Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast me. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry
Speaker 1: Jerome Rolland you put the three of us together in
Speaker 1: a room, shake it up, pick out some of the
Speaker 1: chest hairs. You got stuff you should know. I thought
Speaker 1: that was gross. I thought you'd like that. You're ready
Speaker 1: to get angry on this one. I'm trying to keep
Speaker 1: it cool. Man. I woke up yesterday and said, I
Speaker 1: really want to take off a significant portion of our listeners.
Speaker 1: So what could what topic could we do? And I
Speaker 1: thought voter suppression? Perfect. Well, you know what, man, I've
Speaker 1: been trying to think about the why this bugs me
Speaker 1: so much. Voter suppression obviously bugs me because it's not right.
Speaker 1: But what really bugs me, I think is that if
Speaker 1: you're in Washington, D C. And you're in government, like
Speaker 1: everyone knows about this stuff and everyone talks about it. Frankly,
Speaker 1: when the microphones run around, like do you watch the
Speaker 1: show Veep? I love it. I've only seen season five,
Speaker 1: but man, it is so good. Like supposedly, that's kind
Speaker 1: of how it is. Like when the microphones aren't around.
Speaker 1: They all talk about politics in very frank terms, but
Speaker 1: as soon as you get on television or in front
Speaker 1: of a microphone, you have to tow the party lines
Speaker 1: on both sides with this rhetoric crap, and it ends
Speaker 1: up you can't even really talk about the things. Well no,
Speaker 1: but plus also, I think one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: that is the way it is is because you've got
Speaker 1: to feed the sheeple like a certain like you said
Speaker 1: that that company line or that party line, because if
Speaker 1: you really talked about what was really going on, some
Speaker 1: of the people who agree with your BS would otherwise
Speaker 1: disagree with the actual thing that's going on. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Well, yeah, and let's just go ahead
Speaker 1: and say it. And this one on voter suppression, historically, uh,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party has purposefully done things to try and
Speaker 1: keep certain people from voting because they probably vote Democrat
Speaker 1: and they can't just say that, so they say, no,
Speaker 1: it's really about voter fraud. That's a big problem. And
Speaker 1: Democrats want those votes, and they say it's because they
Speaker 1: just want a very inclusive democratic process, but that's not true.
Speaker 1: They want those votes because they're probably gonna be Democrat votes, right,
Speaker 1: and Democrats will do anything, including voter fraud, to get
Speaker 1: people to the polls or to get those votes. That's
Speaker 1: the current, that's the argument that's going on right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying, though, like neither one
Speaker 1: of them can say those things, so they have to
Speaker 1: stand behind these two kind of bogus reasons, and it's
Speaker 1: just infuriating. Right. So the reasons, these bogus reasons, ostensibly
Speaker 1: focused reasons, are that if you take measures to make
Speaker 1: it a little difficult to vote, what you're going to
Speaker 1: do is protect the integrity of the electoral system. Right.
Speaker 1: This is the this is the Republican's viewpoint. If you
Speaker 1: do that, then there's gonna be a couple of things. One,
Speaker 1: you're gonna cut down on fraud, which again the Democrats
Speaker 1: are just total fraudsters when it comes to voting as
Speaker 1: far as Republicans are concerned. And then it's also going
Speaker 1: to in some cases, sure, it's gonna make it a
Speaker 1: little difficult for some people to vote, but the Republican
Speaker 1: way of thinking is if you really care about voting,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do whatever it takes to get to that poll.
Speaker 1: And register and vote. And if you don't, if if
Speaker 1: just a couple of simple barriers will keep you from
Speaker 1: doing that, then nuts to you, man, I don't care
Speaker 1: about your vote and ts for the Democrats who you
Speaker 1: probably would have voted for. That's like, that's the that's
Speaker 1: the argument in public that you're talking about, that you're
Speaker 1: saying is focus when it's really these people who are
Speaker 1: having access issues to voting because of the laws that
Speaker 1: the GOP is putting up, um are more likely to
Speaker 1: vote for Democrats. So hence these are these are targeted
Speaker 1: attempts to block people from voting for Democrats. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's the reality of it. Allegedly, we should say, chuck,
Speaker 1: like there's just calling it voter suppression is kind of
Speaker 1: controversial in and of itself. Well, yeah, no one likes
Speaker 1: to use those words because on on the one side,
Speaker 1: like you said, they there's like, it's not about voter suppression,
Speaker 1: it's about like, you know, what's wrong with having to
Speaker 1: have an I D to go cast a vote? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, on its face it makes sense. You know,
Speaker 1: they say you have to have idea to buy alcohol.
Speaker 1: If some clerk decides that he wants to see your
Speaker 1: i D. You have to show it to him, or
Speaker 1: you can't buy alcohol. What's the problem with that? You know? Well, right,
Speaker 1: and then you go to some parts of Texas and
Speaker 1: they say, well, you can use your your gun license
Speaker 1: to vote, but don't use your student I D. That
Speaker 1: doesn't count, right, So, like it's it's the fact that
Speaker 1: they're all very targeted. And everyone will see as we
Speaker 1: go through this, it's very targeted. Like and we'll we'll
Speaker 1: bring up specific cases where you know, they find out
Speaker 1: like oh, man, um, leading up to the election where
Speaker 1: Barack Obama's first elected presidential election, Um, we saw a
Speaker 1: surge in increase in black voters in this county. So
Speaker 1: let's go to that county specifically and introduce some legislation
Speaker 1: that's gonna make it harder for them to get to
Speaker 1: the polls specifically there. Yeah, Like it's maddening. Oh it is.
Speaker 1: It's infuriating. Even I was reading kind of the other
Speaker 1: side on this by a guy named David French who
Speaker 1: writes for the National Review, and he was saying, even
Speaker 1: he was like, if that happens what you just described,
Speaker 1: it should be vigorously litigated. That that that there's no
Speaker 1: excuse for that, for anything that's that's specifically targeting like
Speaker 1: minorities or the elderly. You're making it difficult for any
Speaker 1: group that to to to like purposefully making it harder
Speaker 1: for them to vote, and targeting people like that, then yeah,
Speaker 1: it should be litigated and those those rules should be
Speaker 1: thrown out. Well, and that happens. It is litigated, litigated,
Speaker 1: and quite often reports do say like you can't do this,
Speaker 1: and they say, all right, well, we won't do it again.
Speaker 1: But it worked on this election right well. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons why this we're currently in the midst of
Speaker 1: a really massive wave of voter suppression laws that are
Speaker 1: are sweeping the country right now. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why it's being allowed to go on is because
Speaker 1: just like in Citizens United Them, Roberts Supreme Court said,
Speaker 1: you know what, things are fine, We're just going to
Speaker 1: gut an important provision of the Voting Rights Act of
Speaker 1: nineteen six five. We'll talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: that in a minute, but it basically said, you these states,
Speaker 1: in these specific districts in these states have a history
Speaker 1: of voter suppression um and we the federal government are
Speaker 1: going to keep an eye on you. So much so
Speaker 1: that you can't make any changes to your voting procedures
Speaker 1: without the federal government approving it. And in two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: I believe, the Supreme Court said, you know what, we're fine,
Speaker 1: we're post racial being a black president. We don't need
Speaker 1: that anymore, and they overturned that provision of the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act, and it's allowed again, this, this massive wave
Speaker 1: of voter suppression laws to be passed in this country. Man,
Speaker 1: We're already riled up. It's tough. It's tough not to
Speaker 1: be you know what. We're you gonna say, should we
Speaker 1: take a break? No, not a break, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say it. Should we just go back and talk about
Speaker 1: history a little bit? Yeah, man, because the history is
Speaker 1: much easier to stomach. Yeah right, Uh okay. So um,
Speaker 1: and you you put this article together with our own
Speaker 1: article on a bunch of other good stuff. Yes, nice work, thanks, um.
