Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and
Speaker 1: Jerry's out there somewhere wandering around. So if you see her,
Speaker 1: bring her back. And this is Stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: A rare top ten. Yeah, where we do all ten,
Speaker 1: although I'm sure we'll end up combining something and it'll
Speaker 1: be like eight or something weird like that. But we
Speaker 1: just don't even really do these anymore. Oh, I see
Speaker 1: what you mean. No, No, it's been a while. This
Speaker 1: one's an important top ten too. This isn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: ten biggest things ever moved or anything like that. Did
Speaker 1: we do that? No, I don't think we ever did.
Speaker 1: It's on How Stuff Works. Yeah, it is right, it's
Speaker 1: a real thing. Yeah, or maybe like ten heaviest objects
Speaker 1: ever moved or something. Maybe we'll do it someday. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is from our old website that we used to
Speaker 1: work for or though How Stuff Works, and uh this
Speaker 1: is and we've done stuff on different ways to suppress
Speaker 1: the vote and to rig the vote through jerrymandering and
Speaker 1: such efforts like that. We well, we did one specifically
Speaker 1: called our election laws designed to suppress voting, and that's
Speaker 1: a good one to go listen to as well. It
Speaker 1: is because it's very sad. But in the United States, UM,
Speaker 1: suppressing the vote and keep trying to keep people and
Speaker 1: certain people and certain demographics from voting is as old
Speaker 1: as voting itself. Yeah, which is sad because everybody has
Speaker 1: this impression that you know, and it's pure state in America.
Speaker 1: If you want to vote, if you say this is
Speaker 1: my my right and obligation and duty as a citizen, Um,
Speaker 1: you can go vote and it shouldn't be all that
Speaker 1: hard and you just go and you vote, and your
Speaker 1: vote is counted and maybe your person wins, maybe they don't,
Speaker 1: but you voted, and there shouldn't be any barriers to that.
Speaker 1: Voting is the way that a democracy functions. So the
Speaker 1: most democratic way for the democracy to function is to
Speaker 1: remove as many barriers as possible. Unfortunately, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of barriers that are put up that do make
Speaker 1: things harder for people to vote, which is what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. That's right, and they're not old barriers.
Speaker 1: The Brennan Center for Justice, it's just a think tank
Speaker 1: in New York and advocates for civil rights, especially around voting.
Speaker 1: They said, since two thousand ten, states have passed new
Speaker 1: laws making it more difficult for people to vote in
Speaker 1: the United States of America. Yeah so, and we should
Speaker 1: probably just come out and say, Unfortunately to our Republican listeners,
Speaker 1: this is not one of those both sides do what
Speaker 1: kind of things. Um. This is largely Republican. The Republican
Speaker 1: controlled UM states and municipalities that create laws and regulations
Speaker 1: that do make it harder to vote. And the reason
Speaker 1: why on paper is because it's it's to combat UM
Speaker 1: voter fraud. The problem is this voter fraud has been
Speaker 1: shown many, many, many times over by many different studies
Speaker 1: by by groups from both sides of the political spectrum
Speaker 1: that it doesn't I mean, it doesn't really exist. It
Speaker 1: exists in such minuscule amounts that it might as well
Speaker 1: not exist. That same Brennan Center, Chuck, that you mentioned
Speaker 1: a second ago, they're big time into into voting. They
Speaker 1: they did a study and they saw that between nine
Speaker 1: ten thousands of a percent to four one hundred thousands
Speaker 1: of a percent, that's how the rate of overall voting
Speaker 1: fraud in the United States and if you're like Brendan Center, all,
Speaker 1: but that's liberal. Um. There was actually an exhaustive inquiry
Speaker 1: investigation launched in two thousand two by John Ashcroft, who
Speaker 1: is Bush Junior's Attorney General. If you'll remember heck of
Speaker 1: a heck of a singer. Remember when he sang about
Speaker 1: the eagle flying high. Yeah, man, I remember that he
Speaker 1: was annointing feet with oils. Yeah. So Sacroft his Justice
Speaker 1: Department launched a really thorough investigation into voter fraud in
Speaker 1: the United States, and out of examining hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of ballots between I think, um, oh, I don't remember
Speaker 1: what years they looked at it over, they managed to
Speaker 1: bring charges on only one people and only eight six
Speaker 1: of those were convicted. Um. So there's there's really no
Speaker 1: evidence that voter fraud exists. And yet these solutions to
Speaker 1: voting fraud voter fraud, which are obstacles and barriers to voting,
Speaker 1: are still established. They're still supported. Even though people are
Speaker 1: like voting fraud doesn't exist, they say, well, we still
Speaker 1: have to protect against it anyway, so we're gonna make
Speaker 1: voting harder. Um. And that's kind of the big problem
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with right now, with with this thing.
Speaker 1: And this is why a lot of people point to
Speaker 1: this and say this is voter suppression. That's right. And
Speaker 1: in fact, even in our most recent election, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, uh, Donald Trump launched an investigative body to
Speaker 1: look into the because he lost a popular vote by
Speaker 1: roughly three million votes and he said that there were
Speaker 1: at least three million illegal votes cast That's why I
Speaker 1: lost that vote? Didn't he form a body to investigate that?
Speaker 1: That just sort of quietly went away without any findings.
