Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with barrattun Day, I show
Speaker 1: where we reclaim the word citizen and use it as
Speaker 1: a verb and learn how to wield our collective power.
Speaker 1: I'm barrattun Day. In this episode, we are continuing our
Speaker 1: focus on voting, that super expression of people power, and
Speaker 1: we've been talking to folks who are on the front
Speaker 1: lines of this issue in many different ways, and in
Speaker 1: this episode we're talking to someone who's been a long
Speaker 1: time warrior on behalf of people power. She has the
Speaker 1: job that Third Good Marshall used to have. That's how
Speaker 1: dope and committed. She is. Her name Sherlyn Eiffel. Her
Speaker 1: job President and Director Counsel of the n double a
Speaker 1: CP Legal Defense Fund. I had the opportunity to virtually
Speaker 1: join and meet Carolyn Eiffel during a voting of it
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. And when I tell you I
Speaker 1: would do anything, she says, I mean it. If Charyln
Speaker 1: Eiffel says, double check your voter registration, I'm triple checking. Actually.
Speaker 1: If Charyln Eiffel says be patient on election Day and
Speaker 1: beyond to wait for these results, I'm gonna be the
Speaker 1: most patient, most zen, most calm person you can even imagine.
Speaker 1: And if Charyln Eiffel asked me to take out her garbage,
Speaker 1: I will do that. I will be at your place, Carolyn.
Speaker 1: I will do this because I assume it is for
Speaker 1: the benefit of the many. It is for the people,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm right because I'm right about you.
Speaker 1: In this conversation, you know Charylyn who breaks it down.
Speaker 1: She says, we need to operate at the highest levels
Speaker 1: of citizenship during this election. I love that phrase. She
Speaker 1: reminds us of the history of efforts to deny and
Speaker 1: suppress black people's votes, but also the history of overcoming
Speaker 1: those efforts. Here's Cheryl and if President and Director Council,
Speaker 1: which I might add is a very very dope job title. Hello, Hey,
Speaker 1: how you doing. I am fired up, I'm ready to go,
Speaker 1: I am tired, I am eager, I am impatient all
Speaker 1: those things. How are you also angry? Yeah, you know angry.
Speaker 1: I have my moments of disappointment, but you know, mostly
Speaker 1: it's just you just have to keep fighting. Sherylyn. You're
Speaker 1: at the double A CP Legal Defense Fund. This historic
Speaker 1: institution been around since fighting on behalf of human rights,
Speaker 1: Black rights voting rights. How has the history the legacy
Speaker 1: of black voter suppression in the US evolved to what
Speaker 1: it looks like now, you know, how is now different
Speaker 1: from them. It's a bit of a loop back. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's in just sing because I think people
Speaker 1: now are talking about voter suppression as though almost it's
Speaker 1: a new thing, Like people get that there was the
Speaker 1: Edmund Pettis Bridge, there was the Voting Rights Act, and
Speaker 1: then there was voter suppression you know, in fourteen and
Speaker 1: fifteen and sixteen, you know, but that's actually not how
Speaker 1: it works. As a matter of fact, my first sint
Speaker 1: at the Legal Defense Fund was when I was a
Speaker 1: year out of law school, after I finished a fellowship
Speaker 1: at the A. C. L U. I joined then double
Speaker 1: a CP Legal Defense Fund and litigated voting rights cases
Speaker 1: for five years. That was in So we've been at
Speaker 1: this for a very, very long time, you know. Third
Speaker 1: Good Marshal's first huge Supreme Court win was in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty four. It was a case called Smith versus all Right,
Speaker 1: in which the Supreme Court struck down the use of
Speaker 1: the all white primary election in the South. That was
Speaker 1: Third Good Marshall's case, and really his first big Supreme
Speaker 1: Court wins. That's nineteen forty four. We were founded in
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, so that's four years after the organization was created.
Speaker 1: And I say all of that because I think people
Speaker 1: have truncated the arc of voter suppression and don't fully
Speaker 1: understand that the effort to keep black people from participating
Speaker 1: fully in the political process has been around forever and
Speaker 1: marked most of the twenty century, and now has come
Speaker 1: back with intensity in the twenty one century. And the
Speaker 1: intensity was created really by the Supreme Court's decision in
Speaker 1: June Shelby County versus Holder, and that basically eliminated a
Speaker 1: key portion of the Voting Rights Act of that had
Speaker 1: been really effective in getting out ahead of voter suppression tactics,
Speaker 1: and the elimination of that particular section kind of opened
Speaker 1: up this new explosion of voter suppression and even worse,
Speaker 1: allowed it to metastasize beyond kind of a regional problem
Speaker 1: in the South into kind of every corner of the country.
