WEBVTT - 10 Voter Suppression Methods 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.560 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.360 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.760 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.040 Jerry's out there somewhere wandering around. So if you see her, 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.560 bring her back. And this is Stuff you should know. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.600 A rare top ten. Yeah, where we do all ten, 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.120 although I'm sure we'll end up combining something and it'll 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.920 be like eight or something weird like that. But we 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.760 just don't even really do these anymore. Oh, I see 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.360 what you mean. No, No, it's been a while. This 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.519 one's an important top ten too. This isn't like, you know, 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.360 ten biggest things ever moved or anything like that. Did 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.640 we do that? No, I don't think we ever did. 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.839 It's on How Stuff Works. Yeah, it is right, it's 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.120 a real thing. Yeah, or maybe like ten heaviest objects 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.480 ever moved or something. Maybe we'll do it someday. Uh. 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.720 This is from our old website that we used to 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.880 work for or though How Stuff Works, and uh this 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.160 is and we've done stuff on different ways to suppress 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.280 the vote and to rig the vote through jerrymandering and 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.440 such efforts like that. We well, we did one specifically 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.440 called our election laws designed to suppress voting, and that's 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:18.880 a good one to go listen to as well. It 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:23.040 is because it's very sad. But in the United States, UM, 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.600 suppressing the vote and keep trying to keep people and 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.319 certain people and certain demographics from voting is as old 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.759 as voting itself. Yeah, which is sad because everybody has 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:37.959 this impression that you know, and it's pure state in America. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.240 If you want to vote, if you say this is 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.319 my my right and obligation and duty as a citizen, Um, 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.680 you can go vote and it shouldn't be all that 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:48.880 hard and you just go and you vote, and your 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.600 vote is counted and maybe your person wins, maybe they don't, 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.320 but you voted, and there shouldn't be any barriers to that. 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.560 Voting is the way that a democracy functions. So the 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.880 most democratic way for the democracy to function is to 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:07.000 remove as many barriers as possible. Unfortunately, there are a 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.040 lot of barriers that are put up that do make 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.760 things harder for people to vote, which is what we're 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.280 talking about here. That's right, and they're not old barriers. 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.280 The Brennan Center for Justice, it's just a think tank 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:23.600 in New York and advocates for civil rights, especially around voting. 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.799 They said, since two thousand ten, states have passed new 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.680 laws making it more difficult for people to vote in 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.720 the United States of America. Yeah so, and we should 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.480 probably just come out and say, Unfortunately to our Republican listeners, 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.240 this is not one of those both sides do what 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.839 kind of things. Um. This is largely Republican. The Republican 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:50.400 controlled UM states and municipalities that create laws and regulations 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.840 that do make it harder to vote. And the reason 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.440 why on paper is because it's it's to combat UM 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.440 voter fraud. The problem is this voter fraud has been 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.840 shown many, many, many times over by many different studies 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:11.040 by by groups from both sides of the political spectrum 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.320 that it doesn't I mean, it doesn't really exist. It 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.239 exists in such minuscule amounts that it might as well 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.360 not exist. That same Brennan Center, Chuck, that you mentioned 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.360 a second ago, they're big time into into voting. They 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.680 they did a study and they saw that between nine 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.720 ten thousands of a percent to four one hundred thousands 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.760 of a percent, that's how the rate of overall voting 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.360 fraud in the United States and if you're like Brendan Center, all, 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.120 but that's liberal. Um. There was actually an exhaustive inquiry 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.760 investigation launched in two thousand two by John Ashcroft, who 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.320 is Bush Junior's Attorney General. If you'll remember heck of 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.600 a heck of a singer. Remember when he sang about 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.480 the eagle flying high. Yeah, man, I remember that he 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:01.120 was annointing feet with oils. Yeah. So Sacroft his Justice 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.880 Department launched a really thorough investigation into voter fraud in 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:09.320 the United States, and out of examining hundreds of millions 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:14.240 of ballots between I think, um, oh, I don't remember 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.839 what years they looked at it over, they managed to 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.160 bring charges on only one people and only eight six 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.640 of those were convicted. Um. So there's there's really no 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.560 evidence that voter fraud exists. And yet these solutions to 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:32.360 voting fraud voter fraud, which are obstacles and barriers to voting, 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:37.160 are still established. They're still supported. Even though people are 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.840 like voting fraud doesn't exist, they say, well, we still 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:41.920 have to protect against it anyway, so we're gonna make 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.000 voting harder. Um. And that's kind of the big problem 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.200 that we're dealing with right now, with with this thing. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:48.719 And this is why a lot of people point to 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.800 this and say this is voter suppression. That's right. And 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.400 in fact, even in our most recent election, if I 0:04:54.560 --> 0:05:00.880 remember correctly, uh, Donald Trump launched an investigative body to 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.800 look into the because he lost a popular vote by 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.119 roughly three million votes and he said that there were 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.760 at least three million illegal votes cast That's why I 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:15.039 lost that vote? Didn't he form a body to investigate that? 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.960 That just sort of quietly went away without any findings. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.640 It did. There were like there were some findings, but 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.080 they were you know, and there was a report and 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.200 it was actually kind of a scandalous report that said 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.520 there's voter fraud everywhere. And then people said, well, can 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.000 you show us your your work and they said no, 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.360 and that's when it kind of faded off into nothing. Um. 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.120 So yeah, so there's like we're showing, like it's been shown, 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.520 voter fraud like basically doesn't exist. And yes, any instance 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:44.159 of voter fraud, especially purposeful voter fraud meant to to 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.480 affect the outcome of an election. Throw that person in jail, 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.240 like take away they're right to vote. Forever. And um, 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.240 maybe speke m on the bottom too, like this is 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:54.880 not it's not a good thing. No one's saying like 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.039 who cares about voter fraud? What people are saying is 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.880 that voter fraud virtually doesn't exist. So to institute all 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.599 these draconian measures that make it harder for people to 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:09.080 vote and seemingly weirdly make it harder for certain groups 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.880 of people like minorities and poor people to vote, Um, 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.640 that's that's a problem because number one, it's a solution 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.240 to a problem that doesn't exist. The number two, again, 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:21.600 it seems to be voter suppression. And all other people 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.320 would say, well, why why would why would the GOP 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.040 care if if if um, like, why would they do 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:32.719 this then? And apparently if you look at elections in general, Um, 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.400 the Republican Party tends to be favored when fewer people 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.920 turn out, when a lot of when there's a large electorate, 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.039 that usually tends to favor the Democrats. When not that 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.960 many people turn out to vote, the people who turn 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.359 out to vote usually tend to be Republicans. So a 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.320 lot of people point to the Republican controlled cities and 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.200 states around the country and say, um, I think you're 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.080 doing this to win, and which makes it cheating. And 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.240 you're cheating by taking away people's ability to vote or 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.720 making it hard enough that they just give up and 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.800 don't vote. That's right. So, uh, a lot of this 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.960 is gonna be historical as well. And I guess we 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.040 should start with number ten, which is poll taxes. And 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.760 early on, when voting kind of was in its uh 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.000 early stages, they thought, you know, I'm a really easy 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.720 way to keep people from voting is to have them 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.920 pay a tax to have to vote. And it doesn't 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.840 have to be exorbitant, but maybe just high enough to 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.000 where most of the people that we don't want to 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.360 vote can't afford it. Most of the Confederate former Confederacy 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:34.960 UM had these poll taxes. A lot of this stuff 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:40.000 was in the South historically. Unfortunately, Virginia charged about a 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.200 buck fifty a year, which was about eleven bucks in 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.840 today's dollars, so that's not a lot of money, but 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.280 it had to be paid in cash. And back then, 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.560 if you were a sharecropper or if you were a 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.360 small uh farmer with a small farm, you bought most 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.440 of your stuff on credit and you didn't have a 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.240 lot of cash line around. You might have had two 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.040 or three dollars at any given point, right, and you 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:03.560 hit it on the head when you said. A lot 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.560 of this happened or started out. A lot of voter 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.360 suppression tactics started out in the South, um during reconstruction, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.320 because all of a sudden there were a lot of 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.600 black people who suddenly had the right to vote in 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:20.800 the white dominated South, and so the the white establishment 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.760 was at threat of being undermined or replaced by black people, 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.120 where people who were friendly to black interests, and they 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.480 didn't want that, so um, they started instituting things like 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.160 poll tax, but they had to do it in ways 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.920 where it appeared, um, like it applied to everybody. So 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.640 a poll tax applied to everybody. But then they would 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:44.000 institute things like grandfather clauses, which literally said, with poll taxes, um, 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:48.080 if your grandfather was able to vote before the Civil War, 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.920 your exempt. Well, black people didn't really have the right 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.079 to vote, especially in the South before the Civil War, 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.640 so it's impossible that their grandfather would have had that right. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.960 With white people who might have been poor but could 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.760 and afford to pay the poll tax, but we're probably 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.680 going to vote in favor with wide interests in the 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.480 South during that election, they would be exempted because their 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.439 grandfather could vote before the Civil War, and that's how 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.760 that was done. Yeah. And in other Southern states, Um, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.840 they had cumulative taxes on top of just being taxed. 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.240 You had to do this several years in a row 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.280 in order to earn that right to vote. So all 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.000 of these things, um. You know. Of course, this was 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.800 eventually rendered illegal in nineteen sixty four with the ratification 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.080 of the twenty fourth Amendment. They said, you can't do 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.600 poll taxes anymore. After a hundred years, we've determined it's 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.319 not fair. Yeah, And it took a couple of years too, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.760 So all the way up until nineteen sixty six, dude, 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.600 there were four states that still had laws on the 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.880 books that had to be struck down in federal court 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.480 that poll taxes were okay. Yeah, which is crazy. Another 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.679 one that they did was literacy tests, um, which kind 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:57.240 of went hand in hand. Again, a lot of this 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.720 stuff started out in the the Reek Instruction and then 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:07.199 Jim Crow South. Um. And if you were black right 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.760 after the Civil War, there was a really good chance 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.800 that you couldn't read way more of a chance um 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:14.680 when compared to a white person. I'm not sure what 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.360 the percentages is, but there were laws on the books 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.520 that said it's illegal for you, as a white person 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.920 to teach your your the people that you have enslaved, 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.120 UM to read or write. It's illegal, like literacy among 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.680 slaves is not is not legal and so UM. One 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.880 way to prevent those people who were now franchised after 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:39.280 the Civil War UM from voting would be to say, well, 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.040 you have to be literate to vote because and this 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.120 is sneaky, because if you're not literate, how can you 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.560 possibly be an informed voter. You can't just come in 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.120 and say I want to vote for this person because 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:50.600 I like their name. You have to be informed, and 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.640 to be informed, you have to be literate. So we're 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.640 going to test your literacy before we let you vote. Right. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.640 One good example is in South Carolina and the two 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.480 where you couldn't even if you could manage to learn, 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:07.680 if you really wanted to vote, and you managed to 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:12.199 learn to write down your name and and your your ballot, 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.120 they said, no, you got to write down a ballot 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.199 for each office. If you want to vote for governor 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:20.120 and senator and anything else, then you have to to 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:21.960 to be able to write down all of those and 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.440 put it in the correct box. This labeled that you 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.400 probably can't read. And we're going to shuffle these boxes 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.000 around too. So even if you have someone that wants 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.240 to help you cast that vote, that's not going to 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.760 be allowed to happen either. Um. And you know, forget 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:42.640 the fact that people are have learning disabilities and sometimes 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:45.080 have legitimate problems learning how to read, even if they 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.480 want to learn how to read. It's like saying that 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:49.560 you can't vote if you if you don't have arms 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.760 to cast to cast a ballot. It's just it's outrageous. 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.480 And uh, it gets even more outrageous if you go 0:11:56.520 --> 0:12:02.200 to Louisiana, where they had literal brain teasers that you 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.520 had to be able to figure out in order to vote. 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.920 And this one, I I I'm sure if I sat 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.320 down long enough, I could figure it out. But not 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.920 when I'm probably nervous about casting my first vote as 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.640 a former enslaved person. Right. So, so this one in particular, 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:18.920 and this one was instituted as more and more black 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:23.080 people learned to read. Um. Which, so just buckle up 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.400 for this one, right, every other word in this first 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.080 line and print every third word in the same line, 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:35.200 but capitalized the fifth word. That you right, So you 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:40.080 could conceivably, especially as a literate person, figure this out. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.840 It would take you a little while, but say that 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.440 you went and you so you wrote all this stuff, 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:46.959 and then you got to the last part where it 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:48.960 said capitalized the fifth word. Then you went back and 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.200 scratched out the small case whatever that fifth word was 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.600 and capitalize that one, or maybe you capitalize all the 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.840 words and you had to go back and put them 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:03.120 in lower case. The Act that these tests were administered 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.000 by white poll workers and that they were typically subjective, 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.320 meaning that if that poll worker decided you failed, you failed. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.520 When you went back and scratched that out and made, 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.360 you know, capitalize that fifth word, there was probably a 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:19.760 hundred percent chance that that white poll worker, who didn't 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:21.720 want you voting in the first place, was going to 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.720 just say, sorry, you failed, you can't vote. Yeah, and 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.160 you think, well, sure, but this was the eighteen hundreds. No, No, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.680 Some southern states had these brain teaser tests all the 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.600 way up until the mid nineteen sixties, when the Voting 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:38.880 Rights Act finally said you don't need to do a 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.360 brain teaser to vote. That's um illegal and it's kind 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:44.760 of dumb. Yeah. So you know, there was a lot 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:49.400 of UM, a lot of chicanery, effery I think, as 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.440 John Oliver would put it, UM that was going on 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.920 in the South. Uh. But I mean the one of 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.760 the mechanisms that I think that that really got you 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.680 u UM that were that really just kind of probably 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.760 the most effective one was just straight up violence, like 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.160 the the Ku Klux Klan, UM, the Knights of the 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:16.160 White Camelea UM, A bunch of different groups, terrorists, organizations 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:22.400 grew up two terrorized black people and people who supported 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.120 the rights of black people, UM to send a message 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.560 it saying like no, we're we're the white power structure 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.160 is going to be staying in power around here, and 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.000 we will go so far as to murder you and 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.480 your family and make examples out of you to like 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.880 leaving you in a tree as a signal to everybody else. 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:43.960 This is what happens when you try to vote. This 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.680 is what happens when you you try to register other 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.080 people to vote. UM. And it was a very long 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.760 lasting legacy that went on from the end of the 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:58.400 Civil War up until I believe Congress finally, UH passed 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.960 a law saying that no, this is this is illegal. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:03.720 You can't do this kind of thing. But it went 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.960 on for decades like this. Yeah, they finally made it 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.120 a federal crime and more than three thousand clan members 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.080 were indicted. Only about six hundred of those were actually 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.840 convicted because again we're talking about juries in the South 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.119 for the most part. Uh, this seems like a good 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.120 time to take a break, Okay, and we'll pick back 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:50.040 up with number seven right after this number seven. Right, So, 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.680 there's some just to give you a little historical background 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:59.200 real quick. There's some um, there's reconstruction where black Americans 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.160 become in franchise they have the right to vote. In 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.120 response to that, there's terror, there's Jim Crow laws. And 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.240 then in response to the Jim Crow laws that that 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.440 just overtly suppressed the Black vote, there was the Voting 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.600 Rights Act. And for a long time, the Voting Rights 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.040 Act was really effective. And the reason why it was 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.200 effective was because there was a section to it, section five, 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:26.800 that said, hey, if you've ever ever engaged in voter discrimination, 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.800 you're on a statewide basis, on a systemic basis, you 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.400 have to have us. The federal government review any changes 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.560 to the voting procedure in your state before you can 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.640 implement them. And so any state that wanted to try 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.720 to come up with some voter suppression tactic, it might 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.560 be brilliant, but if the federal government said no, they 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:49.840 couldn't do it, and so the vote would be saved 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.920 in that respect. Well, in two thousand thirteen, the Robert's 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.160 leg Court um struck down Section five of the Voting 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.800 Rights Act. So now we're seeing the results of that 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.960 where voter suppression tactics are starting to come back, and 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.440 they're starting to come back in like this avalanche of 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.560 tactics where across the country. If you put them all together, 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.439 it's a real problem. But the Voting Rights Act figured 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.960 in dramatically to save the vote of people. UM, and 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.040 the gutting of that section five and two thousand thirteen 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.840 by the Supreme Court did the exact opposite to it. 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.199 That's right. One tactic that they could use and use 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.880 for many years was just making it and still used 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.960 to some degree, making it difficult to register or to vote. UM. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:34.439 Here are some of the things that used to do. 