets much less attention is that the establishment
Speaker 1: feels so threatened by the power of young voters that
Speaker 1: they actually try to get them to not vote. To
Speaker 1: many the establishment, low youth turnout is not a problem,
Speaker 1: it's a goal. And that's what I want to talk
Speaker 1: about in the latest installment of Long Story Short. Let's
Speaker 1: say that a political party wants to suppress the youth vote.
Speaker 1: What are some things they might try to do. Their
Speaker 1: best bet is to put restrictions on college students, because
Speaker 1: for the most part, they're all young, except for that
Speaker 1: one guy who used to sit in the back of
Speaker 1: your sociology electric What was this deal? Was that like
Speaker 1: an inspiring thing or like a twenty one Jump Street situation? Anyway,
Speaker 1: one thing that they try to do is to target
Speaker 1: student IDs. In some states, you can't use a school
Speaker 1: idea to vote, even though for a lot of students
Speaker 1: it's the only thing showing that they live in the states.
Speaker 1: And don't tell me that they aren't legitimate residents. Okay,
Speaker 1: college students pay local taxes for four years, and the
Speaker 1: dumb ones up to six. One of those states is Texas,
Speaker 1: where you can't use your student ID to vote, but
Speaker 1: you can use your gun permit, which sure feels like
Speaker 1: a law made by Republicans to make it easier for
Speaker 1: other Republicans to vote. It's basically like a liberal state
Speaker 1: letting you vote if you still wear your COVID mask.
Speaker 1: Another thing they try to do is move voting booths
Speaker 1: off campuses. Now, this is a big deal for college students,
Speaker 1: since they're less likely to have a car. If they
Speaker 1: do know someone with a car, it's usually that like
Speaker 1: kind of hop but sort of sketch dude with a
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven Subaru that reeks of weed and
Speaker 1: all the seatbelts are missing, and it's just like, is
Speaker 1: voting for state Assembly really worth getting car herpies. When
Speaker 1: it comes to trying to make polling places inaccessible, the
Speaker 1: state of Texas is also at the forefront. Texas Republicans
Speaker 1: are pushing a bill that would ban voting booths from
Speaker 1: every campus across the states. Voting rights advocates are slamming,
Speaker 1: and Texas lawmakers plan to remove polling places from college campuses.
Speaker 1: A young voters favored Democrats by nearly a thirty point
Speaker 1: margin in the midterms. But the Republican who is behind
Speaker 1: this proposal tells ABC thirteens of Brianna Connor, it is
Speaker 1: not about that. Republican state representative Carrie Isaac says, it's
Speaker 1: a matter of school safety. I don't believe it's wise
Speaker 1: that we invite people onto our campuses that would not
Speaker 1: otherwise be there. Texas Southern University freshman Jordan Jones points
Speaker 1: out that public universities like TSU already have open campuses.
Speaker 1: Our library, that's literally right there is azo public Anybody
Speaker 1: can go in there and use it, So I feel
Speaker 1: like this shouldn't be much of a difference whenever it
Speaker 1: comes to voting. She has a good point the libraries
Speaker 1: already open to the public, although knowing Texas Republicans that
Speaker 1: other ladies just going to be like this student is right,
Speaker 1: we should also ban libraries. I realize, thanks you, I
Speaker 1: realized that. So far I've given you Republican examples. But
Speaker 1: to be fair, that doesn't mean all voter suppression is
Speaker 1: committed by Republicans, just like ninety eight percent of it.
Speaker 1: But there are Democrats who do engage in voter suppression,
Speaker 1: and I know this from personal experience during the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary in two thousand and seven, I lobbied a local
Speaker 1: election board in North Carolina that wanted to remove voting
Speaker 1: machines from a campus where there were a lot of
Speaker 1: Obama Democrats and send those machines to a wealthy suburb
Speaker 1: where there were a lot of non Obama Democrats. Although
Speaker 1: that's obviously not how they put it. They were just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're doing this because college students are just less likely
Speaker 1: to vote than people in the suburbs. And then I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, maybe college students don't vote because
Speaker 1: you keep taking their voting machines away, and then I lost. Sorry.
Speaker 1: While those are some of the more common obstacles that
Speaker 1: you might encounter as a young voter, it can get
Speaker 1: a lot more creative. Welcome to North Carolina A and T.
Speaker 1: It's the largest historically black college in the country and
Speaker 1: a big Democratic voting block. But when you look at
Speaker 1: a congressional map, A and T looks like two separate colleges.
Speaker 1: It's split between District six and District thirteen. So if
Speaker 1: you move from this dorm over to that dorm, you're
Speaker 1: in a different district with different representatives and a different
Speaker 1: polling place. By splitting the campus into two separate congressional districts,
Speaker 1: it diluted the power of ant's collective voice. So what
Speaker 1: was once one congressional district with an African American representative,
Speaker 1: it is now two congressional districts with two white Republican legislators.
Speaker 1: Have you seen people discourage from voting because of this?
Speaker 1: Not only do you get discouragement, there's also not wanting
Speaker 1: to register at all. It validates and affirms what young
Speaker 1: folks are saying when they say that their votes don't count. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a bummer. And honestly, I haven't seen college students
Speaker 1: that disappointed since they saw me in Van Wilder two.
Speaker 1: In my defense, in my defense, that movie paid very well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but look, this is the point of it. All of
Speaker 1: this is meant to freeze you out of the process
Speaker 1: and discourage you from participating. And I get it. It's
Speaker 1: easy as a young person to get demoralized and super high.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why I mentioned that. Sorry, to be
Speaker 1: more clear, things are not hopeless. You know that jerrymandering
Speaker 1: at A and T, Well, it sparked a student revolt
Speaker 1: and after a court order, reunified the school students there
Speaker 1: are now voting in record numbers. Now great, and it's
Speaker 1: not just that. It's not just that despite all of
Speaker 1: those barriers, young voters have shown up big in recent elections.
Speaker 1: In fact, last year they may have made all the
Speaker 1: difference the gen Zers millennials. They're now voting in record numbers.
Speaker 1: Gen Z voters, people born in nineteen ninety seven and
Speaker 1: later are lapping their older millennial counterparts. And I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people talk about young people talking about
Speaker 1: being engaged, but not being engaged. We are seeing engagement.
Speaker 1: The energy from these young folks is real. They all
Speaker 1: but canceled out the votes of their grandparents, of senior citizens,
Speaker 1: who are some of the most reliable voters out there
Speaker 1: and also some of the most Republican voters out there.
Speaker 1: If not for young people, we have a starkly different result.
Speaker 1: We saw not a red wave, we didn't see a
Speaker 1: blue wave, but we certainly saw a young voter gen
Speaker 1: Z wave, a gen Z wave, not a red wave,
Speaker 1: not a blue wave, not a millennial pain wave. So
Speaker 1: remember when I said the establishment feels threatened by you, Well,
Speaker 1: that's because when you vote, you often get a lot
Speaker 1: of the things to happen, marriage equality, climate action, and yes,
Speaker 1: we decriminalization. It's young people who overwhelmingly pushed to get
Speaker 1: this stuff done, so keep it up. Don't let them
Speaker 1: make you feel complacent, because long story short, you're powerful
Speaker 1: and that's why they're scared of you, So go make
Speaker 1: them scared. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast
Speaker 1: universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcast.
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