Speaker 1: It did. There were like there were some findings, but
Speaker 1: they were you know, and there was a report and
Speaker 1: it was actually kind of a scandalous report that said
Speaker 1: there's voter fraud everywhere. And then people said, well, can
Speaker 1: you show us your your work and they said no,
Speaker 1: and that's when it kind of faded off into nothing. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so there's like we're showing, like it's been shown,
Speaker 1: voter fraud like basically doesn't exist. And yes, any instance
Speaker 1: of voter fraud, especially purposeful voter fraud meant to to
Speaker 1: affect the outcome of an election. Throw that person in jail,
Speaker 1: like take away they're right to vote. Forever. And um,
Speaker 1: maybe speke m on the bottom too, like this is
Speaker 1: not it's not a good thing. No one's saying like
Speaker 1: who cares about voter fraud? What people are saying is
Speaker 1: that voter fraud virtually doesn't exist. So to institute all
Speaker 1: these draconian measures that make it harder for people to
Speaker 1: vote and seemingly weirdly make it harder for certain groups
Speaker 1: of people like minorities and poor people to vote, Um,
Speaker 1: that's that's a problem because number one, it's a solution
Speaker 1: to a problem that doesn't exist. The number two, again,
Speaker 1: it seems to be voter suppression. And all other people
Speaker 1: would say, well, why why would why would the GOP
Speaker 1: care if if if um, like, why would they do
Speaker 1: this then? And apparently if you look at elections in general, Um,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party tends to be favored when fewer people
Speaker 1: turn out, when a lot of when there's a large electorate,
Speaker 1: that usually tends to favor the Democrats. When not that
Speaker 1: many people turn out to vote, the people who turn
Speaker 1: out to vote usually tend to be Republicans. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people point to the Republican controlled cities and
Speaker 1: states around the country and say, um, I think you're
Speaker 1: doing this to win, and which makes it cheating. And
Speaker 1: you're cheating by taking away people's ability to vote or
Speaker 1: making it hard enough that they just give up and
Speaker 1: don't vote. That's right. So, uh, a lot of this
Speaker 1: is gonna be historical as well. And I guess we
Speaker 1: should start with number ten, which is poll taxes. And
Speaker 1: early on, when voting kind of was in its uh
Speaker 1: early stages, they thought, you know, I'm a really easy
Speaker 1: way to keep people from voting is to have them
Speaker 1: pay a tax to have to vote. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be exorbitant, but maybe just high enough to
Speaker 1: where most of the people that we don't want to
Speaker 1: vote can't afford it. Most of the Confederate former Confederacy
Speaker 1: UM had these poll taxes. A lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: was in the South historically. Unfortunately, Virginia charged about a
Speaker 1: buck fifty a year, which was about eleven bucks in
Speaker 1: today's dollars, so that's not a lot of money, but
Speaker 1: it had to be paid in cash. And back then,
Speaker 1: if you were a sharecropper or if you were a
Speaker 1: small uh farmer with a small farm, you bought most
Speaker 1: of your stuff on credit and you didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of cash line around. You might have had two
Speaker 1: or three dollars at any given point, right, and you
Speaker 1: hit it on the head when you said. A lot
Speaker 1: of this happened or started out. A lot of voter
Speaker 1: suppression tactics started out in the South, um during reconstruction,
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden there were a lot of
Speaker 1: black people who suddenly had the right to vote in
Speaker 1: the white dominated South, and so the the white establishment
Speaker 1: was at threat of being undermined or replaced by black people,
Speaker 1: where people who were friendly to black interests, and they
Speaker 1: didn't want that, so um, they started instituting things like
Speaker 1: poll tax, but they had to do it in ways
Speaker 1: where it appeared, um, like it applied to everybody. So
Speaker 1: a poll tax applied to everybody. But then they would
Speaker 1: institute things like grandfather clauses, which literally said, with poll taxes, um,
Speaker 1: if your grandfather was able to vote before the Civil War,
Speaker 1: your exempt. Well, black people didn't really have the right
Speaker 1: to vote, especially in the South before the Civil War,
Speaker 1: so it's impossible that their grandfather would have had that right.
Speaker 1: With white people who might have been poor but could
Speaker 1: and afford to pay the poll tax, but we're probably
Speaker 1: going to vote in favor with wide interests in the
Speaker 1: South during that election, they would be exempted because their
Speaker 1: grandfather could vote before the Civil War, and that's how
Speaker 1: that was done. Yeah. And in other Southern states, Um,
Speaker 1: they had cumulative taxes on top of just being taxed.
Speaker 1: You had to do this several years in a row
Speaker 1: in order to earn that right to vote. So all
Speaker 1: of these things, um. You know. Of course, this was
Speaker 1: eventually rendered illegal in nineteen sixty four with the ratification
Speaker 1: of the twenty fourth Amendment. They said, you can't do
Speaker 1: poll taxes anymore. After a hundred years, we've determined it's
Speaker 1: not fair. Yeah, And it took a couple of years too,
Speaker 1: So all the way up until nineteen sixty six, dude,
Speaker 1: there were four states that still had laws on the
Speaker 1: books that had to be struck down in federal court
Speaker 1: that poll taxes were okay. Yeah, which is crazy. Another
Speaker 1: one that they did was literacy tests, um, which kind
Speaker 1: of went hand in hand. Again, a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff started out in the the Reek Instruction and then
Speaker 1: Jim Crow South. Um. And if you were black right
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, there was a really good chance
Speaker 1: that you couldn't read way more of a chance um
Speaker 1: when compared to a white person. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: the percentages is, but there were laws on the books
Speaker 1: that said it's illegal for you, as a white person
Speaker 1: to teach your your the people that you have enslaved,
Speaker 1: UM to read or write. It's illegal, like literacy among
Speaker 1: slaves is not is not legal and so UM. One
Speaker 1: way to prevent those people who were now franchised after
Speaker 1: the Civil War UM from voting would be to say, well,
Speaker 1: you have to be literate to vote because and this
Speaker 1: is sneaky, because if you're not literate, how can you
Speaker 1: possibly be an informed voter. You can't just come in
Speaker 1: and say I want to vote for this person because
Speaker 1: I like their name. You have to be informed, and
Speaker 1: to be informed, you have to be literate. So we're
Speaker 1: going to test your literacy before we let you vote. Right.