Speaker 1: And when you say voter suppression, you know, I have
Speaker 1: images of a variety of tools and techniques in voting,
Speaker 1: you know, removing polling sites to just drag out the line,
Speaker 1: so people bail on the process, or to impose confusing instructions,
Speaker 1: or to sue. Even there's this legal battles on the
Speaker 1: other side of this. What is the map of voter
Speaker 1: suppression techniques look like, Well, I think you've named some
Speaker 1: of them. Voter persh is something that has really come
Speaker 1: back into vogue as well, since you talked about moving
Speaker 1: polling places, closing polling places, consolidating polling places, actions that
Speaker 1: were taken even this week by the Texas governor restricting
Speaker 1: the number of drop off boxes for absentee ballots to
Speaker 1: one per county. This is a decision he made with
Speaker 1: a stroke of a pen, just one person, deciding that
Speaker 1: now there will only be one drop box for absentee
Speaker 1: votes per county. That could never have happened under preclearance
Speaker 1: prior to He would have had to submit his desire
Speaker 1: to make that change to a federal authority, to the
Speaker 1: Attorney General, or to the d C. District Court to
Speaker 1: get approval. And when he submitted it, the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice would have heard from organizations like the Legal Defense
Speaker 1: Fund and other civil rights organizations, from local African American
Speaker 1: and Latino groups describing the effect of the change on
Speaker 1: them and most likely would have denied preclearance and prevented
Speaker 1: the governor from imposing that new restriction without a lawsuit
Speaker 1: ever having been filed. So the landscape is not only
Speaker 1: the actual mechanisms of suppression, but the way in which
Speaker 1: they are allowed to go forward. And we're running behind
Speaker 1: them right filing cases, but they're already in place. And
Speaker 1: so it's the full gamut that you talked about. Its
Speaker 1: voter intimidation. You know, it is terrible voter id laws
Speaker 1: that are targeted at African American and Latino voters. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the full gamut. And it's an actual disgrace to
Speaker 1: see the kind of active creativity that goes into trying
Speaker 1: to keep sitizens of this country from voting. This will
Speaker 1: sound naive, but I mean it sincerely on behalf of
Speaker 1: myself and any listener. Why do you think people in
Speaker 1: a democracy with these authorities would work so hard to
Speaker 1: make it so hard to vote? Power power and white supremacy.
Speaker 1: And I say that intentionally. I say those words very
Speaker 1: intentionally because you know, in twenty four when I used
Speaker 1: to talk about white supremacy in the context of voting.
Speaker 1: In fact, at that point. We were challenging Texas voter
Speaker 1: I D law that was the most restrictive voter i
Speaker 1: D law in the country. It was passed right after
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County versus Holder. The
Speaker 1: state kind of resuscitated a voter I D law that
Speaker 1: they hadn't been able to get pre cleared, and it
Speaker 1: was this law. And this law was regarded as the
Speaker 1: most restrictive because it really was pretty explicit in shutting
Speaker 1: down the kinds of government issued I D that you
Speaker 1: needed to use to be able to vote, and so
Speaker 1: identification forms that blacks and Latinos white be more likely
Speaker 1: to have, or Native Americans might be more likely to have,
Speaker 1: were now disallowed. But you could use a concealed gun
Speaker 1: carry permit as your I D to vote. So we
Speaker 1: litigated the case along with a number of other groups,
Speaker 1: and the Federal Court found that the law was passed
Speaker 1: with the intention of discriminating against black and Latino voters.
Speaker 1: The same thing was found in North Carolina Omnibus voter
Speaker 1: Suppression Bill. Federal Court finds that the North Carolina legislature
Speaker 1: with surgical precision, that's the words of the court, with
Speaker 1: surgical precision identified the provisions that would be likely to
Speaker 1: suppress the black vote. Voter ID law in Wisconsin, same
Speaker 1: found to be intentionally discriminatory. So what I was saying
Speaker 1: then was that this was white supremacy, right. You know,
Speaker 1: when legislators meet and decide they want to key some
Speaker 1: of their own citizens, black and brown citizens, from voting,
Speaker 1: and that they create provisions intentionally designed to suppress those votes,
Speaker 1: that in itself is white supremacy. And people would clutch
Speaker 1: their pearls when I would say this. We didn't start
Speaker 1: talking again about white supremacy until Charlotte's film because people
Speaker 1: think of white supremacy as being Nazi flags, marching torches, um,
Speaker 1: you know, terrible slogans and all of that is true.