Speaker 1: But you point out that very astutele that it's not
Speaker 1: in the constitution the right to vote. This has been
Speaker 1: uh left up to the states over the years. Um,
Speaker 1: even though we've had you know, amendments since then that
Speaker 1: obviously allowed certain people right to vote. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: originally included like, hey, everyone can vote. Everyone has the
Speaker 1: right to vote in this country, right and no. Originally
Speaker 1: the only group that the UM that citizens of the
Speaker 1: United States could vote for was the House of Representatives,
Speaker 1: the Senate, and the president and the president still this
Speaker 1: is the case. We're elected by an electoral college, right,
Speaker 1: So eventually they added Senate seats for people to be
Speaker 1: able to directly vote for. But in the first presidential
Speaker 1: election in seventeen eighty nine, UM, the one that that
Speaker 1: or George Washington won and was elected to the president.
Speaker 1: See the first presidency of the United States. UM, like
Speaker 1: six percent of the population in the US at the
Speaker 1: time were eligible to vote, and that was it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was only white men, uh and freed African American
Speaker 1: slaves and just four states. I saw six, six states.
Speaker 1: I was really surprised to see that. But yeah, who
Speaker 1: owned property? Right, that's a big one. Right, So that
Speaker 1: left like eight guys, right they were allowed to But yeah,
Speaker 1: you had to own property, and that was the big
Speaker 1: division at first, even apparently more so than UM by race.
Speaker 1: It was by whether you were a landowner a property owner, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you had to be twenty one There were certain
Speaker 1: religious restrictions too. So, like you said, that ended up
Speaker 1: six percent, six percent of the population could vote. That's
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm gonna cut him a little slack on
Speaker 1: the first election. Say, they were trying to get it together,
Speaker 1: but six percent is an alarmingly non low number. But
Speaker 1: they probably thought that was the six percent of people
Speaker 1: that mattered, right, And I guess it's it's it's more
Speaker 1: inclusive than the one percent, but it's still pretty pretty low.
Speaker 1: We're in the single digits here, you know. Uh, But
Speaker 1: like you were saying, it's um a class distinctions. Distinction
Speaker 1: was really kind of the biggest deal. Uh. And that
Speaker 1: changed a bit when war veterans who fought for independence
Speaker 1: from Britain stepped up and said, hey, a lot of
Speaker 1: us are not landowners and we helped free this country. Um,
Speaker 1: can can we vote? And little by little states said,
Speaker 1: all right, you know you don't have to own property. Um,
Speaker 1: it's eighteen fifty. And let's just say all white males
Speaker 1: can vote in some African American males, but definitely not
Speaker 1: women right now yet, just give us another seven decades
Speaker 1: or so. Okay, we're just trying to keep our heads
Speaker 1: from spinning. Overlighting people who don't own property vote exactly.
Speaker 1: So the in that bizarre Did you know that the
Speaker 1: first group to agitate for for voting rights was white
Speaker 1: men who did known land or veterans. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that either. So, Um, something really big happened in the
Speaker 1: middle of the nineteenth century that changed things as far
Speaker 1: as voting went. And that was the Civil War and
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth Amendment that and in slavery, followed by the
Speaker 1: fifteenth Amendment that granted suffrage to all men in the
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, regardless of race, color, or previous condition
Speaker 1: of servitude. But again and some women. Right, And it
Speaker 1: should have said dot dot dot supposedly because that fifteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment is what unleashed sort of the first uh Like,
Speaker 1: like before there was just voter suppression. They were like, no,
Speaker 1: you just can't vote. And now they said, uh, well
Speaker 1: you can vote, And so they had to be creative
Speaker 1: with their voter suppression, right. And at first there was
Speaker 1: a period of reconstruction in the in the South after
Speaker 1: the Civil War where the federal troops they I guess
Speaker 1: it was led still by General Ulysses Grant if he
Speaker 1: wasn't president by now, um, where the federal troops were
Speaker 1: occupying the South under martial law, right, and they were
Speaker 1: enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment and um other laws that had
Speaker 1: come into effect after the Civil War, and it was
Speaker 1: like black people could hold office, they could vote, they
Speaker 1: could live in this transition period from slavery into freedom,
Speaker 1: and they were doing it under the auspices of the
Speaker 1: Union Army. Um. But then the Union Army withdrew pretty prematurely,
Speaker 1: I think of the eighteen seventies early eighteen seventies, and
Speaker 1: it went from the Reconstruction South with which ended up
Speaker 1: lasting just a few years, to what became known as
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow South, which was basically slavery by any
Speaker 1: other name than slavery. Yeah, that's when the Dixiecrats, which
Speaker 1: were conservative Democrats, uh, I guess conservatives of the day,
Speaker 1: that's when they started to get creative and said, all right, well,
Speaker 1: we have this new fifteenth Amendment, so let's try and
Speaker 1: think of a lot of ways even though the law
Speaker 1: says that black men can vote, that we can keep
Speaker 1: them from doing so. Um. So how about a literacy test, um,
Speaker 1: and not only just a literacy test, but maybe one
Speaker 1: only in English. So that way there's no way an
Speaker 1: immigrant can vote if they can't read English, or maybe
Speaker 1: some poll taxes where you have to pay like like
Speaker 1: a dollar to register to vote. But but in like
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen money that was like eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Actually looked it up, it's uh nine thou dollars. In
Speaker 1: the in the early nineteen hundreds, I looked up like
Speaker 1: Texas it was a dollar fifty to register and that
Speaker 1: would be like forty three dollars today. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: for a poor person who you know is maybe waffling
Speaker 1: on whether or not to bother voting, charging them forty
Speaker 1: three dollars is probably gonna sel a deal. And George
Speaker 1: actually had a cumulative tax apparently for many years where
Speaker 1: every year, uh like if you were forty years old, um,
Speaker 1: every year from the age of twenty one that you
Speaker 1: weren't registered to vote, you would have to pay per
Speaker 1: year when you first registered to vote. Oh wow, So
Speaker 1: that was clearly targeting like a freed slave in his
Speaker 1: fifties would then have to pay a cumulative tax from
Speaker 1: the age from one up to fifty and you know,
Speaker 1: and again that just basically meant no one was going
Speaker 1: to register. Well, there are a lot of grandfather claus
Speaker 1: laws to which basically said that if you were registered
Speaker 1: to vote prior to the fifteenth Amendment or your grandfather
Speaker 1: was registered to vote prior to the fift Amendment, Um,
Speaker 1: you you were eligible now under these Jim Crow laws.
Speaker 1: But most black people in the South were not registered
Speaker 1: to vote, nor were their grandparents prior to the fifteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: so that basically just stripped them of their voting rights
Speaker 1: on aromatically as well. And you mentioned the literacy test
Speaker 1: to Chuck. Did you look into those at all? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean some of them somewhere like like recite the
Speaker 1: U s Constitution, some of them somewhere like that twenty
Speaker 1: twenty pages long. And they would be administered by white
Speaker 1: Democrats and again Democrats at the time where the Party
Speaker 1: of Conservatives, Um, the I I we should do an
Speaker 1: episode on that. And when the parties switched names, We've
Speaker 1: chatted about that. So, um, it would be left up
Speaker 1: to this poll worker who was administering the literacy literacy test,
Speaker 1: It would be left up to their judgment whether the
Speaker 1: person passed or failed. Yeah, like it like it was
Speaker 1: up to them. It wasn't an objective test. That was
Speaker 1: a subjective test. Yeah, and so the the end result
Speaker 1: of this is in nineteen forty, nineteen forty, not eighteen forty. Uh.
