Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WIKA F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know, for the past couple of days, I have
Speaker 1: been just outdone by the media, and you know, I
Speaker 1: have been lamenting and making videos and in Twitter, and
Speaker 1: I know that you folks follow me there, and I
Speaker 1: want folks to understand that I am not just railing
Speaker 1: against media for shit's sake. It's similarly why I have
Speaker 1: made a career in politics and policy and now in media,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to be able to change the hearts
Speaker 1: and minds of as many people as possible. Right to
Speaker 1: advance equality, and how do you do that right? You
Speaker 1: can do it through policy, if in fact you have
Speaker 1: a functioning government and Congress. You can do it through
Speaker 1: media by telling stories that really bridge the gap between
Speaker 1: people's understanding of others lives, right to move outside of
Speaker 1: fear of the unknown, and understand that there are people
Speaker 1: who benefit right from spewing lies, from making sure that
Speaker 1: we all want to stay in our own cocoons and bubbles,
Speaker 1: never to really connect with one another. People profit off
Speaker 1: of that. And I have seen my work as yes,
Speaker 1: the quest to get as many people as woke as
Speaker 1: fucking possible, right, because what doesn't mean to be woke,
Speaker 1: It means to be conscious, It means to be aware.
Speaker 1: It means to be connected and to understand that there
Speaker 1: are systems that have been put in place to benefit
Speaker 1: a few at the events of the many. And as
Speaker 1: I am watching this Trump drama play out, which you know,
Speaker 1: we were notified to the fact that we are not
Speaker 1: going to see another appearance until December, which I think
Speaker 1: is you know, crazy. But again, I don't have a
Speaker 1: law degree. I just watch a law and order all
Speaker 1: the time. But I would think that it is at
Speaker 1: the behest of the judge and the ag to expedite
Speaker 1: this case because I think that the longer that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is able to grift out in the open, the
Speaker 1: longer that pictures of the judge's daughter and Alvin Bragg's
Speaker 1: wife and family members are able to be used as
Speaker 1: you know, some type of taunts to their fringe violent
Speaker 1: base that we're just counting down to tragedy, And frankly,
Speaker 1: I'd like to get this wrapped up as soon as
Speaker 1: possible because I think that it's in the best interests
Speaker 1: of our country and our sanity. That being said, you know,
Speaker 1: just as we know, does not move like that, which
Speaker 1: is why these criminal shows are always so popular, because
Speaker 1: they get to be wrapped up at the end of
Speaker 1: an hour, and that's not really how things go. But
Speaker 1: it's the disappointment for me. It's the fact that there
Speaker 1: are people who sit at these desks with microphones who
Speaker 1: have built careers out of supposedly providing information and analysis
Speaker 1: to people that I have seen become a shell of themselves.
Speaker 1: And who am I talking about Van Jones? Van Jones
Speaker 1: is a CNN commentator, but I knew Van Jones well
Speaker 1: over a decade ago when he was the head of
Speaker 1: an environmental justice education in California called Greenfall. Van Jones
Speaker 1: was one of the first people that I reached out
Speaker 1: to when I was working on Capitol Hill and I
Speaker 1: had written a piece of legislation around connecting kids with nature,
Speaker 1: particularly black and brown kids, trying to express that the
Speaker 1: environment is not a place that you go, it is
Speaker 1: where you are. And Van Jones, out of the work
Speaker 1: that he had done on environmental justice and you spoken
Speaker 1: out and he had created so many amazing and important
Speaker 1: organizations that lifted up the voices and the needs of
Speaker 1: the most marginalized communities. And over the course of several years,
Speaker 1: you know, I had seen Van and you know, watched
Speaker 1: his rise and you coming into the Obama administration and
Speaker 1: then promptly leaving the Obama administration because of the way
Speaker 1: that the right wing lambasted him. And now when I
Speaker 1: see this man, this black man, sitting on CNN and
Speaker 1: saying things about Donald Trump when he was in office,
Speaker 1: because he put together a coherent sentence at the State
Speaker 1: of the Union, he has said things like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: today's the day that Donald Trump became president, as if
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is you know, a baby that just learned
Speaker 1: to walk, and you're like, oh, this is the day that,
Speaker 1: you know, the infant became the baby then became the toddler.