Speaker 1: That is a part of white supremacy. But there is
Speaker 1: also a more genteel form of white supremacy, and that
Speaker 1: is when elected legislatures dressed for work in their suits
Speaker 1: and dresses and march into the state house, meet and
Speaker 1: convene and pass laws designed to keep their fellow citizens
Speaker 1: from voting based on race. So what is the reason
Speaker 1: white supremacy? The desire to hold onto power? And it's ugly,
Speaker 1: it's ugly. To say it. It's ugly for it to
Speaker 1: be the truth, but it is the truth. And again,
Speaker 1: it's the truth, not because Sheryl and Eifel says it's
Speaker 1: the truth. It's the truth because a federal court in
Speaker 1: Texas said it, because the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal
Speaker 1: said it about North Carolina, because federal corton Wisconsin said it.
Speaker 1: And so we have to confront that and be honest
Speaker 1: about your organization operates in a number of states, and
Speaker 1: I imagine you see things happening on the ground that
Speaker 1: we might not get a view of if we're paying
Speaker 1: attention to national media or in our particular state, depending
Speaker 1: on where they are. What are you seeing, if anything,
Speaker 1: with regards to misinformation and disinformation targeting the black community
Speaker 1: right now? Well, I would say the biggest disinformation campaign sadly,
Speaker 1: has been conducted by the President of the United States
Speaker 1: around absentee voting. And we saw this in the beginning
Speaker 1: of the summer. It became important this year because of
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic. We filed suits in a number
Speaker 1: of states. We work mostly in the South. I think
Speaker 1: people forget that the majority of black people still live
Speaker 1: in the South. Black people live in the South, and
Speaker 1: it's also the place, obviously where some of the most
Speaker 1: intransigent suppression efforts and forms of white supremacy exist, although
Speaker 1: certainly around the country and we do work outside the
Speaker 1: South as well, But in any case, we began filing suit,
Speaker 1: particularly in the South, because of the COVID nineteen pandemic
Speaker 1: and because of our recognition that black and brown communities
Speaker 1: were being hit incredibly hard and are hit incredibly hard
Speaker 1: with COVID nineteen infection and death. And I was particularly
Speaker 1: moved after the primary election in Wisconsin, which you may recall.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a case that went to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Spreme Court decided not to to hear it
Speaker 1: to not disturb the fact that the Circuit Court had
Speaker 1: put a stay on a decision by the district court
Speaker 1: that there would be more time to return absentee ballots.
Speaker 1: It was a very modest district court decision, but the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court basically just ignored the reality on the ground
Speaker 1: that this was going to mean that people had to
Speaker 1: come out and risk their lives and the very weak
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court decided not to disturb the decision
Speaker 1: that stayed the district courts. Expansion of early voting was
Speaker 1: the same week that we learned that although you know,
Speaker 1: the black population of Milwaukee is black people constituted of
Speaker 1: COVID deaths in Milwaukee. So it was a week when
Speaker 1: it was very starkly clear the toll that COVID was
Speaker 1: taking on our community. And as you may recall, they
Speaker 1: were there are these amazing pictures of the lines of voters,
Speaker 1: of people wearing masks, and I was torn between my
Speaker 1: absolute outrage and fury that people had to risk their
Speaker 1: lives to vote, and also my sense of just admiration
Speaker 1: and respect and humility that black voters were determined to
Speaker 1: participate in the political process and came out to vote
Speaker 1: with their masks on, standing in line for hours. But
Speaker 1: we set about then filing these cases trying to expand
Speaker 1: absentee voter opportunities in the South. We were attacking in
Speaker 1: particular really onerous requirements like an Alabama, to file an
Speaker 1: absentee vote, you had to get the signature of two
Speaker 1: third party witnesses, plus have a copy of your government
Speaker 1: issued photo I D sent in with the ballot. So
Speaker 1: you have to interact with three other people, two people
Speaker 1: designed ballot and somebody to get this copy. The Secretary
Speaker 1: of State of Alabama said, well, they should just go
Speaker 1: to Kinko's. So here it is. We have elderly black people.
Speaker 1: Have you seen their grandkids, right, because they're suffering from COVID.
Speaker 1: So we filed suit and actually just two weeks ago
Speaker 1: we won in the trial court. We'll see what happens
Speaker 1: with the appeal, but we won in the trial court
Speaker 1: relaxing those requirements. But almost immediately at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the summer, the President the United States started tweeting this
Speaker 1: crazy misinformation about absentee voting, that absentee voting is fraudulent,
Speaker 1: that it's illegal, that it's a plot of the Democrats,
Speaker 1: which is it's actually ironic because Republicans mostly in the
Speaker 1: past with the voters who used absentee voting. Um in fact,
Speaker 1: the black population for the most part, had issued absentee
Speaker 1: voting because black people actually like to vote in person.
Speaker 1: You know, we have souls to the polls for early
Speaker 1: voting that churches take up. It's part of our kind
Speaker 1: of civic co l Sure, it calls to mind our history.