Speaker 1: These suppression campaigns worked so well that only three percent
Speaker 1: of eligible voters African American Southerners were registered to vote
Speaker 1: by nineteen forty. And you know, it's probably one of
Speaker 1: the worst parts about that is that I'll bet in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty that the average white person considered black people
Speaker 1: politically disengaged in this country because of statistics like that,
Speaker 1: Oh right to say, like, oh, they don't even vote, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't even care about politics, and three percent of
Speaker 1: them are are registered to vote even you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this wasn't limited to the South, kind of up
Speaker 1: north and nationwide there were things going on. Notably, there
Speaker 1: was a h for naturalized citizens. It was very long
Speaker 1: residency requirements, UM, basically to try and keep uh immigrants
Speaker 1: from voting for a long time, especially the Chinese. Apparently
Speaker 1: do you know that I did not. There's a an
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two law it's pretty on the nose, the
Speaker 1: Chinese Exclusion Act, and it said if you're Chinese and
Speaker 1: you're an immigrant, you're not allowed to become a citizen,
Speaker 1: which meant they couldn't vote. And this was on the
Speaker 1: books in the United States until nineteen forty three. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this stuff isn't ancient history. That that's why it's so shocking,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. So nineteen twenty comes along and um,
Speaker 1: women were finally given the right to vote thanks to
Speaker 1: the nineteenth Amendment. Uh and you mentioned the Voting Rights
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen sixty five, which finally got rid of
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow voting laws officially in the South. Um,
Speaker 1: but that didn't mean that suppression intimidation didn't still go on. No.
Speaker 1: You know, like whenever the federal government decided that it
Speaker 1: needed to lend a hand and assist, um, the black
Speaker 1: population of the Southern States in gaining their citizenship, that
Speaker 1: there would be a huge backlash to that. And um,
Speaker 1: initially it meant the formation of the clan, and then
Speaker 1: after the Civil Rights Act, the clan again experience. It's
Speaker 1: this huge resurgence and popularity and membership and acts of
Speaker 1: white terrorism just became the norm. And now that we're
Speaker 1: looking back on it, you know, we think of like
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights movement. When I think of that, I
Speaker 1: don't think of it as actually agitating four civil rights.
Speaker 1: I think of it as agitating for full citizenship and
Speaker 1: equal treatment under the law and everything that makes up
Speaker 1: civil rights. But you don't think of it as like,
Speaker 1: really at the basis what the civil rights leaders were
Speaker 1: agitating for, where things like protection of their voting rights,
Speaker 1: access to to the polls just as any white person
Speaker 1: would enjoy. And that march, that very famous march from
Speaker 1: Selma to Montgomery. Um, did you see that movie Selma?
Speaker 1: That one. It's a great movie. Have you seen either thirteen? No, No,
Speaker 1: I'm dying to see that one too, Dude, that one.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. It's just it's just amazing. It's really well done,
Speaker 1: and the stuff they're talking about is just so eye opening.
Speaker 1: It's it's great. Like it's one of those one Joe
Speaker 1: watch more than once, I'm sure. But that march from
Speaker 1: Selma to Montgomery was a march for voting rights, and
Speaker 1: it actually helped usher in this Voting Rights Act of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five because, um, the the Alabama State Patrol
Speaker 1: I believe, I'm like horseback with batons and whips and
Speaker 1: um uh, night sticks and tear gas just ruthlessly beat
Speaker 1: these unarmed, peaceful protesters in the street of Selma, and
Speaker 1: it was all captured on on national television and broadcasts,
Speaker 1: and it really changed the mood of the nation as
Speaker 1: far as that goes. And it actually was supremely counterproductive
Speaker 1: to people who were against black voting because it helped
Speaker 1: protect black vote um by by the federal government through
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act of nineteen Yeah. Another thing that
Speaker 1: came with that act was an official ban on any
Speaker 1: uh quote test or device end quote uh to qualify
Speaker 1: voters on the basis of literacy, education or fluency in English. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then it took all the way until nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six until poll taxes were banned, um, which was kind
Speaker 1: of way later than I thought. It was like the
Speaker 1: next year. Well no, I mean just period. Oh yeah. No,
Speaker 1: those Jim Crow laws were basically done away with after
Speaker 1: a century. Yeah, as they were around for a century
Speaker 1: in one form or another. Unbelievable yeah uh. And then
Speaker 1: finally during Vietnam they finally lowered the age voting age
Speaker 1: to eighteen and nineteen seventy one post Vietnam because veterans
Speaker 1: were like, Hey, I can be drafted and shot and
Speaker 1: killed for my country, but I can't vote. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they all went, uh, yeah, it's a good point. It
Speaker 1: is a good point to argue that, uh you want
Speaker 1: to take a break. Yeah, man, all right, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back and talk about the eleven voter suppression techniques.
Speaker 1: Sk alright, Uh, we're back and um before actually we
Speaker 1: move on to some of these eleven techniques. UM, my
Speaker 1: question for you, sir, the basis of all this is
Speaker 1: voter fraud. Is what the argument is for for a
Speaker 1: lot of these, especially with I D SO, is that, like,
Speaker 1: is voter fraud real? So? Um, I mean everything I
Speaker 1: came across that I that strikes me as legitimate, although
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how um legitimate, like say a conservative
Speaker 1: might find it, but like the Brookings Institution, to me,
Speaker 1: it's definitely left leaning. But I would also say that
Speaker 1: it's quite a legitimate think tank. Um, but the studies
Speaker 1: that I've come across all say, no, it's not really
Speaker 1: a thing like the It's it's basically a specter. It's
Speaker 1: a potential possibility, but it's in actuality, it's not a thing.
Speaker 1: And one thing I saw was that, um, this came
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where this one came from, but eighty
Speaker 1: six convictions three hundred million votes cast in the last
Speaker 1: few elections. I would say that's probably about ten to
Speaker 1: twelve elections. There's only been eighty six convictions for voter fraud.
Speaker 1: And the other issue with this, specifically specifically with voter
Speaker 1: I D laws is that most of those cases of
Speaker 1: fraud where people have actually been convicted of voter fraud
Speaker 1: were mail in ballots, and so like a voter I
Speaker 1: D card is not going to do anything for that
Speaker 1: because you don't you don't produce I D to mail
Speaker 1: in a ballot. So the idea that there is a
Speaker 1: big problem with voter fraud is um ostensibly not real,
Speaker 1: although of course Trump is going to um he's he's
Speaker 1: carrying out an investigation and he's formed a commission, so
Speaker 1: I'm very curious to find out what they find. But um,
Speaker 1: even if it were a real thing, from the the
Speaker 1: pattern that we're seeing, the voter ide laws aren't going
Speaker 1: to help anything anyway. So far as it actually makes
Speaker 1: a difference in an election outcome, it is negligible. No,
Speaker 1: And I have to say there are really It's not
Speaker 1: like the people who who are who say, especially rank
Speaker 1: and file GOP members, right, not necessarily like high elected officials,
Speaker 1: but just like the average GOP party member. It's not
Speaker 1: like they're lunatics for believing that there's such a thing
Speaker 1: as widespread voter fraud, right, Like, this is a big
Speaker 1: drum that's beat on the conservatives side and in conservative media,
Speaker 1: But there's also like UM instances in the past that
Speaker 1: can be pointed to saying like see, see this is
Speaker 1: what they do. UM like Acorn definitely didn't help anything.
Speaker 1: Acorn was a community organizing UM group that had been
Speaker 1: around since I think the eighties, and they were dedicated
Speaker 1: to getting UM lower income minority people who traditionally had
Speaker 1: trouble accessing UM the polls or voting, getting them registered
Speaker 1: and getting them to vote right. So they were very
Speaker 1: much aligned with the Democratic viewpoints of universal access, universal
Speaker 1: participation in elections and UM. They were very much a
Speaker 1: left leaning organization. They were associated with Obama very famously
Speaker 1: and then equally famously, they were this disgraced organization because
Speaker 1: they were accused of voter fraud, a voter registration fraud
Speaker 1: to be specific. And the way that this happened was
Speaker 1: they would send out people a canvass neghborhoods and they
Speaker 1: would give them a quota and if they met their quota,
Speaker 1: then they would say get paid a bonus or something
Speaker 1: like that. Right, So these Acorn workers were given and
Speaker 1: these were just the same people who were also maybe
Speaker 1: on the next Tuesday coming by your house to see
Speaker 1: if you wanted to donate to the Sierra Club to
Speaker 1: write um. They they were given an incentive to create
Speaker 1: fake registrations and a lot of them did they. And
Speaker 1: when these investigations were launched in multiple states into acorn
Speaker 1: um and voter registration fraud, it was found that these
Speaker 1: people weren't trying to pave the way for fraud at
Speaker 1: the polls, but that they were creating fake registration forms,
Speaker 1: very frequently duplicate registration forms for the same person to
Speaker 1: get paid for work they hadn't done to get paid
Speaker 1: from Acorn. And that was the extent of it. So
Speaker 1: Acorn ended up disbanding, but they left a huge, huge
Speaker 1: blemish on the argument from the the the liberal side
Speaker 1: saying we don't engage in voter fraud? What are you
Speaker 1: crazy for even thinking that? Now? Forever conservatives, especially people
Speaker 1: who aren't who are you know, let's just say conservatives.
