Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here with a classic episode
Speaker 1: from our archive. As of this publishing, the election cycle
Speaker 1: is over for most Americans, of everyone who hasn't had
Speaker 1: a race go into a runoff anyway. But issues of
Speaker 1: how Americans access their right to vote are exactly what
Speaker 1: we should keep talking about during the political off season,
Speaker 1: especially how to expand access for underserved and underrepresented populations.
Speaker 1: And that's why I wanted to run this particular episode.
Speaker 1: It's about how voting works for unhoused people in this country.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. Voting is the cornerstone
Speaker 1: of American democracy, but it can be a bit of
Speaker 1: a pain. Election day in the US is always a
Speaker 1: Tuesday's back in the middle of the work week. If
Speaker 1: you move to a new spade or county, you need
Speaker 1: to reregister and state voter I D requirements change all
Speaker 1: the time, so you could possibly show up to a
Speaker 1: polling station, wait in line, and still get turned away. Now,
Speaker 1: imagine that you're homeless in America or unhoused, which is
Speaker 1: an often preferred term because after all, home can mean
Speaker 1: a lot of things. You might move around too frequently
Speaker 1: to maintain a stable mailing address. You might have lost
Speaker 1: your state issued I D let alone your Social Security
Speaker 1: card and birth certificate. You might not be able to
Speaker 1: afford transportation to the county elections office or your local
Speaker 1: polling place. And frankly, you probably have a lot more
Speaker 1: pressing problems than registering to vote. So while unhoused people
Speaker 1: have every right to vote in US elections and have
Speaker 1: a vested interest in influencing policy on housing and poverty,
Speaker 1: the obstacles to successfully registering and voting while unhoused can
Speaker 1: be insurmountable. First, there's the residents and mailing address issue. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: of the fifty states requires that voters live in a
Speaker 1: traditional residence. On voter registration forums, you can put a
Speaker 1: shelter address, a street corner, a park bench. You can
Speaker 1: even attach a hand drawn map, and that's fine for
Speaker 1: establishing that you're a resident of the state and county.
Speaker 1: But many states also required that you provide a mailing
Speaker 1: address where you can actually receive mail. Again, that can
Speaker 1: be a shelter or a friend or relative's house, but
Speaker 1: it cannot be a p O box, and it can't
Speaker 1: be a park bench. While it's easy for many Americans
Speaker 1: to provide an alternate address where they could receive mail,
Speaker 1: that's not always the case for people who don't have
Speaker 1: a fixed residence and without a fixed address to receive
Speaker 1: election notices from the county clerk's office, unhoused voters can
Speaker 1: be wiped from voter registration roles. We spoke with Tristia Bauman,
Speaker 1: senior attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
Speaker 1: She referenced to the laws that criminalize sleeping or camping
Speaker 1: in public places and said it's important to remember that
Speaker 1: homelessness is an inherently unstable state. Those laws have the
Speaker 1: effect of displacing people from the areas where they normally
Speaker 1: live and have connections. The lack of an address and
Speaker 1: the lack of ability to stay in one location lawfully
Speaker 1: conspire to make it ever more difficult for homeless people
Speaker 1: to register to vote or vote by mail. Lack of
Speaker 1: identification is another big challenge for unhoused voters, as there
Speaker 1: are ten states was strict I D laws, meaning that
Speaker 1: you cannot vote on election day without presenting some kind
Speaker 1: of valid government issued identification. Another twenty four states had
Speaker 1: non strict voter ID laws that allow voters without an
Speaker 1: ID to sign an affidavit swearing to their identity. Even
Speaker 1: in states without voter ID laws, first time voters registering
Speaker 1: online or by mail are required to provide a driver's
Speaker 1: license number or copies of a utility bill, bank statement,
Speaker 1: or other document certifying their residency. If they fail to
Speaker 1: provide identification during first time registration, they'll be asked to
Speaker 1: show an i D on election day. While obtaining a
Speaker 1: driver's license or state issued i D is free in
Speaker 1: most states, that doesn't mean it's easy for an unhoused
Speaker 1: person to jump through the administrative hoops to make it happen. Poor, elderly,
Speaker 1: and unhoused people are far more likely to not have
Speaker 1: a state issued i D, which is why voter i
Speaker 1: D laws have been challenged as discriminatory. Then there's the
Speaker 1: issue of safeguarding personal property. Even if an unhoused person
Speaker 1: is lucky enough to have an IDEA in their possession,
Speaker 1: there are many ways for those documents to get lost
Speaker 1: or stolen, even at the hands of police. Ballman said
Speaker 1: local governments often respond to illegal homeless encampments by coming
Speaker 1: in and doing a clean up that results in the
Speaker 1: seizure and destruction of a homeless person's property, you could
Speaker 1: potentially lose your I D or your birth certificate or
Speaker 1: Social Security card, or any of the other prerequisite items
Speaker 1: that you need to register. The good news is that
Speaker 1: advocacy groups like the National Coalition for the Homeless have
Speaker 1: created resources like a Voting Rights Guide to help shelters,
Speaker 1: drop in centers, food pantries, and other nonprofit groups organized
Speaker 1: voter registration drives to help unhoused individuals register and get
Speaker 1: to the polls. And despite the daunting bureaucratic hurdles facing
Speaker 1: unhoused voters, there are a handful of states that specifically
Speaker 1: offer exemptions for unhoused citizens, a trend that will hopefully continue.
Speaker 1: In Indiana, for example, which is a strict photo I
Speaker 1: D state, you can register and vote without an I
Speaker 1: D if you claim indigence status, and in Oregon, unhoused
Speaker 1: voters can use the county election offices address as their
Speaker 1: mailing address. Today's episode is based on the article Homeless
Speaker 1: Americans and Vote, but it Isn't easy on Housed to
Speaker 1: works dot com, written by Dave rus. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production of our Heart Radio in partnership with Houstuff works
Speaker 1: dot com and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Form podcasts
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