Speaker 1: I meant, even I really like to stand in line
Speaker 1: and and vote, and so Black people had not actually
Speaker 1: been big absentee vote casters, but with COVID nineteen, we
Speaker 1: thought it was important that we ensured that this avenue
Speaker 1: was open, particularly for our elderly voters. And suddenly we
Speaker 1: got this crazy misinformation coming from the President, which and
Speaker 1: and NonStop he hasn't stopped filing suit in Pennsylvania against
Speaker 1: the use of drop boxes and regularly giving people a
Speaker 1: lack of confidence in absentee voting. And this was all
Speaker 1: happening at the same time that quite suddenly the United
Speaker 1: States Postal Service was under attack from the new Postmaster General,
Speaker 1: and we were seeing all these delays in mail, and
Speaker 1: we also have a suit, by the way against United
Speaker 1: States Postal Service, So all of this was happening at
Speaker 1: the same time. I think the effect has been what
Speaker 1: you see actually this week, because we're already in the
Speaker 1: general election, there are it's early voting happening all over
Speaker 1: the place. You may have seen the incredible lines in
Speaker 1: Ohio of people just standing in line to participate, we
Speaker 1: saw in Illinois, are in Minnesota, we saw it in
Speaker 1: Virginia the first day of early voting. People want to vote,
Speaker 1: and they want to vote in person. People are also
Speaker 1: sending in their absentee ballots. There's a record number of
Speaker 1: absentee ballots that have been cast already for this general election.
Speaker 1: But fighting through that misinformation about you know, absentee voting
Speaker 1: as a legitimate, legal, safe form of voting has been
Speaker 1: really a challenge this summer. Yeah, I don't know how
Speaker 1: to keep up the energy. I'm exhausted just hearing that.
Speaker 1: And I pay attention to this stuff. On the flip side,
Speaker 1: you know, what is restoring or bolstering your confidence that
Speaker 1: people will exercise their constitutional rights? And what are you
Speaker 1: most excited about in terms of your own organizations work
Speaker 1: to boost that confidence. You know, it's a crazy thing.
Speaker 1: You end up in the most difficult time periods, and
Speaker 1: if you're a civil rights lawyer, you know you're so
Speaker 1: often talking about issues that people are ignoring or pretending
Speaker 1: are not there. And then suddenly everybody is talking about
Speaker 1: the very and they see it. Right. But you know,
Speaker 1: the scales have fallen from America's eyes and people can
Speaker 1: see it. So there is an excitement about that that people.
Speaker 1: I don't have to explain to people what voter suppression is.
Speaker 1: When I say that, people know exactly what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about right, so that wasn't always true. So that's exciting
Speaker 1: seeing people really do what we We have a campaign,
Speaker 1: and we've had this campaign for years called Prepared to Vote.
Speaker 1: So every year, because of course elections happen not every
Speaker 1: four years, but every year, we launch a campaign called
Speaker 1: Prepared to Vote. We do on the ground election protection work,
Speaker 1: but we're always providing information before the elections so people
Speaker 1: can be prepared because we really believe that, you know,
Speaker 1: voting is not something you just wake up, you know,
Speaker 1: the morning of election day and say, okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: vote today, but you actually have to get yourself ready,
Speaker 1: and this year more than any other because if you're
Speaker 1: gonna vote in a person, you need ppe, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna vote absentutey to apply for the ballot and so forth.
Speaker 1: So seeing people do that, seeing people prepared to vote
Speaker 1: has been amazing. We partnered with Lebron James on his
Speaker 1: More Than a Vote initiative to try to get new
Speaker 1: poll workers because once again COVID teen has meant that
Speaker 1: poll workers who are mostly elderly. Most of our poll
Speaker 1: workers are senior citizens, a quarter of them are over age.
Speaker 1: Seventy poll workers are the nice people we see sitting
Speaker 1: at the table when we come in, they check us in,
Speaker 1: they make a sign, they give us, you know, polling
Speaker 1: machine to go to, they give us the sticker that
Speaker 1: says I voted. And but they're mostly elderly, and because
Speaker 1: of the pandemic, we wanted to make sure that we
Speaker 1: were protecting our seniors, and so we really have been
Speaker 1: putting out a call to encourage young people to become
Speaker 1: poll workers, and so we joined with Lebron James is
Speaker 1: more than a Vote campaign to do that. We started
Speaker 1: it three weeks ago and we've already signed up twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand new poll workers. Thoud so to see people
Speaker 1: responding to the call, especially for young people, responding to
Speaker 1: the call to work the polls. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: saying this is a time where we need to be
Speaker 1: at our highest level of citizenship, and I feel like
Speaker 1: that's what I'm seeing. The other thing is one of
Speaker 1: the you know, things I've been talking about for a
Speaker 1: very long time, is the failure to pay attention to
Speaker 1: local elections. So most of us go into voting booth,
Speaker 1: we vote for the president or the senator, or the governor,
Speaker 1: the mayor, you know, whatever other high salient selections. And
Speaker 1: then if we look at ballots when we get information
Speaker 1: back after the election, what we find is what we
Speaker 1: call drop off, which means people vote for those top races.