Speaker 1: I can point to acorn for the rest of the time,
Speaker 1: the rest of the time, and be like, look, you
Speaker 1: guys did that. So, yes, there is such thing as
Speaker 1: voter fraud in my mind, and you can't persuade me otherwise.
Speaker 1: And as long as there's that kind of division, uh,
Speaker 1: there's you're not going to be able to persuade anybody
Speaker 1: if there's no such thing as voter fraud. That's a
Speaker 1: good point. Um, all right, should we talk about the
Speaker 1: eleven techniques? I'm pretty tired, man, I don't know. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right. Number one, number one on our list voter caging. Um,
Speaker 1: who was that? Was that your carson? Oh? No, sort
Speaker 1: of a casey case of me. That was pretty good.
Speaker 1: Did you ever hear that great outtake when he had
Speaker 1: to read the letter? Pretty wonderful that that taught me
Speaker 1: to just shut up when a mic time? Was it dead? Dog?
Speaker 1: Was that it specifically? But it was? It was a
Speaker 1: pretty funny out take, man, God bless him, alright. Voter
Speaker 1: caging is when uh you send mail uh un unforwordable
Speaker 1: forwardable M. That's really a mouthful mail which cannot be forwarded. Um.
Speaker 1: Uh send that mail to an address uh that is
Speaker 1: on the voter rolls UH. And then and when it's
Speaker 1: not uh, when it's returned undelivered. Basically they challenge and say,
Speaker 1: this person no longer lives at this address, so they
Speaker 1: can't vote, right, which in and of itself is not scientific,
Speaker 1: it's not illegal. It's when you target say Democrats, UM,
Speaker 1: I think SpeI typically minorities, it becomes illegal. You're you're, you're,
Speaker 1: you can't target any minority group. UM. But I believe
Speaker 1: you can target the opponents party like registered party members.
Speaker 1: But the whole point is is you're saying this person
Speaker 1: doesn't lived there or else they would have gotten their mail,
Speaker 1: and because they don't live there, their their vote can't count.
Speaker 1: They should be purged from the rolls. Right. Very famously
Speaker 1: happened in ninety eight when this literature was sent to
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand registered Democrats UH, and then again in nine
Speaker 1: one when UM Republicans sent thousands of letters to UH minorities,
Speaker 1: blacks and Latinos in New Jersey and UH. That one
Speaker 1: actually calls such a stir that the the r n
Speaker 1: C got together with the d n C and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna consent here, UH with a
Speaker 1: consent decree and we're not gonna do it anymore. Right,
Speaker 1: they didn't just do that the goodness of their hearts.
Speaker 1: The d n C sued the r n C for
Speaker 1: that night one an election because there was a lot
Speaker 1: of dirty stuff. And to this day, the r n
Speaker 1: C if it does any if it undertakes any um
Speaker 1: uh voters suppression techniques, wants to create any changes in
Speaker 1: in voting regularity. Um, it has to get approval by
Speaker 1: the courts first, correct, But that doesn't stop it from
Speaker 1: happening because now it's just, uh, the third party groups
Speaker 1: can do it now because they're not part of the
Speaker 1: r n C officially or the d n C, and
Speaker 1: so it still happens. Yeah, what about these flyers, these
Speaker 1: so these kind of fall into uh larger category of
Speaker 1: misinformation campaigns. Right, you got flyers, you got robo calls. Um,
Speaker 1: these are just so brazen. They really are, like literally
Speaker 1: robo calls that say, hey, you your Democratic Canada has
Speaker 1: basically already won, so you just stay at home and
Speaker 1: relax tomorrow. Yeah, don't forget to vote on November five,
Speaker 1: Latino voter, even though election days November four. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so And you know, I was about to say how
Speaker 1: did they get away with it? But it says right
Speaker 1: in here, uh who is it? The co director of
Speaker 1: the voting rights group Advancement Project says, basically, you know
Speaker 1: they're usually anonymous, So like, how do you how do
Speaker 1: you go after someone? You wait around at mailboxes? You
Speaker 1: could arrest the mail carrier. I guess, oh did you
Speaker 1: think about that? I was thinking that they were just
Speaker 1: dropped in the mailboxes, but I guess they are mail
Speaker 1: These guys at these like handlebar mustaches and like black capes,
Speaker 1: come in hand deliver these things. So basically there's no
Speaker 1: way to trace this stuff. Um So, as a as
Speaker 1: a minority in a in a minority neighborhood, you might
Speaker 1: get a flyer and a robo call saying a wrong
Speaker 1: date like you said, or don't bother your candidates one,
Speaker 1: or you know, mail mail your absentee votes to this address,
Speaker 1: which is incorrect. Yeah, and this is like really really
Speaker 1: underhanded stuff, super illegal stuff. But again you can't unless
Speaker 1: you can trace it back to somebody who specifically and
Speaker 1: purposefully carried out this this campaign. That what you can't
Speaker 1: do anything about it except go public and say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't listen to that Yeah, well, because what happens is
Speaker 1: you get a Hispanic voter on the nightly news. It
Speaker 1: says I got a call that said I could vote
Speaker 1: my phone, and half the people watching that probably think
Speaker 1: while like this guy probably didn't even understand that phone call.
Speaker 1: So it's choked off as that when in fact he
Speaker 1: really did get a phone call saying he could vote
Speaker 1: by phone. Yeah. Well, yeah, that happened in Nevada in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. I think that it. Um sorry Nevada.
Speaker 1: It'll always be Nevada to me. I'm sorry Nevada. I
Speaker 1: know it tries you guys at poop, but it's true. Nevada, Nevada.
Speaker 1: What else, Chuck, This is a big one. I got one.
Speaker 1: You're ready, Uh, felony disenfranchise mare fellon disenfranchisement. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there used to be apparently the Greeks are the ones
Speaker 1: who came up with this, but it was really codified
Speaker 1: in in the West through medieval Europe, where if you
Speaker 1: were a convicted bad guy, you would would undergo what
Speaker 1: was called a civil death right. Um, yes, so much so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: that you could be murdered by another person and you
Speaker 1: were no longer protected by the law, so the other
Speaker 1: person would get away with its scott free right. One
Speaker 1: of the things that you lost was any kind of
Speaker 1: representation you might have or being able to participate in
Speaker 1: any kind of community processes. Right that carried over to
Speaker 1: the United States, but it really started to gain ground
Speaker 1: over the UM right after reconstruction, during the beginning of
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow period, where UM a lot of state
Speaker 1: legislatures enshrined in their state constitutions that if you were
Speaker 1: convicted of a felony, you lost your voting rights, and
Speaker 1: in some cases you lost them forever. You had to
Speaker 1: appeal to the governor to restore them. Some states said
Speaker 1: you lost them while you're in prison. Other states said
Speaker 1: you lost them after, say, if you were paroled, UM,
Speaker 1: whenever your sentence was fully finished. But to some degree, UH,
Speaker 1: felons lost their right to vote, and it's stuck around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I got the current stats here. There are
Speaker 1: only two states right now that allow an incarcerated felon
Speaker 1: to vote. Do you know what those are? One is Vermont?
Speaker 1: Uh is the other I honestly in New Hampshire, But
Speaker 1: I don't know that that would be an obvious guess.
Speaker 1: But Maine m hm so close, crazy manners. It's that
Speaker 1: Canada rubbing off on UH. Voting rights restored automatically upon
Speaker 1: release d C Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah from the
Speaker 1: rights restored automatically once released from prison and discharged from parole.