Speaker 1: While we were watching the circus around Donald Trump's arrayment,
Speaker 1: Van Jones found himself on CNN saying that he doesn't
Speaker 1: revel in today in Donald Trump's arrayment, that this just
Speaker 1: looks like a sad grandpa. And this is you know,
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system is hard on everyone. Van Jones, Sir,
Speaker 1: with all due respect, shut the entire fuck up the
Speaker 1: way in which you have turned into a shell of
Speaker 1: an advocate to a shell of an activist to a
Speaker 1: talking head and stooge for the right wing is beyond me.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what has happened. I really don't know,
Speaker 1: but you are definitely not the man that I met
Speaker 1: over a decade ago, whose work an environmental justice and
Speaker 1: social justice was one that I wanted to model my
Speaker 1: own career of advocacy around because I thought it was
Speaker 1: so profound. So to watch you contort yourself into some
Speaker 1: type of motherfucking step and fetch it for the right.
Speaker 1: Donald Up is no one's sad grandpa. I'm sure he
Speaker 1: doesn't even know the fucking names of his grandchildren. He
Speaker 1: is more like a sad grand wizard right of the KKK.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a sad grandpa when he was inciting violence
Speaker 1: and yelling to his security detail to remove the magatrons
Speaker 1: at the stop the Steel rally, even though he was
Speaker 1: told that the people that came out to that rally
Speaker 1: were heavily armed. He wasn't a sad grandpa then when
Speaker 1: he was pointing in the direction of the Capitol Building
Speaker 1: and telling people to go and take their country back,
Speaker 1: and that Mike Pennce betrayed him, putting a target on
Speaker 1: his back for those people to go ahead and build
Speaker 1: a gallows on the steps of the Capitol building. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a sad grandpa when he signed legislation that would
Speaker 1: put children in cages and separate them from their parents.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a sad grandpa when he decided to gut
Speaker 1: the EPA. He wasn't a sad grandpa when he called
Speaker 1: nations that people that look like me come from shitthhole countries.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a sad grandpa when he decided to uphold
Speaker 1: white supremacy by saying, after the Charlottesville riots incidents white
Speaker 1: supremacy march of they will not replace us, that there
Speaker 1: are good people on both sides. He wasn't a sad
Speaker 1: grandpa when he stood on national television and told the
Speaker 1: Proud Boys and the oath Keepers, those two very same
Speaker 1: groups who would orchestrate the insurrection, to stand back and
Speaker 1: stand by, sir. What the fuck are you looking at?
Speaker 1: This is what I mean when I say how fucking
Speaker 1: irresponsible mainstream media has become. When you see the revolving
Speaker 1: door of people who bolstered their career through attaching themselves
Speaker 1: like a barnacle to the Titanic of Donald Trump, only
Speaker 1: to them be rewarded for their lives and their criminal
Speaker 1: behavior by getting plumb jobs on the view on CNN,
Speaker 1: on MSNBC, Right, Van Jones is no one's Oh I'm
Speaker 1: trying to understand. He is a white supremist apologist, and
Speaker 1: it is disgusting, and I'm calling him out specifically because
Speaker 1: that type of language and rhetoric and faux ass empathy
Speaker 1: is how the fuck we get to the place that
Speaker 1: we are in right now, where Oh, you just want
Speaker 1: to recognize how aggrieved white racists are. They're losing their country.