Speaker 1: Then they get to the d A race, they don't vote.
Speaker 1: Then it says pick three judges, no votes cast. Then
Speaker 1: it's the shriff election. People don't vote, So we have
Speaker 1: that or we have people who vote in those elections,
Speaker 1: but they actually don't know anything about those candidates, right,
Speaker 1: so they know a lot about who they want to
Speaker 1: vote for president, maybe who they want to vote for
Speaker 1: governor or senator, but they actually don't know about the
Speaker 1: person who's running for sheriff, when in fact, the sheriff
Speaker 1: is the person who's gonna make a decision about whether
Speaker 1: they form a relationship with ICE and engage in immigration activities.
Speaker 1: Is the person who evicts people, and we're looking at
Speaker 1: potentially millions of evictions over the next few months if
Speaker 1: we don't get some serious COVID relief happening. So people
Speaker 1: forget about those elections. People want criminal justice reform, but
Speaker 1: they're not informed about who their district attorney candidates are
Speaker 1: and what they stay and for, and so We've been
Speaker 1: really pushing this issue of local elections, and I would
Speaker 1: say this year it feels like the breakthrough year when
Speaker 1: I hear people talking about local elections in ways that
Speaker 1: I have never heard it before. I still say people
Speaker 1: should pay attention to the Railroad Commissioners in Texas. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard people talking about that yet, but they should.
Speaker 1: That is that is a very important regulatory agency and
Speaker 1: they run every six years. But I have heard people
Speaker 1: talking about school boards, and I have heard people talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, the city council, and I have heard people
Speaker 1: talking about the d A races and that's very encouraging
Speaker 1: as well. What are your calls to action to someone
Speaker 1: listening to this right now, how can they help ensure
Speaker 1: we have an actual, free and fair election. Well, the
Speaker 1: first thing is to be informed when we are in
Speaker 1: this like sea of misinformation. So we have the misinformation
Speaker 1: coming from the President about absentee voting, there's misinformation on
Speaker 1: faith book. We don't know what the Russians are doing,
Speaker 1: but we know that they are a huge threat, and
Speaker 1: we know that they targeted African American voters on Facebook
Speaker 1: more than any other group in the election, and so
Speaker 1: we have to presume that that is happening right now.
Speaker 1: So the first thing is to get good information and
Speaker 1: rely on good sources of information. We have a terrific
Speaker 1: micro site voting dot n a A c p LDF
Speaker 1: dot org, voting dot ana A c p l d
Speaker 1: F dot org, which is a kind of a one
Speaker 1: stop shop and you can get all your information there.
Speaker 1: So please stop passing bad information. Something you just heard
Speaker 1: that somebody just sent you that you haven't actually ensured
Speaker 1: is accurate, because our community really really needs to be informed.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. Number two. Prepared to vote is real.
Speaker 1: You have to make a plan to vote. So if
Speaker 1: you are going to vote absentee, you need to request
Speaker 1: that ballot. You need to look to figure out what
Speaker 1: the rules are in your jurisdiction for returning the ballot.
Speaker 1: What do you need to do, what do you need
Speaker 1: to have in it? Who can bring it back if
Speaker 1: you decide you want to bring it back personally to
Speaker 1: the Board of Elections. How does that. I've heard people
Speaker 1: saying things like, oh, I'm gonna go around and help
Speaker 1: people get their absentee ballots that please don't help. Please
Speaker 1: please check the law in your state because it may
Speaker 1: be illegal right. States have different rules. In Louisiana can
Speaker 1: only be a family member. In some places, the voter
Speaker 1: has to actually by writing designate who can return the ballot.