Speaker 1: Probationers can vote California, Colorado, Connecticut, New York restored automatically
Speaker 1: upon completion of sentence, including prison, parole and probation. In UH,
Speaker 1: A bunch of other ones. How about this everyone, But
Speaker 1: these last two voting rights restored dependent on type of
Speaker 1: conviction or outcome of petition to the government Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: and only restored through individual petition to the government Florida, Iowa, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and Virginia. Right. So the ones that you did not hear,
Speaker 1: we're upon completion, including prison, parole, probation. So people might say,
Speaker 1: don't don't do the crime. Right, So if you if
Speaker 1: you like, On the one hand, it makes sense like
Speaker 1: you've given up some sort of civil liberties because you
Speaker 1: you did commit some horrible, heinous crime. Other people say, okay, well,
Speaker 1: then maybe once you've done your time, you should get
Speaker 1: your your rights back. The problem is in the United
Speaker 1: States there is um a real racial disparity between people
Speaker 1: who are convicted of felonies who are black, and everybody else. Right. Yes,
Speaker 1: so overall seven points seven percent of the United States
Speaker 1: African American population as a whole, it does not have
Speaker 1: the right to vote because of a felony conviction. For
Speaker 1: the rest of the United States overall, just one point
Speaker 1: eight percent, that's including all every other race. Right, So
Speaker 1: there's out of the gates. There's disproportionately more convicted felons
Speaker 1: among the African American population in the United States than
Speaker 1: everybody else. Right. But then when you start boiling that
Speaker 1: down to voting rights on a state level, it becomes
Speaker 1: painfully clear that this certainly seems strategically targeted. These these laws.
Speaker 1: In Florida, one in four of Florida's black residents in
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen couldn't cast a ballot because they
Speaker 1: were disenfranchised for being felons, and four Florida was one
Speaker 1: of the ones that uh one of the four states
Speaker 1: where you had to have an individual petition approved by
Speaker 1: the government. Right, So one quarter and that's not saying
Speaker 1: one quarter of the the voting population of African Americans
Speaker 1: in Florida. That's that's the whole population, right. Um, and
Speaker 1: the African Americans have traditionally voted Democrat. Any law that says,
Speaker 1: now you're a felon you can't vote, you can just
Speaker 1: leave it at that and make your own your own
Speaker 1: surmises about it. Surmises it's a word. Now, surmations, Sir Masons.
Speaker 1: That's what I was looking for. Uh. Voter i D laws,
Speaker 1: that's sort of a obviously a big one because it's
Speaker 1: probably when you hear most about in the news. Um.
Speaker 1: As of this year, thirty two states have laws requiring
Speaker 1: or requesting idea when voting. West Virginia's coming and um,
Speaker 1: so that would make thirty three states. Uh. And we
Speaker 1: mentioned Texas earlier. That's one of the states where they
Speaker 1: say like, oh, well, um, you can use your gun permit,
Speaker 1: but you can't use your college student i D even
Speaker 1: though the state has issued both of those. Right, Because
Speaker 1: if you're a student, you're possibly more likely to vote Democrat.
Speaker 1: If you are a gun owner, you're probably more likely
Speaker 1: to vote GOP. Right. And if you're talking nationally, eleven
Speaker 1: percent of Americans don't have current state issued photo I D. S. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons why. Uh, maybe you're elderly
Speaker 1: or disabled or both and you can't drive, so ay,
Speaker 1: you don't need a driver's license. B you have a
Speaker 1: hard time getting to the DMV just to get an
Speaker 1: I D like a non driving I D state issued
Speaker 1: I D um to vote. And once again, historically, uh,
Speaker 1: these people might be more apt to vote Democrats. So
Speaker 1: it's um, it's hard to not look at it along
Speaker 1: those lines, right, And a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 1: there was this this commission back in I think two
Speaker 1: thousand five American university spots or to bipartisan commission to
Speaker 1: look into voter i D laws, right, whether they suppressed voting,
Speaker 1: whether they would prove fraud. And it was led by
Speaker 1: former Reagan Chief of Staff James Baker and former President
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter, Right, two opposite sides of the coin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but two statesmen, you could make the case. So um.
Speaker 1: So what they found is that both groups concerns were valid. Yes,
Speaker 1: voter I D could prevent voter fraud. Yes, voter ID
Speaker 1: laws would suppress voting. So they suggested the government, minorities, minorities, women,
Speaker 1: the elderly, and the disabled are the ones who are
Speaker 1: most likely to be affected by voter I D laws. Right, yes, sorry,
Speaker 1: the the elderly, the poor, women, the disabled, and minorities.
Speaker 1: All five of those groups tend to vote Democrat two.
Speaker 1: So voter I D laws UM could be enacted to
Speaker 1: prevent fraud, said this commission. But if you're going to
Speaker 1: do that, you need to basically give out I D
Speaker 1: s and you have to make access to these I
Speaker 1: D s UM extremely easy. And so Texas, who has
Speaker 1: a very strict ide law, you have to show a
Speaker 1: photo ID to vote UM and only specific ones said okay,
Speaker 1: well then we'll we'll undertake this. We'll give away free
Speaker 1: I D s. But UM, you got to produce some
Speaker 1: documents to get the I D. So, for example, you
Speaker 1: might need to produce a birth certificate. If you don't
Speaker 1: have your birth certificate, you have to go get a
Speaker 1: copy of it. And if you were born before nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: then you have to go to wherever count whatever county
Speaker 1: you were born in because they're not computerized records. You
Speaker 1: have to go to the county clerk's office, get it,
Speaker 1: pay forty two dollars for the copy, and then come
Speaker 1: back and get your I D. And hopefully you also
Speaker 1: remember the other two pieces of documentation that you have
Speaker 1: to bring with you to get this free I D.
Speaker 1: And this investigation, actually think it was a court case
Speaker 1: found that in the fifteen months leading up to the
Speaker 1: mid term elections, Texas is Free Vote your I D
Speaker 1: registration drive managed to issue just two D and nine
Speaker 1: I D s for the entire state over a fifteen
Speaker 1: month period. Well, and this whole thing with you have
Speaker 1: to go to the county where you were born, if
Speaker 1: you're basically elderly, right like you're driven across Texas. Well, Plus,
Speaker 1: if you're poor, remember that poll tax. You you calculated
Speaker 1: the dollar fifty poll tax in Texas, who came out
Speaker 1: to be about forty something dollars. Well, it costs forty
Speaker 1: two dollars to get a copy of your birth certificate
Speaker 1: to get that free I D. Some people say that's
Speaker 1: a modern poll tax. Almost down to the penny, it's
Speaker 1: a modern poll tax. If you're poor, if you're broke,
Speaker 1: if you have trouble making ends, meet forty two bucks
Speaker 1: is a lot. Yeah, And if you're on the fence
Speaker 1: about voting, like you really want to vote, and that's
Speaker 1: if you can get there to begin with. Right. So,
Speaker 1: but I live in San Antonio, right, and I don't
Speaker 1: have a car. So all of these things like these
Speaker 1: are to to a person who believes, if you really
Speaker 1: want to vote, you're gonna you're gonna make it through
Speaker 1: hell and high water to vote. All of these excuses
Speaker 1: that we've just thrown out are just falling on deaf ears. Right,
Speaker 1: But if you really step back and put it into
Speaker 1: context and really think about it from a realistic point
Speaker 1: of view, like these are hardships. This is tough stuff.
Speaker 1: And if you're if you're a voter and you really
Speaker 1: want to vote, um, it could dissuade the average person
Speaker 1: from doing that. And from from everything I've read, it
Speaker 1: is really easy to overlook how difficult it can be
Speaker 1: to get an I D. For people who who already
Speaker 1: have an idea and use them every day and have
Speaker 1: probably had one ever since their parents took them to
Speaker 1: the d m V when they were sixteen to get
Speaker 1: their first driver's license, it's really easy to act like
Speaker 1: it's not a big thing to get an I D.