Speaker 1: Oh you mean they're actually being asked to share this
Speaker 1: abundant land that was toiled for free by enslaved captive people,
Speaker 1: land that was dolan from indigenous Native Americans, Like, give
Speaker 1: me a fucking break. Van Jones is emblematic of everything
Speaker 1: that is wrong with the mainstream media and just another
Speaker 1: reminder that if you do not hold your center, if
Speaker 1: you do not remain grounded in the current tempest of
Speaker 1: fascism and authoritarianism that we find ourselves swirling in, you
Speaker 1: will lose sight of who you are and what is
Speaker 1: actually at stake. Just so that you can put more
Speaker 1: money in your pocket, and that is just a disgraceful
Speaker 1: place to be. Coming up next on woke F, dear friends,
Speaker 1: an important conversation and one that doesn't involve truly centering
Speaker 1: around Donald Trump, is my conversation with Sam Alika Friedland,
Speaker 1: who is from the Institute for Responsive Government. That talks
Speaker 1: about Sam and I will get into a conversation about
Speaker 1: voting infrastructure and how it has been attacked over so
Speaker 1: many years, how essentially voting in this country has been defunded.
Speaker 1: So we will have that conversation with Sam. Coming up next, folks,
Speaker 1: I am very happy to welcome to okay EFFI Daily
Speaker 1: for the first time, Sam Alika Friedland, who is the
Speaker 1: executive director of the Institute for Responsive Government and before
Speaker 1: this position previously worked as a voting rights litigator at
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division under both two
Speaker 1: very different presidents friends, the Obama administration and the Trump administrations.
Speaker 1: So Sam, welcome, Thank you, thank you for having to
Speaker 1: woka F. Thank you so much for joining US. Voting rights,
Speaker 1: access to voting, voter suppression, jerrymandering. These are all topics
Speaker 1: that I cover on a fairly regular basis on WOKF
Speaker 1: And since the Supreme Court was able to systematically gut
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty four and our
Speaker 1: Congress's failure to be able to re enact those pieces
Speaker 1: under the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we have seen
Speaker 1: an assault on voting rights that I think is pretty
Speaker 1: unprecedented in our modern times, right, And so I just
Speaker 1: wanted to give you an opportunity to tell us what
Speaker 1: you see from your vantage point about the landscape of
Speaker 1: voting and one how you see this landscape, but to
Speaker 1: how it has shifted over the last seven years, where
Speaker 1: we have lost a lot of integrity in our voting
Speaker 1: system because of the Trump administration, the Big Lie and others.
Speaker 1: That's a great question. And I love actually your use
Speaker 1: of the word integrity either because I think it's so
Speaker 1: important to talk about the integrity of the system as
Speaker 1: a whole. And I hear a lot of folks using
Speaker 1: election integrity to mean preventing voter fraud. And it is
Speaker 1: important to make sure that only eligible voters are casting
Speaker 1: a ballot, and our systems are very well set up
Speaker 1: to do that, and it's important to talk about election
Speaker 1: integrity in that frame, but it's also election integrity to
Speaker 1: make sure that every eligible voter is registered and has
Speaker 1: that opportunity to cast the ballot. So together, I think
Speaker 1: people think of voting access and voting security as like
Speaker 1: two sides of a scale, where you increase one and
Speaker 1: it decreases the other. And I think what's become abundantly
Speaker 1: clear over the last few years, that's actually not true.
Speaker 1: Those are to mix my metaphos, those are two votes
Speaker 1: that can be lifted at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: on the same tide, And talking about sort of election
Speaker 1: integrity as a whole is such a great way to
Speaker 1: talk about it at this particular moment. So you asked
Speaker 1: about the Supreme Court and seven years ago, and I
Speaker 1: started at the Department of Justice basically right after the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court got to the Voting Rights Act. So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm one of few civil rights time to starting. Welcome. Welcome.