Speaker 1: So we don't want people making mistakes because we don't
Speaker 1: want ballots not counted, and we don't want people prosecuted
Speaker 1: for voter fraud on the other end of this election,
Speaker 1: So that's important. Also, the prepared to vote also means
Speaker 1: like preparing, like actually looking at the sample ballot for
Speaker 1: your jurisdiction. One of the things that contributes to long
Speaker 1: lines is when you go into the voting booth and
Speaker 1: that's the first time you're reading the ballot initiative that's
Speaker 1: on the ballot, or you're reading the bond issue where
Speaker 1: they want to raise money for the library, or the
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment, and so you're in there for fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: slow reading this constitutional amendment for the first time. No, sir,
Speaker 1: no ma'am, I need you to download that ballot, that
Speaker 1: sample ballot a week before, two weeks before, and educ
Speaker 1: hate yourself about what it is. So do you know
Speaker 1: when you're going into the voting booth, who you're going
Speaker 1: to vote for, what issues you're gonna go vote for
Speaker 1: and against, and you're not learning while you know people
Speaker 1: are standing behind you hundreds deep waiting to get into
Speaker 1: the voting booth. And also because of the pandemic, do
Speaker 1: you really want to spend a whole lot of time
Speaker 1: in the polling place? Do you want to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the in the voting booth? No,
Speaker 1: you don't make sure you have PPE. We put out
Speaker 1: a challenge to black churches to make sure that there
Speaker 1: should be no black voter standing in line. Who's saying,
Speaker 1: I don't have a mask, I don't have gloves. We
Speaker 1: have black churches on every block. I guess it's virtual
Speaker 1: at this point, but that doesn't mean that they can't
Speaker 1: help with PPE, and we've been happy to see churches
Speaker 1: taking up the charge. So preparing to vote having PPE.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna vote in person, either early or on
Speaker 1: election day, bring your bottle of water with you. If
Speaker 1: you feel like you need to bring a chair, bring
Speaker 1: a chair, but be prepared to stand in line because
Speaker 1: we're gonna see turnout levels like I think we've never
Speaker 1: seen before. There is so much interest in this election
Speaker 1: across the board, So you should be prepared to wait
Speaker 1: and if you're voting absentee, you should be on it
Speaker 1: already to make sure that your ballot can get in
Speaker 1: in time. The last thing I want to say is
Speaker 1: we have real concerns about voter intimidation, and they are real.
Speaker 1: Under normal circumstances, the recourse would be the Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: This particular Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Bill Barr,
Speaker 1: I do not believe will be responsive. What does voter
Speaker 1: intimidation look like? What is your concern and how does
Speaker 1: it manifest? Yeah, it can look like a lot of things.
Speaker 1: It can look like people who are challenging voters. And
Speaker 1: you may have seen that this is the first time
Speaker 1: in thirty years that the Republicans have been released from
Speaker 1: a consent decree that they were bound by because of
Speaker 1: voter intimidation activities they engaged in in some elections in
Speaker 1: New Jersey in the nineteen eighties where they had people
Speaker 1: come out who look like they were law enforcement, walking
Speaker 1: around the polls and frightening people. Frankly, so they were
Speaker 1: under court order to cease and desist, and that consent
Speaker 1: decree was just lifted this year. So it's the first
Speaker 1: time in thirty years that that consent decree does not
Speaker 1: cover that conduct, and imediately the the RNC announced that
Speaker 1: they were trying to recruit fifty thousand people to be
Speaker 1: outside the polls to question people about their status, about
Speaker 1: whether in fact they are eligible voters. It's a way
Speaker 1: of intimidating the immigrant community. So there's that they're the
Speaker 1: people who approach people and ask them about their status.
Speaker 1: Then there are people who are dressed as law enforcement
Speaker 1: or dressed as malicious in open carry states, who are
Speaker 1: carrying weapons and who are outside polling places. Now there's
Speaker 1: a rule that you've got to be a hundred feet away,
Speaker 1: but think about the long lines that we're gonna see right,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be lines extending past a hundred feet. So
Speaker 1: the possibility of those kinds of individuals being close up
Speaker 1: on people waiting in line to vote is very real.
Speaker 1: Trucks of people caring Confederate flags is another one that
Speaker 1: we see fairly often. So we expect all these forms
Speaker 1: of voter intimidation to be an effect. And as I said,
Speaker 1: normally what we would do is we would patch right
Speaker 1: into the Department of Justice to the U. S. Attorney
Speaker 1: and that jurisdiction and expect some action to be taken
Speaker 1: this year. We really need voters to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us, and there's a civil Rights Election Protection hotline.
Speaker 1: It's one eight six six hour vote one eight six
Speaker 1: six hour vote. Oh you are vote um. And we
Speaker 1: need people in real time. When you see something, say something,
Speaker 1: we need you to call in. We need you to
Speaker 1: reach out to the Legal Defense Fund tell us what
Speaker 1: you're seeing so that we can get activated and get
Speaker 1: local attorney generals and others activated to deal with the
Speaker 1: issue of voter intimidation. That's gonna be really, really important.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you that I'm also concerned about
Speaker 1: intimidation after the election of people counting ballots, and so
Speaker 1: we're gonna be just vigilant through this entire process, and
Speaker 1: we need everyone to be patient. We've asked a lot
Speaker 1: of people to vote absentee. That means their votes should
Speaker 1: be counted. Those votes are not counted on election day,
Speaker 1: they're not counted on election night. They will be counted
Speaker 1: on that subsequent week, and we want those votes to
Speaker 1: be counted, and that means we have to be patient.