Speaker 1: One good example is in South Carolina and the two
Speaker 1: where you couldn't even if you could manage to learn,
Speaker 1: if you really wanted to vote, and you managed to
Speaker 1: learn to write down your name and and your your ballot,
Speaker 1: they said, no, you got to write down a ballot
Speaker 1: for each office. If you want to vote for governor
Speaker 1: and senator and anything else, then you have to to
Speaker 1: to be able to write down all of those and
Speaker 1: put it in the correct box. This labeled that you
Speaker 1: probably can't read. And we're going to shuffle these boxes
Speaker 1: around too. So even if you have someone that wants
Speaker 1: to help you cast that vote, that's not going to
Speaker 1: be allowed to happen either. Um. And you know, forget
Speaker 1: the fact that people are have learning disabilities and sometimes
Speaker 1: have legitimate problems learning how to read, even if they
Speaker 1: want to learn how to read. It's like saying that
Speaker 1: you can't vote if you if you don't have arms
Speaker 1: to cast to cast a ballot. It's just it's outrageous.
Speaker 1: And uh, it gets even more outrageous if you go
Speaker 1: to Louisiana, where they had literal brain teasers that you
Speaker 1: had to be able to figure out in order to vote.
Speaker 1: And this one, I I I'm sure if I sat
Speaker 1: down long enough, I could figure it out. But not
Speaker 1: when I'm probably nervous about casting my first vote as
Speaker 1: a former enslaved person. Right. So, so this one in particular,
Speaker 1: and this one was instituted as more and more black
Speaker 1: people learned to read. Um. Which, so just buckle up
Speaker 1: for this one, right, every other word in this first
Speaker 1: line and print every third word in the same line,
Speaker 1: but capitalized the fifth word. That you right, So you
Speaker 1: could conceivably, especially as a literate person, figure this out.
Speaker 1: It would take you a little while, but say that
Speaker 1: you went and you so you wrote all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and then you got to the last part where it
Speaker 1: said capitalized the fifth word. Then you went back and
Speaker 1: scratched out the small case whatever that fifth word was
Speaker 1: and capitalize that one, or maybe you capitalize all the
Speaker 1: words and you had to go back and put them
Speaker 1: in lower case. The Act that these tests were administered
Speaker 1: by white poll workers and that they were typically subjective,
Speaker 1: meaning that if that poll worker decided you failed, you failed.
Speaker 1: When you went back and scratched that out and made,
Speaker 1: you know, capitalize that fifth word, there was probably a
Speaker 1: hundred percent chance that that white poll worker, who didn't
Speaker 1: want you voting in the first place, was going to
Speaker 1: just say, sorry, you failed, you can't vote. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you think, well, sure, but this was the eighteen hundreds. No, No,
Speaker 1: Some southern states had these brain teaser tests all the
Speaker 1: way up until the mid nineteen sixties, when the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act finally said you don't need to do a
Speaker 1: brain teaser to vote. That's um illegal and it's kind
Speaker 1: of dumb. Yeah. So you know, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of UM, a lot of chicanery, effery I think, as
Speaker 1: John Oliver would put it, UM that was going on
Speaker 1: in the South. Uh. But I mean the one of
Speaker 1: the mechanisms that I think that that really got you
Speaker 1: u UM that were that really just kind of probably
Speaker 1: the most effective one was just straight up violence, like
Speaker 1: the the Ku Klux Klan, UM, the Knights of the
Speaker 1: White Camelea UM, A bunch of different groups, terrorists, organizations
Speaker 1: grew up two terrorized black people and people who supported
Speaker 1: the rights of black people, UM to send a message
Speaker 1: it saying like no, we're we're the white power structure
Speaker 1: is going to be staying in power around here, and
Speaker 1: we will go so far as to murder you and
Speaker 1: your family and make examples out of you to like
Speaker 1: leaving you in a tree as a signal to everybody else.
Speaker 1: This is what happens when you try to vote. This
Speaker 1: is what happens when you you try to register other
Speaker 1: people to vote. UM. And it was a very long
Speaker 1: lasting legacy that went on from the end of the
Speaker 1: Civil War up until I believe Congress finally, UH passed
Speaker 1: a law saying that no, this is this is illegal.
Speaker 1: You can't do this kind of thing. But it went
Speaker 1: on for decades like this. Yeah, they finally made it
Speaker 1: a federal crime and more than three thousand clan members
Speaker 1: were indicted. Only about six hundred of those were actually
Speaker 1: convicted because again we're talking about juries in the South
Speaker 1: for the most part. Uh, this seems like a good
Speaker 1: time to take a break, Okay, and we'll pick back
Speaker 1: up with number seven right after this number seven. Right, So,
Speaker 1: there's some just to give you a little historical background
Speaker 1: real quick. There's some um, there's reconstruction where black Americans
Speaker 1: become in franchise they have the right to vote. In
Speaker 1: response to that, there's terror, there's Jim Crow laws. And
Speaker 1: then in response to the Jim Crow laws that that
Speaker 1: just overtly suppressed the Black vote, there was the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act. And for a long time, the Voting Rights
Speaker 1: Act was really effective. And the reason why it was
Speaker 1: effective was because there was a section to it, section five,
Speaker 1: that said, hey, if you've ever ever engaged in voter discrimination,
Speaker 1: you're on a statewide basis, on a systemic basis, you
Speaker 1: have to have us. The federal government review any changes
Speaker 1: to the voting procedure in your state before you can
Speaker 1: implement them. And so any state that wanted to try
Speaker 1: to come up with some voter suppression tactic, it might
Speaker 1: be brilliant, but if the federal government said no, they
Speaker 1: couldn't do it, and so the vote would be saved
Speaker 1: in that respect. Well, in two thousand thirteen, the Robert's
Speaker 1: leg Court um struck down Section five of the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act. So now we're seeing the results of that
Speaker 1: where voter suppression tactics are starting to come back, and
Speaker 1: they're starting to come back in like this avalanche of
Speaker 1: tactics where across the country. If you put them all together,
Speaker 1: it's a real problem. But the Voting Rights Act figured
Speaker 1: in dramatically to save the vote of people. UM, and
Speaker 1: the gutting of that section five and two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: by the Supreme Court did the exact opposite to it.
