Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritone Day, a show
Speaker 1: where we reimagine the word citizen as a birth and
Speaker 1: remind ourselves how to wield our collective power. I'm Baritone Day.
Speaker 1: For the next few episodes of the show, We're gonna
Speaker 1: focus on one specific form of collective power, and that
Speaker 1: is voting. Voting is ground zero when it comes to
Speaker 1: laying the foundation for How to Citizen. You can consider
Speaker 1: these next few episodes a series within a series. We'll
Speaker 1: bring you conversations with some of the most committed, experienced,
Speaker 1: and insightful people working to ensure that this part of
Speaker 1: our democracy functions well. These are the people who know
Speaker 1: how to citizen and are working hard to make sure
Speaker 1: all of us can do the same through this basic
Speaker 1: yet profound right that we have to vote and make
Speaker 1: our voices her. There's really no such thing as sitting
Speaker 1: on the sidelines in an election. Every choice is a choice,
Speaker 1: and as I saw on a recent Instagram post, not
Speaker 1: voting still help someone win. For this episode, I spoke
Speaker 1: with Maria Teresa Kumar, the CEO and founder of Voto Latino,
Speaker 1: the largest Latino voting rights organization in America, which has
Speaker 1: registered over five hundred thousand people to vote this year
Speaker 1: alone and helped millions of people understand how voting impacts
Speaker 1: their everyday lives in tangible ways. Now you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: Maria in this interview say a lower number of registrants
Speaker 1: around three hundred thousand. That's how fast they're moving. In
Speaker 1: the time since we did this conversation, Vote to Latino
Speaker 1: has turned up the numbers even more, and by the
Speaker 1: time you hear this, it's gonna be even higher. One
Speaker 1: key insight Maria dropped on me in this interview. She said,
Speaker 1: November three is not election day, it's election deadline. People
Speaker 1: are already voting. So let's go now for the interview. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is mamar and I'm the founding president of
Speaker 1: Vote Latino, the largest voter registration outfit in the Latino community,
Speaker 1: because we believe that a strong, robust democracy depends on
Speaker 1: all of us. Maria, can you describe what's the typical
Speaker 1: method of registering people to vote and what is the
Speaker 1: Vote to Latino method and why is it different and better? Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: the typical method is waiting for someone in front of
Speaker 1: a Walmart and trying to convince them to register and
Speaker 1: you can imagine how that could be hard if you
Speaker 1: have a couple of kids in tow right or or
Speaker 1: knocking on doors right in covid Era, that becomes really hard.
Speaker 1: And in the Latino community in particular, since there's so
Speaker 1: much anxiety among anybody knocking on your door, even if
Speaker 1: you're a U. S. A Wison, that creates another friction
Speaker 1: of participation. And so fifteen years ago I set out
Speaker 1: with my partner in crime Rosario, and she's like, what
Speaker 1: do you think if we do as a campaign? And
Speaker 1: that I love that she could drop in the first
Speaker 1: name though She's so she had done a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of P S A s. And she's like, do you
Speaker 1: think we could do anything more than this? And that's
Speaker 1: around the same time I met her, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: how how hard can this be? Oh my gosh. Fifteen
Speaker 1: years later, the experiment is finally coming to fruition. So
Speaker 1: the idea was to register voters online and to register
Speaker 1: and let the at scale. And this is what during
Speaker 1: a time when someone was telling us that let the
Speaker 1: knows didn't speak English, that what was social media with,
Speaker 1: you know? And how do why would you use celebrity voices,
Speaker 1: and so this was back again sixteen years ago, and
Speaker 1: now I can tell you that in that year we
Speaker 1: registered two thousand, four hundred people. As of this morning,
Speaker 1: January one, we have registered over three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: seven thousand individuals since January one, and we are talking
Speaker 1: to roughly fifteen million people a month across our social
Speaker 1: media channels. Wow, and what's your goal for? Ideally would
Speaker 1: be endless, but there's an upper limit on the population, right.