Speaker 1: So the Chief Justice welcomed me to the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Division by taking away at the main statue we had
Speaker 1: to enforce. That was very nice of him. But it
Speaker 1: was really interesting because it was a time when lawyers
Speaker 1: needed to figure out how to pivot from some sort
Speaker 1: of long held patterns of how to enforce these civil
Speaker 1: rights laws, and people think about, you know, I think
Speaker 1: when people think about the Voting Rights Act and the
Speaker 1: preclearance provisions that got struck down, you think about these big,
Speaker 1: you know, big ticket, high visibility sort of voting rights
Speaker 1: policy pieces like voter ID laws in in Texas for example,
Speaker 1: that got struck down under the preclearance system and then
Speaker 1: they were reinstituted, and redistricting plans for Congress and jerrymandering,
Speaker 1: and these are all incredibly important. But another incredibly important
Speaker 1: part of the voting rights ecosystem of our ability to
Speaker 1: cast the ballot is the bureaucracies at the local level
Speaker 1: that really do run our elections. So people forget that
Speaker 1: elections are run in the US at the county and
Speaker 1: municipal level in almost every state, and that means that
Speaker 1: we have about eight thousand local election officials in the
Speaker 1: country who are primarily in charge of deciding should we have,
Speaker 1: you know, how many early votes sites should we have,
Speaker 1: How should we hire poll workers, How should we communicate
Speaker 1: to the public about how to vote and how voting
Speaker 1: has changed in the pandemic. Should we process vote by
Speaker 1: mail applications? In a timely manner and send people their ballots.
Speaker 1: How many polling places should we have an election date?
Speaker 1: All of these are decisions that get done at this
Speaker 1: local level. And one of the most powerful things that
Speaker 1: preclans did has surfaced all of these teeny little local
Speaker 1: decisions that had such an impact on people's voting behavior
Speaker 1: to the Department of Justice, who was able to sort
Speaker 1: of either block or allow it to go into effect.
Speaker 1: And what keeps me up at night about this Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act is like, how do we get that information
Speaker 1: from the local level to bubble up to the top.
Speaker 1: But that locality, that localism, is also an opportunity. So
Speaker 1: I like to try and be a little bit like Pollyanna,
Speaker 1: not Pollyannish, but I like to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more optimistic than others when we talk about voting rights,
Speaker 1: because I think there are more good things happening right
Speaker 1: now and more opportunities than many of us think. So
Speaker 1: those eight thousand officials, Republicans, Democrats, rural, urban, the vast,
Speaker 1: vast vast majority of them are non partisan bureaucrats who
Speaker 1: just want to do their job and provide people the
Speaker 1: voting opportunities. The law says they should have. There are
Speaker 1: some exceptions. The exceptions are relatively rare. And when you
Speaker 1: talked about Congress failing to act on the John Luis
Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act, that was an important failure. And another
Speaker 1: important failure of Congress last year was failure to advance
Speaker 1: proposals that would have adequately funded those local election officials.
Speaker 1: So the President asked for ten billion dollars in his
Speaker 1: budget over ten years, for much of which would go
Speaker 1: directly to local election officials. Congress answered the call with
Speaker 1: only seventy five million dollars. Yeah. Wow, that was exactly
Speaker 1: my face and exactly my wow when I saw the
Speaker 1: final number. It was a stunning failure to put the
Speaker 1: sort of money where their mouth was on democracy and
Speaker 1: actually create those opportunities of the local level for those
Speaker 1: nonpartisan bureaucrats to like give us all what we need.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, it's important to think about like
Speaker 1: the big picture laws, the big picture policies in tandem
Speaker 1: with this incredibly localized tapestry of election administration that's happening
Speaker 1: across the country. And I like to sort of think
Speaker 1: about both of those at the same time. You paint
Speaker 1: a picture, because obviously what most people understand about voting
Speaker 1: is walking into whether it's a elementary school, gymnasium or whatever,
Speaker 1: community center and booth and you know, thanking the people
Speaker 1: for sitting there and doing the job and walking out
Speaker 1: right filling out their ballot and walking out. And I
Speaker 1: think that what we have seen since twenty twenty is
Speaker 1: that more Americans have become skeptical right of the voting
Speaker 1: systems because of the lies that were spread by Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, which is you know, I can't help
Speaker 1: but think now about that ten billion dollars versus seventy
Speaker 1: five this coming from people who claim that they were
Speaker 1: so much wrong with their voting right and so much
Speaker 1: wrong with our system, then then wouldn't you want to
Speaker 1: fund to make sure that the integrity of said system remains?