Speaker 1: That's right. One tactic that they could use and use
Speaker 1: for many years was just making it and still used
Speaker 1: to some degree, making it difficult to register or to vote. UM.
Speaker 1: Here are some of the things that used to do.
Speaker 1: Is you have to keep reregistering many many times you
Speaker 1: have to have a street address with an actual name
Speaker 1: and number. And if you were an African American living
Speaker 1: in the rural South, you may not have an actual
Speaker 1: street address. UM on the dirt road next to the
Speaker 1: field that you farm. Um. You know, little things like this,
Speaker 1: these technicalities to meet these requirements to vote that they
Speaker 1: knew that African Americans didn't have. And you know, there
Speaker 1: are were and are still literal conversations, some of them
Speaker 1: these days are even on tape where you hear of
Speaker 1: public officials talk about making it hard for black people
Speaker 1: to vote. And if we do this, this is how
Speaker 1: many people we think we can keep off the voter
Speaker 1: registration logs. Uh. It's just it's shameful. And UM, I'm
Speaker 1: surprised we're not screaming at this point. We're trying to
Speaker 1: keep it together. It wasn't just in the South, oh,
Speaker 1: in the North and in the West in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, Um, there were immigrants, and they didn't want
Speaker 1: immigrants voting. A lot of times, UM, ethnic and religious
Speaker 1: minorities they didn't want voting. So in places in the
Speaker 1: North and the West, like New Jersey and California, they
Speaker 1: made it tough for immigrants to vote by saying you
Speaker 1: have to have your uh, your original naturalization papers at
Speaker 1: the polling place. Or maybe we don't want maybe the
Speaker 1: interests of people who work in factories don't align with
Speaker 1: our So here's what we'll do. Those people work long
Speaker 1: ten to twelve hour shifts, can't make it to the polls.
Speaker 1: So we're going to close the registration offices before those
Speaker 1: factories shut down every day to keep them from voting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there were there were other ways, like you know
Speaker 1: that that they went back to close these loopholes too,
Speaker 1: Like it was a real public private partnership between the
Speaker 1: government and other groups. There were there were groups that
Speaker 1: were dedicated to kind of preserving white supremacy in the South.
Speaker 1: Say that would um, that would boycott businesses that where
Speaker 1: they found out that those those employers gave their black
Speaker 1: employees time off during the day to go registered to
Speaker 1: vote or to vote, Like, you could lose your customer
Speaker 1: base because if they found out that you were doing
Speaker 1: that with with black people, um or with your black employees.
Speaker 1: So there were like even if you say, well, so
Speaker 1: what it was hard to get registered to vote? Figure
Speaker 1: it out, Um, it was disproportionately leveled at black vote ers,
Speaker 1: and even if you did figure it out, there were
Speaker 1: repercussions for figuring it out too. Yeah, or in New York,
Speaker 1: if you know that UM a lot of Jewish people
Speaker 1: might vote in a more liberal way, Hey, let's have
Speaker 1: registration times on Saturdays and yam kapoor. When we know
Speaker 1: that Jewish people won't be able to get out and
Speaker 1: registered to vote, it's high time that we make UH
Speaker 1: voting days national holidays. I agree, Chuck. I agree it
Speaker 1: should be a paid holiday, UM, a national paid holiday,
Speaker 1: or have it on Saturdays. Do something but make it
Speaker 1: less hard for sure. Yeah, Like people need to be
Speaker 1: allowed to vote. And we're not talking about UM voter fraud.
Speaker 1: We're talking about legal Americans having the right in the
Speaker 1: ability to vote in as easy away as possible. Yes.
Speaker 1: And if you also say, well, if they really wanted
Speaker 1: to vote, they would, they would find a way to
Speaker 1: do it. When's it lie time you didn't log into
Speaker 1: a website because it required two factor authentication from your
Speaker 1: break And we're talking about having to take a bus
Speaker 1: across the county to registered to vote when you have
Speaker 1: to be working and your employer won't give you time off,
Speaker 1: so you have to take sick time to just go
Speaker 1: register to vote, and then you have to do it
Speaker 1: all again to go vote. It's it's more problematic than
Speaker 1: it appears. Just when you're saying it out loud. That
Speaker 1: was a good burn. Sick burn, thanks man. UH Number six,
Speaker 1: Straight up, voter intimidation still happens to a large degree. Uh.
Speaker 1: In two thousand four, it was reported that in Florida,
Speaker 1: in the state election there, they sent plain closed state
Speaker 1: troopers to the homes of fifty elderly black voters to
Speaker 1: question them for supposed election fraud um. And then when
Speaker 1: they asked the state officials why they sent these state troopers,
Speaker 1: they said, well, we saw we thought it might be
Speaker 1: a more relaxed atmosphere to to come to their home
Speaker 1: and ask these elder really black voters about whether or
Speaker 1: not they participated in voter fraud, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: this investigation turned up absolutely no fraud whatsoever, so it
Speaker 1: didn't happen, um, which is like basically all investigations of
Speaker 1: voter fraud turn up no fraud whatsoever, And a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, well, these investigations are really just um
Speaker 1: intimidation tactics, and this one, to me is one of
Speaker 1: the more despicable ones because it directly traces right back,
Speaker 1: uninterrupted to the reconstruction era and the fact that it's
Speaker 1: still going on today is just despicable to me. But
Speaker 1: they it is. And it's not just um, you know,
Speaker 1: state troopers showing up at your house to ask you personally.
Speaker 1: There was a really famous case that our dear governor
Speaker 1: in Georgia, Brian kemp um when he was Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: because we need to remember he was Secretary of State
Speaker 1: running an election that he was the one of the
Speaker 1: two candidates for governor in UM and a lot of
Speaker 1: people say, well, he did some shady stuff, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about later, but when he was just straight up
Speaker 1: secretary of State, he oversaw the arrest of the equipment
Speaker 1: ten plus two where to African American school Board school
Speaker 1: board officials UM who were elected a couple of times
Speaker 1: in this one election in a runoff, fair and square,
Speaker 1: they were arrested and their supporters and campaign advisors were
Speaker 1: arrested and taken to jail and had mug shots of
Speaker 1: them put on the news. UM because they were accused
Speaker 1: of voter fraud and after years, the charges were finally dropped.