Speaker 1: So the biggest challenge of the Latino community is closing
Speaker 1: the voter registration gap, because we have thirty two million
Speaker 1: Latinos who are eligible to vote, but only half of
Speaker 1: us are registered. And of the fifteen million that are unregistered,
Speaker 1: ten million of US are under the age of thirty
Speaker 1: three and four million of US are brand new voters
Speaker 1: since elections. So you have four million young voters who
Speaker 1: heard the President called their family loved ones, rapists, and
Speaker 1: criminals who are eligible to cast a ballot this year.
Speaker 1: And so our voter registration is concentrated in six states
Speaker 1: where we believe they could make the most impact, meaning
Speaker 1: that they could flip at Texas, they could flip Florida,
Speaker 1: they could flip Arizona. They could flip Georgia and North
Speaker 1: Carolina and Pennsylvania. And our goal is to register at
Speaker 1: least five thousand folks, but to be honest, we're actually
Speaker 1: closer on track to registering over six That's an incredible number.
Speaker 1: And I want to understand, you've been at this fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen years. What have you learned about what what actually works?
Speaker 1: Because you described as Walmart parking lot scene and I
Speaker 1: can imagine that does not work. And some celebrity voices
Speaker 1: probably don't work if they're not really connecting to folks.
Speaker 1: So over these years of experimentation, what have you learned
Speaker 1: about what actually works to get people to register and
Speaker 1: to actually vote. The number one thing is you have
Speaker 1: to talk to them, and you actually kept to create
Speaker 1: a space. Right. So, when we started Vote Latino, if
Speaker 1: you ask someone to register to vote, but the moment
Speaker 1: that they walk out, everything that government does for them
Speaker 1: is broken. Their schools are broken, they don't have access
Speaker 1: to healthcare, they don't have way E equity. It's hard
Speaker 1: to convince someone that voting will make a difference. Right,
Speaker 1: And so at Vote Latino, when I say we talked
Speaker 1: to fifteen million people a month, we're educating people about
Speaker 1: what happens when you have a good government, what happens
Speaker 1: when you vote, what happens with how do you actually
Speaker 1: transform the health care system, the educational system, address the environment,
Speaker 1: get background checks on people, making sure that you have
Speaker 1: good d as for police, reform that and then people
Speaker 1: start to making the connections. And I can tell you
Speaker 1: that the difference is that when we started doing this work,
Speaker 1: getting people to make the contection, for example, between protesting
Speaker 1: and voting was almost impossible. It's really really hard because
Speaker 1: no one was used to the protesting and they were
Speaker 1: starting to learn a habit of protesting, and then they
Speaker 1: would still vote and wouldn't see any difference. This past June,
Speaker 1: when Vote Latino, we were planning on registering roughly twenty
Speaker 1: folks in June. When we connected the tragic death of
Speaker 1: George Floyd and the protesting happening in the importance of
Speaker 1: going to the ballot box to change your leadership, we
Speaker 1: saw increase in our voter registration numbers from the previous month.
Speaker 1: We registered twenty one folks in three days, and we
Speaker 1: registered over a hundred thousand in the month of June.
Speaker 1: And that was because in the Latino community. And this
Speaker 1: is where again it's generation, but people don't get it,
Speaker 1: like what is happening in the African American community resonates
Speaker 1: and hurts so much in the Latino community because we
Speaker 1: are experiencing so many unfortunate levels of policing as well.
Speaker 1: Under this administration, you have eleven million undocument immigrants that
Speaker 1: are constantly getting profiled, but in reality, it's sixty million
Speaker 1: of us, right because no one knows who's documented who's not.