Speaker 1: So I digress, but you know, when I think about
Speaker 1: what people learned from the election of twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: it was a historic election, right in the midst of
Speaker 1: a pandemic, there was a lot of pivoting and nimbleness
Speaker 1: that needed to happen in order to keep people safe
Speaker 1: but also for them to be able to exercise their
Speaker 1: constitutional right to cast a ballot. And I want you
Speaker 1: to talk about one, the historical nature of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: what were some of the lessons that were learned, but
Speaker 1: then also the lessons that were denied, as we just
Speaker 1: had at the end of last year the midterm elections,
Speaker 1: which were again historic turnout, the lessons that were learned
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty that were not applicable in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: And what you were thinking with regard to how we're
Speaker 1: going to run a successful, unencumbered election that isn't tampered with. Great,
Speaker 1: great question, and I think, like when we think about
Speaker 1: things we can celebrate, I think it's worth starting by
Speaker 1: pausing on twenty twenty and exactly like you said, it
Speaker 1: was a world changing pandemic. It was an office changing
Speaker 1: pandemic for local election officials across the country who weren't
Speaker 1: able to do anything remotely the way they were able
Speaker 1: to do before. And local election officials are great a process.
Speaker 1: They are great at sort of like managing a process
Speaker 1: over time and in the face of threats. But this
Speaker 1: is something new. This was This required a level of
Speaker 1: nimbleness by those local officials that we haven't asked for
Speaker 1: before and that we did not adequately resource them to do,
Speaker 1: and they pulled it off anyway, and that was an
Speaker 1: incredible success and something we should all celebrate. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: as high ranking you know, Republican officials called it, it
Speaker 1: was the most secure election in American history. You had
Speaker 1: people who had the choice whether they could vote by
Speaker 1: mail from home if that's what felt safe to them.
Speaker 1: They could also go into their polling place and be
Speaker 1: greeted by that sort of friendly neighbor who has always
Speaker 1: greeted them at the local community center of the local church.
Speaker 1: Providing those options for voters was something new in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty in a number of jurisdictions. There were some places
Speaker 1: in the West who had done mostly vote by mail
Speaker 1: before twenty twenty, and there were places other places that
Speaker 1: had done almost exclusively in person voting. That mixing of
Speaker 1: the two modes, that providing the voters the choice was
Speaker 1: something really powerful. I think that came out of the
Speaker 1: pandemic and something that you've seen stick around. The problem
Speaker 1: is that needs money, and that needs staff, and that
Speaker 1: needs new warehouse spaces that they never needed before, and
Speaker 1: they need security. So this is the last lesson from
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, or the last takeaway that's still with us
Speaker 1: is that local election officials are getting threatened. And this
Speaker 1: is remember local election officials of both parties. Of those
Speaker 1: eight thousand counties and municipalities that run election, the vast
Speaker 1: majority are majority Republicans. So this is like, these are
Speaker 1: mostly Republican officials who are getting threatened by their friends
Speaker 1: and neighbors because they're listening to that disinformation. And that's
Speaker 1: not only morally important to me, but it also actually
Speaker 1: threatens the integrity of the election system, because if we
Speaker 1: can't give these hardworking people the resources they need, and
Speaker 1: if we can't give them the security that they need
Speaker 1: at relatively low paid jobs, we are not going to
Speaker 1: have people to run our democracy. And that's more than
Speaker 1: anything that keeps me up at night about the future.
Speaker 1: Is the after effects of twenty twenty on election official
Speaker 1: recruitment and election official retention, not to mention, of course,
Speaker 1: the exact same problems in recruiting those poll workers who
Speaker 1: work at your local community center for that one day year.