Speaker 1: You know, I said the other night that you know
Speaker 1: decision is not in the constitution that's a television show
Speaker 1: that was created, you know, to gin up excitement about
Speaker 1: election night. We don't have to know that night. We
Speaker 1: need the votes to be counted. So I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that our community is patient. There will be
Speaker 1: a lot of noise of people trying to suggest that
Speaker 1: something is wrong because we don't know who the winner
Speaker 1: is on election night, or because all the votes haven't
Speaker 1: been counted on election night. They're never all counted on
Speaker 1: election night. We count military ballots the week following the election.
Speaker 1: We count provisional ballots the week following the election. So
Speaker 1: I need everybody to just be very calm, be very
Speaker 1: very patient, and really operated their highest level of citizenship.
Speaker 1: That's the closing question citizenship. This show believes that the
Speaker 1: word citizen should be interpreted not as a legal status,
Speaker 1: no offense to the lawyer in you, but as a verb,
Speaker 1: as a set of actions. And if you are to
Speaker 1: interpret the word citizen as a set of actions as
Speaker 1: a verb, how do you define what it means to citizen?
Speaker 1: To citizen means that you figure out some part of
Speaker 1: your day every day that contributes to the democracy that
Speaker 1: you want to see. And I think this is what
Speaker 1: we have seen the last few years in this country.
Speaker 1: I think people thought that democracy was some kind of
Speaker 1: instant pop up thing that came into box and then
Speaker 1: you're a democracy, and then it's over, and now you're
Speaker 1: a democracy forever. Now we understand the fragility of democracy.
Speaker 1: It requires active citizenship. It requires people who wake up
Speaker 1: and believe that they should inform themselves with the best information.
Speaker 1: It's people who have the number of their senator in
Speaker 1: their phone, so that when you want the Senate to
Speaker 1: act on something, when you want the Senate to act
Speaker 1: on a coronavirus relief bill, when you want the Senate
Speaker 1: not to push forward a Supreme Court nominee during the
Speaker 1: presidential general election, you can call that office right away
Speaker 1: and you're not looking around for that number. We want
Speaker 1: people who are in constant contact with their elected officials.
Speaker 1: If you ever showed up at a school board meeting,
Speaker 1: ask yourself why, if you never showed up at a
Speaker 1: city council meeting, why why didn't you ever look at
Speaker 1: the people that you voted for. Why didn't you ever
Speaker 1: make them see you so that they could feel accountable.
Speaker 1: If you did vote for in the last judicial election
Speaker 1: and it said pick three and you just pick three
Speaker 1: people because you like their name, or because they had
Speaker 1: a D or an R next to their name, or
Speaker 1: because they were a woman or a man. That is
Speaker 1: not responsible citizenship. You need to be educating yourselves about
Speaker 1: who these people are, who are going to make decisions
Speaker 1: about your child when they get arrested, who are going
Speaker 1: to make decisions about the laws that govern you. And
Speaker 1: so I'm really suggesting that this moment calls on us
Speaker 1: to frame and see and define citizenship differently than I
Speaker 1: think many people have. As you point out, it is
Speaker 1: not just your legal status. It is not because you
Speaker 1: have a blue passport. It is a responsibility and it's
Speaker 1: what are you required to do as a citizen in
Speaker 1: a democracy. It is work. It is not that you
Speaker 1: sit back on your laurels and enjoy your status. It
Speaker 1: is that you were work every day for this democracy,
Speaker 1: for bringing greater equality, greater justice, and a vision of
Speaker 1: a democracy that looks like what I think we want
Speaker 1: our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren to
Speaker 1: be a part of. Chrylen Eiffel, Rylyn, Director, Counselor, Matt
Speaker 1: and President, thank you so much for this time. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for your voice, thank you for this show,
Speaker 1: and um, let's just keep fighting. Let's keep fighting. We
Speaker 1: are so grateful to Chryln Eiffel for spending time with
Speaker 1: us and reminding us that citizenship is a responsibility and
Speaker 1: we gotta put in work. Follow the in double a
Speaker 1: CP Legal Defense Fund on all the social media's there
Speaker 1: at in double a CP Underscore l DF on Twitter
Speaker 1: and on Instagram, search for them on Facebook, or visit
Speaker 1: their website in double a c P l d F
Speaker 1: dot org. Find this episode, a transcript, show notes and
Speaker 1: more goodies at how do citizen dot com. And speaking
Speaker 1: of goodies, why don't you give us that good old
Speaker 1: thumbs up with a positive rating or review wherever you
Speaker 1: see this show and tell somebody else about it. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying what we're doing here, here's what we're asking