Speaker 1: Not a single person went to jail, no one was convicted. Um,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people point to that and say,
Speaker 1: if you don't understand that as a clear message to
Speaker 1: African American not just voters but also office holders, um,
Speaker 1: that they shouldn't bother running or else their lives are
Speaker 1: going to be ruined, then you're you're really missing the
Speaker 1: point here. Yeah, in two thousand fourteen, that is another
Speaker 1: intimidation tactic. Uh. And this is just you know, these
Speaker 1: things that aren't technically illegal, but where candidates is trying
Speaker 1: to be very sneaky and if they can, you know,
Speaker 1: if they can trick a hundred voters into doing the
Speaker 1: wrong thing, then it's their their time has been well
Speaker 1: spent in their minds. But Mitch McConnell's campaign sent out
Speaker 1: these mailers that were marked election violation notice, and it
Speaker 1: had the warning you are at risk of acting on
Speaker 1: fraudulent information. And you start to read it and what
Speaker 1: it is is just, um, basically, here's my opposition candidate,
Speaker 1: and UM, we don't like what they say, so this
Speaker 1: is fraudulent information. But they dress it up in a
Speaker 1: way sort of like the publisher's clearing house. That makes,
Speaker 1: you know, our our elderly citizens drive across the country
Speaker 1: thinking they have actually won real money. Right, this is
Speaker 1: the making it. Yeah, this is the opposite of that,
Speaker 1: but using the same tricks. Basically, it's like you get
Speaker 1: a notice in the mail, um, and these you know,
Speaker 1: it's usually preying on people that are that are older
Speaker 1: in our country, which is sad and awful. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they get a notice in their mail that says, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I'm at risk of acting on fraudulent information. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know they took this. Uh, they were sued,
Speaker 1: but a federal judge said, no, I'm sorry, uh rejected basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean and also intimidation to um can be official,
Speaker 1: like in part of official policies, like some of those
Speaker 1: poll taxes in the South. Um, they added the extra
Speaker 1: layer of keeping you from even trying by saying the
Speaker 1: only place you can go pay for the poll taxes
Speaker 1: that your sheriff's office. Right, you might say, especially if
Speaker 1: you're white, Uh, well, big deal, I have to go
Speaker 1: to the sheriff's office. Well imagine if you went to
Speaker 1: the sheriff's office and there was a really good chance
Speaker 1: that while you were there paying your poll tax so
Speaker 1: that you could go vote. And for that reason only,
Speaker 1: they said, hey, by the way, while you're here, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got this case open. Where were you on Tuesday night?
Speaker 1: And you would tell them and they would say, well
Speaker 1: can you prove it? Um, just knowing that that was
Speaker 1: a possibility, and if you don't realize that was a possibility,
Speaker 1: I would urge you to brush up on your Jim
Speaker 1: Crow South history. Um would would dissuade a lot of people,
Speaker 1: I would guess from going to pay that poll tax
Speaker 1: and then going to vote. Remember when Helmer Simpson, I
Speaker 1: thought you want to vote and I had to go
Speaker 1: to the police station to claim his prize. Yeah that
Speaker 1: was a good one though, Yeah, that was a good one.
Speaker 1: Another one, number five is something that is still You
Speaker 1: mentioned Brian Kemp in Georgia, UM, pruning names from the
Speaker 1: voter rolls. I thought that that was I thought that
Speaker 1: that was a generous word that they used, pruning, pruning,
Speaker 1: because it makes it seem like methodical and um, you know,
Speaker 1: well informed. Yeah. Well this has happened time and time again.
Speaker 1: Before the two thousand election for president in Florida, once again,
Speaker 1: state officials Republican controlled Florida. They hired a private firm
Speaker 1: to go through the registration rolls delete names who are
Speaker 1: people who had died, who were registered multiple times in
Speaker 1: multiple places, or convicted felons or declared mentally incompetent in
Speaker 1: court proceedings. And you might think, well, that's great, because
Speaker 1: you know you don't want uh, deceased people on voter rolls,
Speaker 1: which is true. But what about when you make mistakes
Speaker 1: and you delete a lot of voters who are fully
Speaker 1: eligible to vote. Then what happens? And the answer is nothing, No,
Speaker 1: there's not. And by the time that it does turn
Speaker 1: out like, oh, we made a mistake, the elections long over.
Speaker 1: These these inquiries and their reports that they produce are
Speaker 1: usually a couple of years after the fact um. But
Speaker 1: the in Georgia in particular, they found out that again,
Speaker 1: the guy who oversaw the purging of the voter rolls
Speaker 1: was one of the two candidates in the election. Just
Speaker 1: basic ethics says, you recuse yourself, you have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with us, or you say no, no, no, let's
Speaker 1: not do this, or let's do it the right way,
Speaker 1: not let's purge this many people that we actually mistakenly
Speaker 1: removed two hundred thousand people removed their right to vote
Speaker 1: in this in this election, two hundred thousand. And then,
Speaker 1: just to add horrible irony to the whole thing, it
Speaker 1: was only by fifty five thousand votes that that Brian
Speaker 1: Kemp beat Stacy Abrams in that gubernatorial election. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a bitter pill here in Georgia because remember it
Speaker 1: was like I think it was the week or it
Speaker 1: may even be the eve of the election when they
Speaker 1: lobbied the charge that the Republican UH system had been
Speaker 1: hacked and that they were launching a case against Abrams
Speaker 1: to look into it. And then you know, after the election,
Speaker 1: of course they're like, oh, we were wrong. They didn't
Speaker 1: hack us after all, right, Which again, who who said
Speaker 1: that they that they were hacked? Was that the Secretary
Speaker 1: of State Brian Kemp, who was so running for governor
Speaker 1: against Stacy Abrahams. Yeah, yeah, what about voter I D.