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.359 Is you have to keep reregistering many many times you 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.360 have to have a street address with an actual name 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.840 and number. And if you were an African American living 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.200 in the rural South, you may not have an actual 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.320 street address. UM on the dirt road next to the 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.240 field that you farm. Um. You know, little things like this, 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.479 these technicalities to meet these requirements to vote that they 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.440 knew that African Americans didn't have. And you know, there 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.080 are were and are still literal conversations, some of them 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.720 these days are even on tape where you hear of 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:14.480 public officials talk about making it hard for black people 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.520 to vote. And if we do this, this is how 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.560 many people we think we can keep off the voter 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:24.600 registration logs. Uh. It's just it's shameful. And UM, I'm 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.960 surprised we're not screaming at this point. We're trying to 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.560 keep it together. It wasn't just in the South, oh, 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:31.560 in the North and in the West in the early 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.120 nineteen hundreds, Um, there were immigrants, and they didn't want 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.720 immigrants voting. A lot of times, UM, ethnic and religious 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.280 minorities they didn't want voting. So in places in the 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.200 North and the West, like New Jersey and California, they 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.240 made it tough for immigrants to vote by saying you 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.320 have to have your uh, your original naturalization papers at 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.520 the polling place. Or maybe we don't want maybe the 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.679 interests of people who work in factories don't align with 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.840 our So here's what we'll do. Those people work long 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.280 ten to twelve hour shifts, can't make it to the polls. 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.040 So we're going to close the registration offices before those 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.640 factories shut down every day to keep them from voting. Yeah, 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.239 and there were there were other ways, like you know 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.480 that that they went back to close these loopholes too, 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:23.280 Like it was a real public private partnership between the 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.000 government and other groups. There were there were groups that 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.399 were dedicated to kind of preserving white supremacy in the South. 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:34.240 Say that would um, that would boycott businesses that where 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.240 they found out that those those employers gave their black 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.200 employees time off during the day to go registered to 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.640 vote or to vote, Like, you could lose your customer 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.040 base because if they found out that you were doing 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.480 that with with black people, um or with your black employees. 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.639 So there were like even if you say, well, so 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:55.960 what it was hard to get registered to vote? Figure 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.280 it out, Um, it was disproportionately leveled at black vote ers, 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.639 and even if you did figure it out, there were 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:07.680 repercussions for figuring it out too. Yeah, or in New York, 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.880 if you know that UM a lot of Jewish people 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.639 might vote in a more liberal way, Hey, let's have 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:19.199 registration times on Saturdays and yam kapoor. When we know 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.320 that Jewish people won't be able to get out and 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:25.520 registered to vote, it's high time that we make UH 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.720 voting days national holidays. I agree, Chuck. I agree it 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:36.000 should be a paid holiday, UM, a national paid holiday, 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.959 or have it on Saturdays. Do something but make it 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.280 less hard for sure. Yeah, Like people need to be 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.399 allowed to vote. And we're not talking about UM voter fraud. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.800 We're talking about legal Americans having the right in the 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.120 ability to vote in as easy away as possible. Yes. 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.520 And if you also say, well, if they really wanted 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:58.879 to vote, they would, they would find a way to 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.120 do it. When's it lie time you didn't log into 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:05.080 a website because it required two factor authentication from your 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.040 break And we're talking about having to take a bus 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:10.600 across the county to registered to vote when you have 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.000 to be working and your employer won't give you time off, 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:15.560 so you have to take sick time to just go 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.159 register to vote, and then you have to do it 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.080 all again to go vote. It's it's more problematic than 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.800 it appears. Just when you're saying it out loud. That 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.280 was a good burn. Sick burn, thanks man. UH Number six, 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:32.400 Straight up, voter intimidation still happens to a large degree. Uh. 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:35.000 In two thousand four, it was reported that in Florida, 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.680 in the state election there, they sent plain closed state 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:43.760 troopers to the homes of fifty elderly black voters to 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:49.360 question them for supposed election fraud um. And then when 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.080 they asked the state officials why they sent these state troopers, 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.480 they said, well, we saw we thought it might be 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.880 a more relaxed atmosphere to to come to their home 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.920 and ask these elder really black voters about whether or 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.520 not they participated in voter fraud, which, by the way, 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.560 this investigation turned up absolutely no fraud whatsoever, so it 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:15.000 didn't happen, um, which is like basically all investigations of 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.160 voter fraud turn up no fraud whatsoever, And a lot 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.480 of people say, well, these investigations are really just um 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.879 intimidation tactics, and this one, to me is one of 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:30.280 the more despicable ones because it directly traces right back, 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:34.800 uninterrupted to the reconstruction era and the fact that it's 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.040 still going on today is just despicable to me. But 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.080 they it is. And it's not just um, you know, 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.760