Speaker 1: They really are, you know, sort of the definition of
Speaker 1: thankless job. And I think our job, as folks who
Speaker 1: want to promote democracy is to thank them more often,
Speaker 1: both with our words, and with our policies. When you
Speaker 1: talk about being really concerned about being able to recruit
Speaker 1: people because of political threats of violence, right, do you
Speaker 1: think that this is something that is not then Sam
Speaker 1: getting the kind of attention that it should. Should we
Speaker 1: be taught because you know, for the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: I mean, we have seen an escalation in political violence,
Speaker 1: you know, from what happened to a former speaker Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, for what has happened in threats
Speaker 1: with members of Congress. We think about it at that level,
Speaker 1: but then we saw, right the attacks on Shay Moss
Speaker 1: and Missus Ruby Freeman from Georgia, who were made a
Speaker 1: target literally yes, by the president, former President Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: by Rudy Giuliani and others. And so when you talk
Speaker 1: about we need to be able to have security and protections,
Speaker 1: what is that in a best case scenario? What does
Speaker 1: that actually look like? Because we're not giving these people
Speaker 1: Secret Service bodyguards right while they're doing their jobs. So
Speaker 1: what does security and protection look like for these people? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so to answer your first question, what it doesn't look like?
Speaker 1: It's seventy five million dollars for the entire country. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: well that is that Yep. To put that number in context,
Speaker 1: in California, which ran a recall ellection for the governor
Speaker 1: last year, Riley County, one county in California spent fifty
Speaker 1: three million dollars on the recall election. Excuse me, So
Speaker 1: the seventy five million does not stretch across jurisdictions. And
Speaker 1: I bring that up again. You're gonna hear me probably
Speaker 1: mentioned that at least one more time on with you today.
Speaker 1: And the reason that I mentioned that is that, like,
Speaker 1: that's the security money. So we're not probably hiring secret service,
Speaker 1: but there are security services that costs money that election
Speaker 1: officials can hire to bring them through a unique threat environment.
Speaker 1: And I think some of that, some of that spending
Speaker 1: on security is necessary not only to keep people safe,
Speaker 1: which is the number one goal here, but also to
Speaker 1: really like increase the confidence of those officials and the
Speaker 1: poll workers in the process. And I think if you're
Speaker 1: a potential poll worker and you saw what happened in
Speaker 1: Georgia with the president last year, that's going to make
Speaker 1: you a little reticent to serve as a poll worker. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it would make me a little reticent. To serve,
Speaker 1: and so I want to see election departments actually spend
Speaker 1: some money on security. And I know Fulham County, Georgia
Speaker 1: has spent millions more in security in the last few
Speaker 1: years than they have spent in previous years, in part,
Speaker 1: again to keep those folks safe, that's their number one goal,
Speaker 1: to keep safe, and in part because their election system
Speaker 1: will not run if they're not spending that money on security. Um.
Speaker 1: But but they need that money. But of course, the
Speaker 1: second piece of this is the disinformation environment that we're
Speaker 1: that we're drowning in right now, and we're going to
Speaker 1: keep seeing these threats if we keep allowing this disinformation
Speaker 1: to spread unchecked. Now, good news that some of the
Speaker 1: solutions that work for one of these pieces also work
Speaker 1: for the other piece. What's the best way to fight disinformation?
Speaker 1: It's with trusted information from a trusted government official. So
Speaker 1: I can go out there as a leader of a
Speaker 1: nonprofit and say whatever I want to voters and they're
Speaker 1: not going to know who I am, and they're not
Speaker 1: going to necessarily trust me, no matter how well designed
Speaker 1: my informative brochure is or my my AD or my
Speaker 1: UM you know, my digital program. What really works is
Speaker 1: giving election officials the ability to say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: you're hearing a lot about vote by mail, but let
Speaker 1: me tell you how the system works. First, we match
Speaker 1: every vote by mail request to a voter registration record
Speaker 1: to make sure that the person requesting is who they
Speaker 1: say they are. Then the ballots that go out have X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z security features, and when they come back in,
Speaker 1: this is again exactly how our security protocol works to
Speaker 1: make sure that each person can cast a ballot. But
Speaker 1: people are only casting one ballot, and I'm not a
Speaker 1: communications professional, so that might not be exactly the way
Speaker 1: to do that, but this is what we need to
Speaker 1: give election officials the resources to do to fight that disinformation.