Speaker 1: When in reality, the the poorer, the more disabled um
Speaker 1: and and the more minority you are, the harder it
Speaker 1: actually is. There was a study ineen by Rice University,
Speaker 1: and not to pick on Texas, but this, you know,
Speaker 1: it's Rice University. I think Texas brought this on themselves
Speaker 1: at the University of Houston UH, Texas is twenty three
Speaker 1: congressional district found that twelve point eight percent of registered
Speaker 1: voters who didn't vote cited lack of required photo I D.
Speaker 1: So almost didn't vote, and they said this because I
Speaker 1: don't I don't have the proper identification. And only three
Speaker 1: two point seven percent of those people actually didn't have
Speaker 1: the right identification, So a full ten percent had the
Speaker 1: right I D and didn't vote because they didn't think
Speaker 1: they did, which and you know what, we'll take a
Speaker 1: break and talk about it after this. But the reason
Speaker 1: that's not happening is because of things like billboards and
Speaker 1: poll watchers and other intimidation techniques. So we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that right after this. A SKS puffy shouldn't all right,
Speaker 1: So I set that up with the study from Rice
Speaker 1: University cent in the twenty three congressional district in Texas
Speaker 1: did not vote because they didn't think they had their
Speaker 1: right I D even though ten percent of that thirteen
Speaker 1: percent did have the right I D and just didn't
Speaker 1: vote because they were I don't know, misinformed by a
Speaker 1: billboard and scared to go to a polling place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: has that ever happened? Sure, it's happened. There's been plenty
Speaker 1: of billboards that have like UM prison bars or something
Speaker 1: on them. It says like voter fraud as a felony.
Speaker 1: And apparently these billboards that are sponsored by dark money
Speaker 1: groups that have no direct ties to say like the
Speaker 1: GOP or the campaigns of a candidate. UM are they
Speaker 1: sprout up. They tend to sprout up in UM poor neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: minority neighborhoods, UM neighborhoods that are more likely to be
Speaker 1: intimidated by billboards like that, rather than just laugh at
Speaker 1: them and flip them off. UM. Well, it's apparently the
Speaker 1: jury is out on whether they have an effect or not,
Speaker 1: but it is and it's intended to be voter intimidation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They use threatening language. Uh, like you said, like someone
Speaker 1: behind bars and all of a sudden, let's say you're
Speaker 1: a newly naturalized citizen, or you are a felon that's
Speaker 1: now out and cleared your parole and everything, and you
Speaker 1: see those bars and you're like, well, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: take a chance and going to vote because I might
Speaker 1: be locked up. And again the disingenuous argument number eight
Speaker 1: thousand ninety two is well, if you're not a criminal,
Speaker 1: you've got nothing to worry about, which just completely disregards
Speaker 1: the psychological impact that something like bars and crime and
Speaker 1: fellon have on a person seeing a billboard that's shouting
Speaker 1: that at them. Uh, if you actually are you know,
Speaker 1: fight your way through that and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna vote anyway. I'm not scared of the billboard.
Speaker 1: And you might show up to your polling place to
Speaker 1: find what's known as a poll watcher, who are there
Speaker 1: to scout out uh, potential voter fraud. Uh what has
Speaker 1: generally in many cases amounted to intimidation squads kind of
Speaker 1: right there at the front door. Yeah. Do you remember, um,
Speaker 1: I said that the RNC got in a lot of
Speaker 1: trouble for the election for a bunch of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is another one one of the things that they
Speaker 1: had in this night. One I believe. New Jersey election
Speaker 1: was called the National Ballot Security Task Force, and it
Speaker 1: was basically off duty cops wearing guns, wearing blue arm bands,
Speaker 1: patrolling polling stations who were basically ostensibly looking for voter fraud.
Speaker 1: But they the court sided with the d n c's
Speaker 1: contention that they were meant to intimidate voters who were
Speaker 1: likely to vote for Democrats just because they were there
Speaker 1: with guns. Yeah, Like, you don't want some dude just
Speaker 1: walking around like looking at you, watching you, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? Kind of thing? Like, No,
Speaker 1: that's not it's not what. The polling station doesn't belong
Speaker 1: to one group. It belongs to everybody, and no one
Speaker 1: should be made to feel like they're a threat or
Speaker 1: they are not welcome at this polling station. It's not
Speaker 1: that guy's polling station doesn't have any right to walk
Speaker 1: up and down with the gun intimidating people. What a
Speaker 1: despicable thing to do with your time. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: how about this. The U the Conservative group True the Vote,
Speaker 1: their national elections coordinator was he was, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about poll watchers. He said that he wanted voters to
Speaker 1: quote feel like they are driving and seeing the police
Speaker 1: following them. Yes, that's not It's not how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to feel when you go vote at the polling presect
Speaker 1: that's at Yeah, he wanted them to feel scared. And
Speaker 1: that was one that was from the two thousand and
Speaker 1: sixteen election. So, um, it's not. It hasn't just been say,
Speaker 1: GOP leaning voters who have done pole watching there. But
Speaker 1: there was a very famous case in the two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight election in Philadelphia where the new Black Panther
Speaker 1: Party for Self Defense, which, as we pointed out in
Speaker 1: our Black Panther episode, is not affiliated with the Black Panthers.
Speaker 1: They're kind of like this new offshoot group that that
Speaker 1: took over the name. Um. I think they were arrested
Speaker 1: for voter intimidation for basically doing the same thing but
Speaker 1: with the police baton rather than say a gun. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't care who you are, what side you're on,
Speaker 1: don't intimidate voters at the polls. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I could if I said that clearly enough. Yet that's
Speaker 1: a disgusting thing to do. Josh is gonna come after you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm watching you. Uh. Early voting is um is one
Speaker 1: thing that that you say and you're writing here that
Speaker 1: I agree with that, Like, who could argue with early
Speaker 1: voting because it works. People love it, voters like it,
Speaker 1: elected officials like it. It's been a really big success
Speaker 1: in the states that that do it, like a lot
Speaker 1: of almost a third of this past election people early
Speaker 1: voted me included, right. UM, So like everyone should love this,
Speaker 1: right sure, yeah, And it really really works. It gets
Speaker 1: voter participation up. And like you said, the lines are
Speaker 1: not long. There's not like long waits on election day. UM.
Speaker 1: And Yet despite that, despite everybody basically loving early voting,
Speaker 1: there have been cutbacks since UM two thousand eleven in
Speaker 1: eight states. Rather than this decades long trend which had
Speaker 1: been leading up to you know, the I think two
Speaker 1: thousand eight election, which is when it really came on. UM,
Speaker 1: there's been cutbacks rather than continuing forward with getting early
Speaker 1: voting out there. UM. And these eight states UM are
Speaker 1: except for West Virginia, GOP governored states. UM. And the
Speaker 1: reason why people who are critics of these laws UM
Speaker 1: or changes to the rules point out the reason why
Speaker 1: that these are being done is because in the two
Speaker 1: thousand eight election, this early voting was used by far
Speaker 1: and away more by African American voters who voted for
Speaker 1: Obama and the Democrats than white voters and specifically white
Speaker 1: GOP voters. Right, something like se of early of African
Speaker 1: Americans in the two thousand eight election voted early compared
Speaker 1: to like fifty percent of white voters in the two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight election. I'm not sure what the breakdown
Speaker 1: was for Democrat to GOP, but I'm quite sure it
Speaker 1: was lopsided in favor of the Democrats. And that right,
Speaker 1: So that happened, and then all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: midterm elections of two thousand ten were just a blood
Speaker 1: bath for the Democrats and swept gop UM governors and
Speaker 1: legislatures into power. And as a result, UM early voting
Speaker 1: was cut back under new laws that were introduced in
Speaker 1: these new sessions. Yeah, and Sunday voting was a big
Speaker 1: deal to UM. Historic Black churches have had a big
Speaker 1: a great success story and organizing. Uh this campaign called
Speaker 1: Souls to the Polls where they would get their church
Speaker 1: members to the polling stations on Sundays to vote. It's
Speaker 1: been a big success. And so what happens when there's
Speaker 1: a big success for a minority group organizing and getting registered.