Speaker 1: you to do to align with this episode in terms
Speaker 1: of actions. Internally, we want you to become a bit
Speaker 1: more educated on the systems of oppression that we live
Speaker 1: in in the United States, so that you know the
Speaker 1: roots better and how to fight them better. We went
Speaker 1: so far as to set up a whole online bookshop
Speaker 1: that actually supports local booksellers in the process, You can
Speaker 1: find it at bookshop dot Org, slash Shop, slash how
Speaker 1: the Citizen. Here are two titles on the shelf that
Speaker 1: we're setting up for you, stamped from the beginning by
Speaker 1: Abram X. Kendy, A Powerful History of Race, Racism, White
Speaker 1: Supremacy in the United States and Crusade for Justice, the
Speaker 1: autobiography of Ida B. Wells. She is someone we all
Speaker 1: need to know so much more about, so I am
Speaker 1: proud to recommend her to you, because I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: you didn't get that on your how to be Woke
Speaker 1: in the Summer of reading lists. Since we spend so
Speaker 1: much time talking about the Voting Rights Act, I suggest
Speaker 1: you actually read the Voting Rights Act, the original one,
Speaker 1: and once you do that, read an analysis from was
Speaker 1: written in The Atlantic by Van Newkirk. V A double
Speaker 1: in will drop the link in the show notes. But
Speaker 1: if you one of those people that likes to independently
Speaker 1: discover stuff, find it and understand why that Shelby versus
Speaker 1: Holder decision that Cheryl and Eiffel reference was so important
Speaker 1: and so devastating, and why we need to restore something
Speaker 1: like or better than the Voting Rights Act. Finally, visit
Speaker 1: this website more than a vote dot Org. This is
Speaker 1: the organization that Lebron set up to help people claim
Speaker 1: they're voting rights. And he's a three time champion, so
Speaker 1: do with the champs that he's done it well as
Speaker 1: organization has done it well, and they've partnered with many
Speaker 1: groups like the end up a l a CP Legal
Speaker 1: Defense Fund, and they have a really beautiful tool where
Speaker 1: you plug in your address and they show you all
Speaker 1: the different ways you can vote. Now, externally, this involves
Speaker 1: stuff more public out in the world, interacting with other people.
Speaker 1: Here's where we've got first find out the exact requirements
Speaker 1: of mail land or absentee ballots in your state and
Speaker 1: share them so that every vote is counted. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of different rules and I want you to
Speaker 1: figure that out for where you are and tell somebody.
Speaker 1: And speaking of telling somebody, I want to make you
Speaker 1: a team Captain Lebron, if you will, I want to
Speaker 1: make you a Lebron for democracy. Why don't you become
Speaker 1: a democracy team captain and take the lead in making
Speaker 1: sure that at least three people you know vote. Whether
Speaker 1: you can vote or not, you probably know three people
Speaker 1: who can, so take responsibility for them, hound them harass them,
Speaker 1: support them lovingly often until they vote. In a couple
Speaker 1: of ways you can do that. You can share resources
Speaker 1: so that they understand what all their voting options are.
Speaker 1: Send them to more than a vote of Votes of
Speaker 1: America are a number of sources that we have outlined
Speaker 1: in the show notes and on the website. If they
Speaker 1: need a witness to sign their ballot envelope, offer to
Speaker 1: be that person. Offer to be the person to take
Speaker 1: the ballot and drop it off of them if they
Speaker 1: can't easily or safely leave their home. Be a team
Speaker 1: captain for democracy. Finally, support the polls themselves. We have
Speaker 1: asked previously to become a poll worker by signing up
Speaker 1: at Power to the Polls dot org. But this time
Speaker 1: we know election day is likely to have some very
Speaker 1: long lines election days, i should say, and so you
Speaker 1: can support the people in those lines. Bring them water,
Speaker 1: bring them masks, gloves, umbrellas. If you're an entertainer, do
Speaker 1: some entertaining. We know that there are people who are
Speaker 1: going to show up to these polls trying to intimidate
Speaker 1: and frighten people show up to do the opposite, Show
Speaker 1: up to support people living into their highest levels of citizenship,
Speaker 1: show up with love and in a pro democracy small
Speaker 1: d act of citizenship. If you take any of these actions,
Speaker 1: share them with us. Email us action at how to
Speaker 1: citizen dot com mentioned voting in the subject line. Brag
Speaker 1: about your citizen ing with the hashtag how to citizen
Speaker 1: on your social media platform of choice, and send us
Speaker 1: any comments you have or suggestions to comment at how
Speaker 1: to citizen dot com. How do citizen with Barrattune Days
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio podcast executive produced by Miles Gray,
Speaker 1: Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart, and Barrattune Day Thurston. Produced by
Speaker 1: Joel Smith, Edited by Justin Smith. Powered by you