Speaker 1: Voters should take a break. Oh yeah, let's take a break.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty charged up here, all right, We'll take a
Speaker 1: break and we'll talk about voter I D and some
Speaker 1: in a few more things right after this. So we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about voter I D chuck in, um,
Speaker 1: the voter suppression episode, which again go go listen to that, guys.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a good one as well. Um. But
Speaker 1: the upshot of it, there's that word again. The upshot
Speaker 1: of it is that, um, if you require someone to
Speaker 1: show there that they are who they say they are
Speaker 1: when when they go vote, you can make a good
Speaker 1: case that at the very at least, you're adding an
Speaker 1: obstacle or a barrier to voting. But you could also say, well,
Speaker 1: if you have to pay for that, that technically constitutes
Speaker 1: a poll tax. And people say, oh, yeah, well Section
Speaker 1: five of the Voting Rights Act doesn't exist anymore, so
Speaker 1: go sit on it. Ralph mouth. Yeah, I mean in
Speaker 1: some states it costs up to sixty bucks. That's that's unconscionable, man,
Speaker 1: that I D. And you know, sixty dollars for some
Speaker 1: people is their grocery money for the week when you
Speaker 1: lift paycheck to paycheck. And again, you know, it's really
Speaker 1: easy to say, well, you know, just pay the money
Speaker 1: and go out and get your I D. So you
Speaker 1: can vote if you really want to vote. That's a
Speaker 1: choice between that and putting food on the table for
Speaker 1: your kids. It's a barrier to voting, plain and simple. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean there are plenty of states who
Speaker 1: that rightly who require a voter I d um rightly
Speaker 1: off or free ideas that you can use to vote.
Speaker 1: Um Like, that's definitely the way that it should be.
Speaker 1: But that's still again, any time you require somebody to
Speaker 1: potentially take time off of work, that puts an enormous
Speaker 1: burden on like working like the working poort, like people
Speaker 1: who just can't afford to take time off of work.
Speaker 1: They might be in a job where there's enough people,
Speaker 1: um who would love to have that job that if
Speaker 1: they take a sick day, their boss can be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I know, you weren't sick, and you're fired.
Speaker 1: This is the last straw. So your job could actually
Speaker 1: be on the line. Could be more than just a
Speaker 1: loss of hours, It could equal the loss of a job.
Speaker 1: And again, we live in a democratic country where the barriers,
Speaker 1: the barriers to democracy should be lowered, not raised lowered.
Speaker 1: And yes, we should vigorously prosecute any instance of fraud,
Speaker 1: but because that hasn't been shown to exist, lowering the
Speaker 1: barriers so people can legally vote is not problematic. And
Speaker 1: it's andy democratic to do that to raise them. It is.
Speaker 1: And when you when you hear these uh these taped conversations,
Speaker 1: they're not talking about voter fraud. They're saying, hey, we
Speaker 1: can get probably a two point five percent reduction of
Speaker 1: African American voter turn out in this county if we
Speaker 1: do X. And I again, like we keep saying African
Speaker 1: American voter turn out. Like when when there was when
Speaker 1: I think Miami UM purged their voter roles in I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly when it was, but there was a
Speaker 1: commission that did a report on it, and their purge
Speaker 1: affected sixty like six of the people who are deleted
Speaker 1: were black voters, even though those voters represented just twenty
Speaker 1: point four percent of the population, whereas only sixteen point
Speaker 1: six percent of the people who are purged were white,
Speaker 1: even though those people represented seventy seven percent of the public.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like if you if you look at studies
Speaker 1: of this stuff, it disprop portunately impacts black voters, typically
Speaker 1: minority vote voters as a whole, but definitely black voters
Speaker 1: for sure. And that's not to say like the Republican
Speaker 1: Party just hates black people. The Republican Party knows that
Speaker 1: African Americans typically tend to vote Democrat and they're a
Speaker 1: large group of people, so if you can make it
Speaker 1: harder for them to vote, UM, you're probably going to
Speaker 1: affect the Democrats vote, not your vote. Yeah. Another thing
Speaker 1: that you can do is close UH polling stations and
Speaker 1: limit polling hours in counties where you think it might
Speaker 1: help your vote. UM. There are a bunch of swing
Speaker 1: states North Carolina, Ohio and some other states that have
Speaker 1: cut early voting days or hours. UM. There was a
Speaker 1: report in two thousand fourteen that said they're more likely
Speaker 1: to inconvenience black voters who liked to vote early and
Speaker 1: in person historically. UM. In Maricopa County in Arizona, there
Speaker 1: were four voting voting locations in two thousand eight. In
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen there were sixty. This is a huge,
Speaker 1: huge problem, a huge problem. This is one one way
Speaker 1: that this is going on, making it harder to vote
Speaker 1: by making voting less available to people when it can
Speaker 1: totally be afforded. UM. It's being pruned. UM. And it's
Speaker 1: not just Texas, although Texas has some agregious stuff going
Speaker 1: on since two thousand UM. Oh I don't remember. Two
Speaker 1: thou fourteen, maybe Texas has shut down seven hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty polling locations places to vote, seven hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: and there they they currently have on the UM on
Speaker 1: the agenda. I don't know if it's been pasted or
Speaker 1: if it's just been proposed or what. But UM, if
Speaker 1: you want to vote by UM mail in ballot, the
Speaker 1: drop off locations in Texas has been reduced to one
Speaker 1: per county. They said, that's it. One place in two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty four counties. There there's one place in
Speaker 1: each of those counties where you can take your ballot
Speaker 1: to drop it off. The problem with this is that
Speaker 1: some of Texas counties are enormous. Texas has a number
Speaker 1: of counties that are larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island
Speaker 1: put together. They have something like a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: counties that are larger than Rhode Island. Granted, Rhode Island
Speaker 1: is small, but Rhode Island is a small state. These
Speaker 1: are counties in Texas we're talking about, and in one
Speaker 1: place in each of those counties, there's a place where
Speaker 1: you can drop off your your mail in ballot. UM.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's a problem and a lot of people
Speaker 1: are just going bonkers over that one. Yeah. And beyond
Speaker 1: closing polling places, like having to maybe take two or
Speaker 1: three city buses to get to your place to vote.