Speaker 1: They need their own communications professionals, right, they need to
Speaker 1: be working in those offices, and that cost money that
Speaker 1: they don't have. So we're looping back to the same
Speaker 1: problem here in many ways, but it's a potentially very
Speaker 1: powerful solution. If we can get this right, what do
Speaker 1: you think the future of our elections look like? Yeah? Right,
Speaker 1: you know we have long said, you know, every election
Speaker 1: is the most important election, and obviously the less couple
Speaker 1: were consequential to whether or not we actually continue to
Speaker 1: be a functioning democracy or not. Some would argue that
Speaker 1: we're not actually a functioning democracy right now. But as
Speaker 1: we look ahead to twenty twenty four, again another consequential
Speaker 1: presidential election, what are your thoughts about America as a
Speaker 1: whole as we're watching other countries fall to authoritarianism and
Speaker 1: fascism that have pretend elections. I mean they have elections, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they just don't mean anything. And so where are your
Speaker 1: thoughts about how America looks in the next few years?
Speaker 1: What a great question. So, ay, we start with the election.
Speaker 1: So what we have to do, Like you said, I
Speaker 1: think five minutes ago, when you walk into that polling place,
Speaker 1: you have to have a good experience, because what keeps
Speaker 1: people going back to democracy is the like individual sort
Speaker 1: of customer service level experiences they have with that system.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the reasons, more broadly, that
Speaker 1: our democracy is under threat is that our government does
Speaker 1: not do a good enough job of providing customer service
Speaker 1: to people. When someone needs Medicaid in order to take
Speaker 1: their kids to the doctor, we make that process so
Speaker 1: hard for them to sign up with. There's so many
Speaker 1: pieces of paper that say the same thing over and
Speaker 1: over again, so many different offices to go to when
Speaker 1: we owe someone a tax refund. We make the process
Speaker 1: of the government giving us the money that they owe
Speaker 1: us so hard that all of this is actually about
Speaker 1: one sort of coherent theory of government service delivery. And
Speaker 1: at the Ensuite for Responsive Government, there's a reason we
Speaker 1: didn't call it Responsive Election Administration. We called it the
Speaker 1: Institute for Responsive Government, because we think every single one
Speaker 1: of these government customer service interactions is about strengthening democracy.
Speaker 1: When you go to the DMV and you have to
Speaker 1: go home four times because their website was clear about
Speaker 1: which kinds of idea you had to bring, I just
Speaker 1: moved to Illinois. I'm not saying this happened to me recently.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it didn't happen to me, because apparently
Speaker 1: very well, and I am so privileged compared to like
Speaker 1: most people who who are living My ability to go
Speaker 1: home and get those papers without calling sick for my
Speaker 1: second job and losing income was unique to meet. And
Speaker 1: so the government not only needs to be providing a
Speaker 1: good democracy experience mechanically, and that means that when you know,
Speaker 1: you need to have good poll workers that respect you
Speaker 1: when you go in and can explain that process to you,
Speaker 1: and that you cast your ballot and walk out feeling
Speaker 1: like you had a great experience with your neighbors. It
Speaker 1: means when I go to the DMV. First of all,
Speaker 1: when I go to the DMV, they should be automatically
Speaker 1: registering me to vote. If I'm proving that I'm an
Speaker 1: eligible citizen through all those papers that I brought, they
Speaker 1: should just be adding me to the voter rolls. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to fill out another piece of paper that
Speaker 1: tells the government the exact same thing I just told them.