Speaker 1: As states pushed back. Ohio and Florida specifically banned voting
Speaker 1: on Sunday, Uh, the Sunday before the election. Sorry, uh,
Speaker 1: not just any Sunday. Uh. And that's when these the
Speaker 1: black churches had organized to vote for the souls to
Speaker 1: the polls campaign. Uh. And it made a big deal. Um.
Speaker 1: And more than eighteen percent of Floridians who voted on
Speaker 1: the last Sunday of early voting in two thousand eight
Speaker 1: uh did not vote at all in two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: because well maybe not just because they weren't allowed to vote,
Speaker 1: but that was that right was taken away from them,
Speaker 1: And so eighteen percent didn't vote in So you do
Speaker 1: the math, yeah, yeah, And I mean that's that's a
Speaker 1: significant amount of voters in Florida alone. And again it's
Speaker 1: it's targeted like that. They do the research and they
Speaker 1: find out the data on where these votes coming from,
Speaker 1: when are they being cast, who is casting them? And
Speaker 1: now let's put in as many laws, let's been the
Speaker 1: law however we can to try and keep those people
Speaker 1: from voting. Yeah, Like there have been there was who
Speaker 1: was a guy, there was a legislator in Pennsylvania that
Speaker 1: was that bragged during the Romney election, like, hey, our
Speaker 1: voter suppression techniques are going to give this to Romney. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a legislator. Yeah that's true. So um, you know
Speaker 1: it's funny to some people listening right now, we sound paranoid.
Speaker 1: So early voting is suppressed, and as a result, it
Speaker 1: can it can lead to voter suppression as well. Right,
Speaker 1: you've you've also got UM voter registration. We already talked
Speaker 1: about acorn registering people, but typically UM voter registration drives,
Speaker 1: like the soul of the polls campaign UM have an
Speaker 1: effect on Democrats votes, so curtailing those can lead to
Speaker 1: UM can lead to a suppression of votes for among
Speaker 1: Democratic voters. Right, Yes, and we've been picking on the
Speaker 1: GOP basically this whole time. Dude. I went all over
Speaker 1: looking for instances of Democrats doing robo calls and using
Speaker 1: intimidating billboards UM, and I didn't find it. They're just
Speaker 1: not out there. If they specifically robo calls Senate, deliver
Speaker 1: misinformation right or send out deliberately misinforming flyers UM or
Speaker 1: supporting laws that and early voting, I didn't find it anywhere.
Speaker 1: This all seems to be at least in this current
Speaker 1: incarnation GOP lead wave of voter suppression laws. Right, there
Speaker 1: is one type of voter suppression that Democrats do favor though,
Speaker 1: basically across the board and around the country, and it's
Speaker 1: called off cycle, off cycle election scheduling. Yeah, that's when, Um,
Speaker 1: if you may notice that they'll they'll be an election
Speaker 1: and you're like, what, there's an election coming up, Well,
Speaker 1: why haven't I heard any about it? It's because it
Speaker 1: might be for the city council or the local you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's very much local, locally based, and Democrats, Um,
Speaker 1: they know that those are not very heavily voted. You know,
Speaker 1: it's very low voter turnout for that. So if it's
Speaker 1: a referendum on like something that has to deal with
Speaker 1: the teachers or specific union or something, they know about
Speaker 1: it and they're really going to turn out to vote
Speaker 1: and basically have that one in the bag. Right, And
Speaker 1: and teachers unions and city workers unions and basically any
Speaker 1: unions typically are democratic leaning, right Democrat leaning, So um,
Speaker 1: through this off cycle election scheduling, by cutting down on
Speaker 1: voter participation, they're increasing the impact that these Democrat leaning
Speaker 1: groups have on that vote, right, Well, yeah, because everyone
Speaker 1: wants a consolidated elections like you pull people, you pull people,
Speaker 1: and like every will say, you know it kind of
Speaker 1: really rather justus vote on everything all at once. Right.
Speaker 1: But um, this, this idea of controlling local elections, especially
Speaker 1: local school boards, UM leads to accusations of controlling developing
Speaker 1: minds of America's children. There, so Republicans have taken notice
Speaker 1: of the strategy and UM this this is from this
Speaker 1: great article from Eaton Hirsch from five thirty eight, and
Speaker 1: he talks about a political scientist named Sarah Anzia who UM,
Speaker 1: who was studying this, and she found that between two
Speaker 1: thousand one and two thousand eleven, UH, over two hundred
Speaker 1: bills aimed at consolidating elections getting rid of off cycle
Speaker 1: elections UM were floated across the country. Half of them
Speaker 1: specifically on focused on moving school board election dates, but
Speaker 1: only twenty five became law. Most of the time the
Speaker 1: bills were sponsored by Republicans and killed by Democrats Democratic pushes.
Speaker 1: So there is definitely voter suppression techniques. And apparently the
Speaker 1: Democrats will say, well, you know what, people who aren't
Speaker 1: that informed, uh aren't going to turn out for these
Speaker 1: off cycle elections anyway, that's good. And people say, wait
Speaker 1: a bit, Wait a minute, that's the same criticism for
Speaker 1: the same justification that the GOP uses to justify their
Speaker 1: voter suppression techniques, and you're using it for yourself. So
Speaker 1: you know that really sucks when people do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is that called hypocrisy? I think that's the word. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know this, this is all still happening. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of these examples are kind of
Speaker 1: throughout history. Um, but this is still going on, and
Speaker 1: especially after the two thousand election, uh and this most
Speaker 1: recent one. It's it's pretty clear that like a few
Speaker 1: thousand votes can swing and swinging election, and so this
Speaker 1: stuff matters. Yeah, to fight it and whoever is trying
Speaker 1: to suppress votes, it can make a difference, right, and
Speaker 1: so specifically, um, well there's this one study that found
Speaker 1: after that huge surge. So you remember after the fifteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment was passed, where um, I remember, so the the
Speaker 1: the black population of men at least suddenly had the
Speaker 1: right to vote. It threatened the status quo. So the
Speaker 1: status quo the establishment went to come up with new
Speaker 1: loopholes and issues to to to to make barriers to voting.
Speaker 1: Right after the two thousand and eight election, there was
Speaker 1: a huge surge in African American voting threatened the status quo.
Speaker 1: So the establishment came up with new loopholes right um
Speaker 1: and the there was a study from the University of
Speaker 1: Massachusetts should be totally disregarded because that's an elite academic
Speaker 1: education and therefore liars um. But they did a study
Speaker 1: the at um the more states saw increases of minority
Speaker 1: and low income voter turnout, the more likely it was
Speaker 1: to have laws floated that pushed back on voting rights,
Speaker 1: that cut voting rights. During this two thousand thirteen study,
Speaker 1: and apparently there's this wave of UM voter i D
Speaker 1: laws specifically that just hit the country after the two
Speaker 1: thousand ten elections, those two thousand ten blood bats um
Speaker 1: there the country was suddenly just flooded with state and
Speaker 1: local bills that sought to require voter I D right
Speaker 1: And it came out of nowhere, seemingly. Somebody, this group
Speaker 1: called News twenty ones like journalism Students, who did an
Speaker 1: investigation under the auspices of the Carnegie Night Journalism Foundation.
Speaker 1: They trace this back to ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Counsel,
Speaker 1: and they deserve a podcast themselves for sure. But basically
Speaker 1: they're a group that was founded I think back in
Speaker 1: the seventies or eighties, UM, that brings together elected officials
Speaker 1: in the United States who pay something like a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars and dues every two years with corporations that pay
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of dollars and dues every year, and
Speaker 1: they get them together and they say, hey, what do
Speaker 1: you what do you need to make business easier for you? Oh? Well, um,
Speaker 1: it would be great if we could get the Democrats
Speaker 1: to not vote quite so easily. So let's come up
Speaker 1: with some voter I D laws. They come together, they
Speaker 1: draft model legislation, and then the ALEC members go back
Speaker 1: to their various state legislatures or um national legislatures and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I've got an idea. Here's a bill, let's pass it.