Speaker 1: When you finally get there, if you managed to go
Speaker 1: through all that trouble, which is again they're trying to
Speaker 1: to make you say, you know what, it's not worth
Speaker 1: the trouble. H, then you're met with you know, five six,
Speaker 1: seven hour lines all day long, right, and this is
Speaker 1: what you get for your for your troubles to try
Speaker 1: and participate an American democracy. Yeah, so going on you
Speaker 1: on your lunch break doesn't end up working out very well.
Speaker 1: What about trickery number two? This is pretty awful. Um,
Speaker 1: you talked about that one by um the people. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was Mitch McConnell's campaign or just
Speaker 1: a group supporting him, or if it was one and
Speaker 1: the same. Who knows, um tricking people by saying you're
Speaker 1: about to act on fraudulent information or something that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's long standing. There is one. I'm guarantee we talked
Speaker 1: about this before. I'm almost positive. But in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, Um, someone in Virginia sent a flyer out
Speaker 1: that looked like it was from the state Board of
Speaker 1: Elections that said, Um, if you're a Republican, you should
Speaker 1: vote on November four. If you're a Democrat, you vote
Speaker 1: on November five, which is the day after the election,
Speaker 1: which is in one way hilarious. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: hysterical that that somebody did that in another way, and
Speaker 1: the fact that it could have even if it didn't,
Speaker 1: but it could have impacted somebody's vote by purposefully confusing them.
Speaker 1: That's despicable. Again, that's a word I keep going to
Speaker 1: because I genuinely feel that way about going to any
Speaker 1: length to to deprive or fool someone out of voting. Right.
Speaker 1: But if you get caught doing that, truly, there is
Speaker 1: a massive debt to pay via jail time. Like in
Speaker 1: Maryland in two thousand ten, a robocall campaign during the
Speaker 1: gubernatorial election told thousands of voters in African American neighborhoods
Speaker 1: that they could quote relax and stay at home that
Speaker 1: evening because Democratic incumbent Governor Martin O'Malley had already won
Speaker 1: the election. Uh, not true. The polls were closed, and
Speaker 1: this wasn't just tricksters. This was Paul Shurick, who was
Speaker 1: the campaign manager for the Republican opponent UM who went
Speaker 1: ended up winning, and they caught him and he was
Speaker 1: charged and found guilty of four counts of election fraud.
Speaker 1: And you think, all right, throw the book at the guy.
Speaker 1: What did he get? What did he get? He got
Speaker 1: thirty days home detention, probation and community service, right, which
Speaker 1: is really disappointing, not because that guy deserved worse, but
Speaker 1: because our federal um, the penalties for federal election laws
Speaker 1: are breaking them, UM, that are meant to protect people's
Speaker 1: right to vote and punish people who try to deprive
Speaker 1: people at the right to vote. Those are federal laws
Speaker 1: and the penalties are supposed to be pretty stiff. So
Speaker 1: thirty days of house arrest at his house, um, when
Speaker 1: he when really he made a name for himself, is like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'll make sure that you're going to get elected as
Speaker 1: a campaign manager. That's very disappointing for sure. Well, because
Speaker 1: the message it sends is it's totally worth it to
Speaker 1: do this swinging, swinging election, little community service. Who cares?
Speaker 1: And there's two guys, um, who are I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to them, but they are. They
Speaker 1: have a lot of charges against them right now. But
Speaker 1: for this, I believe the election UM they had they
Speaker 1: sponsored a bunch of robo calls, tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: robo calls in places like Michigan, Chicago, UM, and I
Speaker 1: believe they were targeting African American UH voters where it
Speaker 1: said if you vote by mail, your information is subject
Speaker 1: to be handed over to the police and run for
Speaker 1: UM any potential outstanding warrants, or it may be added
Speaker 1: to the mandatory vaccine list, as if that exists. But
Speaker 1: just playing on people's deepest fears to to to prevent
Speaker 1: them for voting, to dissuade them from voting. You'd have
Speaker 1: to be a genuine scumbag of the highest order to
Speaker 1: do something like that. And they caught these two guys,
Speaker 1: Jacob Wall and Jack Berkman doing just that UM. And
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, there they I guess when
Speaker 1: they registered these robot calls UM, they registered it to
Speaker 1: one of their phone numbers and then came out and
Speaker 1: blamed it on Democratic Operatives UM, because they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: possibly used their own phone number for this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Just to add a little cherry on top. I just say,
Speaker 1: all this is alleged because they're they're charged with this
Speaker 1: right now, but they haven't been convicted, right Well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they have some community service to look forward to,
Speaker 1: ye in some house arrest. So um. The final one
Speaker 1: on the list here is is a controversial one to
Speaker 1: be sure, but whether or not you should be allowed
Speaker 1: to vote as a felon or as someone who has
Speaker 1: ever convicted been convicted of a crime. Uh and many
Speaker 1: and this is one that's kind of going the other
Speaker 1: way now, but for many, many years in many states,
Speaker 1: if you have ever been convicted of any crime, even
Speaker 1: if you went to prison, served your time, got out,
Speaker 1: and we're leading a great beneficial life towards society, you
Speaker 1: are not allowed to vote anymore, right, which has started
Speaker 1: to become overturned I think in two thousand eight teen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in Florida. Florida's had this long standing um disenfranchisement policy
Speaker 1: which most people have accepted for for years. But then
Speaker 1: finally some people came along and said, hey, this is
Speaker 1: really affecting a lot of people who want to vote,
Speaker 1: who've who you know, serve their time, who have become reformed,
Speaker 1: they want to be full citizens again, can we give
Speaker 1: them the right back to vote? And in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen, that was on the on the ballot and
Speaker 1: Florida voters overwhelmingly said, yes, totally, let's do that. They
Speaker 1: have to have served their time and repaid all of
Speaker 1: their restitutions, but we're we're going to um give them
Speaker 1: the right to vote back. And it was a huge victory.