Speaker 1: But moreover, if that DMV experience is good, then I
Speaker 1: will out of their thinking like, wow, I had a
Speaker 1: good experience at this government office. And this whole project
Speaker 1: we are working on together where we like it's a
Speaker 1: democracy is a weird idea. We get together with our
Speaker 1: neighbors and we say, let's like pull our resources and
Speaker 1: work together and build a system that makes us all
Speaker 1: better off. And the way to strengthen our democracy is
Speaker 1: by actually making us all better off, you know, delivering
Speaker 1: material wins for people through the government is a way
Speaker 1: to strengthen democracy. And going back to the beginning of
Speaker 1: our conversation. It also lifts security and access. At the
Speaker 1: same time, the more we automate tax filings, the harder
Speaker 1: it is to cheat on your taxes. All of these
Speaker 1: are the same where the more we use data we
Speaker 1: already have to deliver things people deserve, the better people
Speaker 1: are off, the better democracy is, and the more secure
Speaker 1: the system is. At a whole, it really improves the
Speaker 1: integrity of democracy, not just the election system. Brilliant Sam,
Speaker 1: This has been such and enlightening conversation that I know
Speaker 1: that people are going to walk away and be really
Speaker 1: thankful for it. Please tell the woke app audience how
Speaker 1: they can learn more about your organization if they want
Speaker 1: to get involved. Please awesome. So, first of all, please
Speaker 1: visit our website. It's Responsive governing dot org or if
Speaker 1: you just google the Institute for Responsive Government you can
Speaker 1: find it that way. The reason I say come visit
Speaker 1: us on our website is we work on a number
Speaker 1: of different topic areas, like I said, primarily voting an election, administration,
Speaker 1: but also these other areas of government service delivery where
Speaker 1: there's so much good technical sounding work that it first
Speaker 1: sounds boring and then you look into it a little
Speaker 1: bit more and then you realize how transformative it can
Speaker 1: be to people's experience not only with the government, but
Speaker 1: their ability to feed their families, take care of their families, etc.
Speaker 1: So come visit us a responsive governing We tweet a
Speaker 1: responsive underscore GOVT. And if there's anything I want people
Speaker 1: to take away, it's what we just said. It's that
Speaker 1: like we can use data well to make government more accessible,
Speaker 1: to make voting more accessible, to automatically register people to vote,
Speaker 1: to provide them the best choices possible about how to
Speaker 1: cast their ballot securely and efficiently and increase election security
Speaker 1: at the same time. So come out of the frames
Speaker 1: that we're thinking about these issues on. You know, if
Speaker 1: we're not seeing impact from a policy, then that policy
Speaker 1: isn't doing what it's supposed to do. We do a
Speaker 1: lot of legislative work where we pass bills that try
Speaker 1: and sort of encompass these principles. Passing a bill is
Speaker 1: not a win. If there's a bill pass that implement
Speaker 1: that passes an automatic voter registration system, that's not a
Speaker 1: win until we actually see people being added to the
Speaker 1: voter rolls. And that takes everyone in government working together
Speaker 1: to actually make implementation happen. And if you're not thinking
Speaker 1: about that process through the entire scope of policymaking, you're
Speaker 1: not doing policymaking right and you're not going to do
Speaker 1: your policy making in a way that actually improves people's lives.
Speaker 1: So I would invite listeners to come learn about how
Speaker 1: to make policy with impact and implementation in mind, how
Speaker 1: to keep those practical lenses on while you do this,
Speaker 1: and how to sort of think about democracy the entire time.
Speaker 1: It's something broader than just something we do every two
Speaker 1: or four years. It's every interaction we have with our neighbors,
Speaker 1: and it's every interaction we have with our government, and
Speaker 1: together we can actually make that something that makes all
Speaker 1: of our lives better. Sam Olika Friedland, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for making the time to join woke F and
Speaker 1: for all of the work that you are doing to
Speaker 1: try and keep our elections safe and fair and free.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: This was an absolutely delightful conversation about a difficult topic,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad you're covering it. That is it
Speaker 1: for me today, Dear friends on woke F. As always,
Speaker 1: power to the people and to all the people power,
Speaker 1: get woke, and stay woke as fuck.