Speaker 1: And so from this two thousand nine meeting in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: actually UM a draft voter I D legislative model was
Speaker 1: produced and it suddenly just appeared everywhere around the country
Speaker 1: starting in about two thousand ten. So apparently that's what's
Speaker 1: going on right now, that that's behind this current wave
Speaker 1: of especially voter id laws, but also voters suppression laws
Speaker 1: that are going on, Like the the history in this
Speaker 1: country of voter suppression is pretty shameful, but it's even
Speaker 1: more shameful that we're doing it again, it seems. Yeah.
Speaker 1: North Carolina is a pretty good example of recent years. UM.
Speaker 1: They there was a law that UM led by the
Speaker 1: GOP that did a bunch of things that eliminated same
Speaker 1: day voter registration UH, cut a full week of early
Speaker 1: voting UH at barred voters from casting a ballot outside
Speaker 1: their home precinct. Uh. They said you could no longer
Speaker 1: straight ticket vote. UH. And then they got rid of
Speaker 1: a program that would pre register high school students who
Speaker 1: would be UH voting age by election day. High school
Speaker 1: students that wanted to vote UH that would preregister them
Speaker 1: said no, too dangerous. Yeah, so uh and had one
Speaker 1: of the most strict voter I D requirements in the country. UH.
Speaker 1: This one actually went to court and it was struck
Speaker 1: down UH and the judge ruled that it quote UH,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that UM, the intention to suppress African American
Speaker 1: voters was quote with almost surgical precision. UH. And the
Speaker 1: court noted that lawmakers first studied which racial demographics use
Speaker 1: which voting methods, then moved to eliminate those favored by
Speaker 1: black residents. So like they actually found out they did
Speaker 1: these studies and looked at the data and said, all right,
Speaker 1: this is how black people are voting in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: so let's let's try and make that much more difficult
Speaker 1: for them to do. So. I think the judge that
Speaker 1: overruled they're struck down that those that basket of laws
Speaker 1: also said that it read like it was written in
Speaker 1: one Yeah. So North Carolina got pantst in front of
Speaker 1: everybody because I guess they were too aggressive. But plenty
Speaker 1: plenty of other states or able to pass new laws
Speaker 1: of very strictness. Um, as far as voting suppression goes. Uh,
Speaker 1: since the since two thousand eleven, North Carolina just got
Speaker 1: pants this week for the racial jerrymandering. Yeah, jerrymandering is
Speaker 1: another episode we need to do to So. Um, what
Speaker 1: the whole thing comes down to, I think we said
Speaker 1: earlier to Chuck is with these laws, right, there's there's
Speaker 1: kind of a litmus test that's emerged. Are are the
Speaker 1: results of these laws more likely to be to to
Speaker 1: prevent voter fraud or to suppress votes. And ironically, it
Speaker 1: seems like it's going to be Donald Trump's commission that
Speaker 1: that could conceivably put an end to this debate with
Speaker 1: what they find with the with the voter fraud investigation,
Speaker 1: which seriously, I cannot tell you how interested I am
Speaker 1: in finding out what they find and hearing all the
Speaker 1: grizzly details from it. You think it will be on
Speaker 1: the on the up and up. I don't know, But
Speaker 1: I don't know. If it's not there, we'll hear all
Speaker 1: about it. I can tell you that, Yeah, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm very curious to see what they what
Speaker 1: they find, or even if it just falls away. I
Speaker 1: think the worst thing for this would be if it's
Speaker 1: just allowed to just just fall to the wayside, because
Speaker 1: I mean, if we can get it out in the
Speaker 1: open and discussed and investigated and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows, maybe they maybe they did. What
Speaker 1: if they legitimately found that massive voter frow was a
Speaker 1: huge problem, well then sure maybe we should have voter
Speaker 1: id laws. Who knows. But if they find that that's
Speaker 1: not the case, then we can say, all right, this
Speaker 1: law is going to suppress votes. There's no such thing
Speaker 1: as massive voter fraud, so this law should be struck down.
Speaker 1: Just let people vote. Yeah, you know, are like, who
Speaker 1: who is one person to say, you know that they're
Speaker 1: not as up on politics and they don't they don't
Speaker 1: really take the time, so they shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Speaker 1: I mean that is so anti American. You have to
Speaker 1: be an elitist to think like that. Like, that's an
Speaker 1: elitist thinking, we're regardless of what your party affiliation is.
Speaker 1: You got anything else? No, Well, this is probably the
Speaker 1: last one we'll ever be allowed to record. So it's
Speaker 1: been nice, Chuck, I've enjoyed working with you. Been nice, Jerry. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about voter suppression laws,
Speaker 1: you can type those words in the search bar how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Uh. And since I said voters suppression,
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. Uh. Yeah. And you
Speaker 1: know what before I do listener mail for two listeners
Speaker 1: who are upset at us right now, like send us
Speaker 1: in a a thoughtful, researched email of refutation. You know
Speaker 1: that's what I want to see, Yeah, because I'd like
Speaker 1: to think, like, give me some proof of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna call this fan theory. Oh this
Speaker 1: is a good one that you picked out, Josh. I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed your show. Guys on the crazy fan theories,
Speaker 1: thought of share one and came up with a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. It involves to kill a Mockingbird, go
Speaker 1: set a Watchman, which was the famous sequel to that book. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Back to the Future Part one, and Back to
Speaker 1: the Future Part two, which was the very famous sequel
Speaker 1: to Back to the Future Part one. Right, I added that, Uh,
Speaker 1: did you know that the courthouse steps in the movie
Speaker 1: adaptation of mocking Bird the very same as the courthouse
Speaker 1: in the Back to the Future movies. I did not
Speaker 1: know that, did you. Well? I didn't. I've been on
Speaker 1: the Universal Lot and walk those steps though, So I
Speaker 1: was just like, in my mind, I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: it's just a movie lot, dude. So he says, aside
Speaker 1: for from it being on the Universal Lot, the reason
Speaker 1: for this has to be that both To Kill a
Speaker 1: Mockingbird and Back to the Future take place in the
Speaker 1: same town. Well that's not true, no, but still to
Speaker 1: kill with the chuck. To Kill a Mockingbird depicts the
Speaker 1: town in the nineteen thirties and the trial that exposes
Speaker 1: the deeply racist tendencies among its people. This is why
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five it would have never occurred to
Speaker 1: a black malt shop worker. I believe Goldie is not
Speaker 1: right that he could one day become mayor until some
Speaker 1: guy from the future accidentally suggests it. This is falling
Speaker 1: apart from me already. I love this idea. And back
Speaker 1: to the future to Marty steals a sports almanac, from
Speaker 1: which winds up in Biff's hands in n creating an
Speaker 1: alternate timeline from that point forward. Some twenty years after
Speaker 1: To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout returns home and go set
Speaker 1: a Watchman. Uh, but it's set in the alternative timeline,
Speaker 1: which is why at least one character, Attica's Finch, seems
Speaker 1: very different, because any like racist in this sequel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's Marty McFly's fault. Ghost At a Watchman was
Speaker 1: written in ninety seven. It is uh. The Tequila mocking
Speaker 1: Bird of the alternate timeline. To Kill a Mockingbird was
Speaker 1: published in nineteen sixty. Is the version of the book
Speaker 1: written in the timeline Marty fixes when he burns the
Speaker 1: almanac at the end of Back of the Future too.
Speaker 1: I'm completely lost on that one, and he says, how
Speaker 1: fitting that ghost at a Watchman was published and that
Speaker 1: bit of uh fan theoriousness is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Brian McBurney. Nice job, Brian. That was outstanding. It did
Speaker 1: have its poles. It was a little rough around the edges.
Speaker 1: But you're using your noodle and I like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's better than Angela Lansbury is a serial killer. Uh
Speaker 1: you want again touch of us like Brian did and
Speaker 1: send us a really cool fan theory you thought of
Speaker 1: yourself that holds up. You can tweet to us at
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. I'm also at Josh Underscore,
Speaker 1: UM Underscore Clark. You can hang out with Chuck on
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: You can also hang out with them at Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us
Speaker 1: both and Jerry and Noel and Frank the chair an
Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: and has always join us our home on the web,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com