Speaker 1: And then there was a Republican lawmaker who said, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is kind of vague. UM. It
Speaker 1: says that they have to have um, have have fulfilled
Speaker 1: all of their sentencing obligations. There's a lot of these
Speaker 1: people who are about to get their their right to
Speaker 1: vote back who haven't paid all their fines and fees, which,
Speaker 1: as it's been understood traditionally, you have basically lifetime to
Speaker 1: pay off the the actual financial fees and restitution that
Speaker 1: come along with UM being convicted of a crime. Uh.
Speaker 1: That that that you have to pay that off first.
Speaker 1: That's that's in the law and actually got passed in
Speaker 1: the Florida legislature, Republican controlled legislature that UM, you have
Speaker 1: to pay all of your fines and fees first before
Speaker 1: you can get enfranchised again, and that's proving to be
Speaker 1: an enormous problem for a lot of the UH former convicts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it you know it continues to this day. I
Speaker 1: know we got on our soapbox and pretty passionate about
Speaker 1: this one. But we're both believers in the right to
Speaker 1: vote and to make it as easy as possible for
Speaker 1: UH eligible voters to vote. I don't see any argument
Speaker 1: counter to that. That's that's valid. Why why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: and a great democracy want as many people to vote
Speaker 1: as possible. Again, the only argument you will see again
Speaker 1: and again is voter fraud. And if you can show
Speaker 1: that voter fraud doesn't exist, then you just knock the
Speaker 1: legs out from under it and all it's just exposes
Speaker 1: voter suppression then, so hopefully the more people who know
Speaker 1: about it chuck, the harder it is to do stuff
Speaker 1: like this. And I hope that that's the case, because
Speaker 1: that's why we shared this, Because I don't care what
Speaker 1: political persuasion you are, it's wrong to suppress the vote.
Speaker 1: It's just wrong. I'm sorry. If you want to know
Speaker 1: more about voter suppression, UM, you can go try to
Speaker 1: vote and see what happens and since I said that,
Speaker 1: it's time for and by the way, go vote, go vote.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think by the time this comes out,
Speaker 1: most of the state's registration will be um shut down.
Speaker 1: But for the future, even if you voted in the
Speaker 1: last election, like I check mine two or three times
Speaker 1: before every election because I don't want to show up
Speaker 1: on election day at my polling place and be surprised
Speaker 1: to learn that I'm not on the roll or the register,
Speaker 1: or that my polling place has moved. Just check it,
Speaker 1: check it, and check it and recheck it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's tons of websites out there that um legit websites
Speaker 1: that aren't affiliated with any party that can help you
Speaker 1: check that um. And if you are registered to vote,
Speaker 1: please vote whoever you vote for. Just vote like it's
Speaker 1: important that you vote, so go be a good American vote.
Speaker 1: And since I said that, finally, I think Chuck, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. Uh. This is from Ellie. She says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: live in Kansas working Topeka, and I just listened to
Speaker 1: the episode on Fallout Shelters. I cannot begin to explain
Speaker 1: to you the nerdy level of excitement I felt while
Speaker 1: driving to a client meeting when I spotted a yellow
Speaker 1: sign with the three triangles, just as you said there
Speaker 1: would be in the episode. I wanted so badly to
Speaker 1: stop and steal the sign off of the old brick,
Speaker 1: nondescript building, but I didn't think that would bode well
Speaker 1: since I worked for the state and I was in
Speaker 1: a state licensed vehicle at the time. I think people
Speaker 1: would have just guessed that you were requisitioning and kicking
Speaker 1: it down. Yeah, would have been state. You would have
Speaker 1: had to keep the nerdy giddiness in check. Not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: the shelter is just two blocks from the Capitol Building
Speaker 1: downtown because we all know in a crisis situation, politicians
Speaker 1: like to make sure they're taking care of first love
Speaker 1: random history tidbits, so you best believe I'm mentally cataloging
Speaker 1: keep an eye out for more shelters in this area
Speaker 1: to randomly point out to my husband who have no
Speaker 1: idea what I'm talking about any who. Thank you for
Speaker 1: your podcast and for keeping me company on my our commute.
Speaker 1: Stay healthy and wear a mask because the coronavirus is
Speaker 1: in fact real, and that is from Ellie t or L.
Speaker 1: Actually I think so e l L E yep L
Speaker 1: t I'm going to try to suss out what kind
Speaker 1: of person l is um did L spell any who
Speaker 1: with a w h o or an h o o h?
Speaker 1: What what's your guess? Shoes nerdy, giddy over fallout shelters.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna get who you are? Correct? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: all is one word and y w h yeah, because
Speaker 1: I think that that um that suggests a certain amount
Speaker 1: of attention to rules and details. Note that she didn't
Speaker 1: take the fallout shelter sign even though she could have,
Speaker 1: and any who h o oh, it's much more like
Speaker 1: whimsic goal and like I'll take my shoes off and
Speaker 1: roll down the hill even though I'm in my fifties.
Speaker 1: Kind of right. But she also believes that masks save lives,
Speaker 1: so you know, attention to rule in details. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, L. That's fantastic and we appreciate hearing
Speaker 1: from you. Kudos to to resisting temptation and yes, wear
Speaker 1: a mask and go vote boy oh boy. We have
Speaker 1: ticked a lot of people off with this episode, Chuck.
Speaker 1: If we've ticked you off, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Be nice, but sure, of course we want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. You can email us, and if you are
Speaker 1: happy with it, you can email us to either way
Speaker 1: send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works for more podcasts for my heart Radio
Speaker 1: because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H