Speaker 1: And so when you talk to a mother and talks
Speaker 1: about having that conversation that talk with their with their kids,
Speaker 1: it's the same talk, but no one talks about it
Speaker 1: out loud because people are ashamed and they're they're scared,
Speaker 1: right well, it's a real anxiety about being targeted and
Speaker 1: hurt by the people that you may call to your
Speaker 1: front door because you might have instances of domestic violence
Speaker 1: or being shot. There's a horrible incident in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: where this young man, eighteen years old, undocumented kid, he
Speaker 1: was moonlighting as a security guard at an auto shop
Speaker 1: and shortly after George Floyd he was shot close to
Speaker 1: seventeen times in the back by on duty police officers
Speaker 1: and he was moonlighting because his parents had lost their
Speaker 1: jobs to COVID. He was just trying to make ends meet,
Speaker 1: and there's no accountability sadly in some parts of the
Speaker 1: police force. Latinos really get it. And so when we
Speaker 1: started talking about the issues specifically around health under COVID,
Speaker 1: when we start talking specifically about jobs under COVID and
Speaker 1: racial inequities among blacks and Latinos, that was through the
Speaker 1: roof because even though we don't discuss it, we know
Speaker 1: that it is something that is an epidemic as well,
Speaker 1: sadly in the Latino community. And Trump hasn't made it easier. Obviously,
Speaker 1: he is very much of your either. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you're here as a fifth generation American citizen, if
Speaker 1: you're brown, you might as well have never shown up.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is that type of strife. And sadly,
Speaker 1: you have hate crimes really skyrocketing, because it's not just
Speaker 1: the government, it's all of a sudden the agency that
Speaker 1: other folks have that say, okay, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: just have to point out, sadly, what happened with El Paso. Right,
Speaker 1: are there stories that you have of making this connection
Speaker 1: from voting back to the quality of people's lives that
Speaker 1: sort of keeps you motivated that you can kind of
Speaker 1: show people who ask you why should I vote, and
Speaker 1: you have this result that you can point to and say, look,
Speaker 1: this made a difference. What are those examples for you?
Speaker 1: So until it was very much small pockets of it,
Speaker 1: but we saw something remarkable. For the very first time,
Speaker 1: we saw Generation X, Y and Z out vote their
Speaker 1: older generation. And it was also the most diverse group
Speaker 1: of Americans that ushered in the most diverse Congress. So
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, we brought in the most women, the
Speaker 1: most Muslims, the most l g pt Q, the youngest generation,
Speaker 1: the most Latina, the most veterans, you name it. It
Speaker 1: was the most that reflected our country, the most American
Speaker 1: and the most Americans that actually you know, and it
Speaker 1: only took us four year almost right, that was really easy.
Speaker 1: But but what was really exciting about that pieces that
Speaker 1: and people will say, and this is where we have
Speaker 1: to make sure that there's a case for why we
Speaker 1: need diversity and entertainment, why we need diversity in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: why we need diversity in our schools, That new legislative
Speaker 1: body that reflected our values most came up with four
Speaker 1: hundred pieces of legislation that is a blueprint to our
Speaker 1: America that we deeply believe in. It talked about modernizing
Speaker 1: our elections. It talked about background checks, It talked about
Speaker 1: policing and reforming policing. It talked about making sure that
Speaker 1: there was a path to citizenship for immigrants. It talked
Speaker 1: about the environment that, oh, my gosh, climate change is real.
Speaker 1: Let's address that thing. So there's four hundred pieces of
Speaker 1: legislation that this diverse body was able to discuss and
Speaker 1: actually pass that now is basically rotting away at the
Speaker 1: Senate because Mr McConnell and the rest of the Senate
Speaker 1: does not look like America. So when people say my
Speaker 1: vote doesn't matter, like no, no, no, tell me your issues,
Speaker 1: I bet you they've passed it. I was never able
Speaker 1: to say that before. You know what, when I hear
Speaker 1: about the black community or read about the Latin X community,
Speaker 1: I know enough to know that there's multiple communities within
Speaker 1: that um and so within the vote of Latino universe.
Speaker 1: I'd love to ask you about what that Latino or
Speaker 1: Latino community is, and in particular those who actually support
Speaker 1: this president, which you know are headlines that I'm coming across,
Speaker 1: and you're closer to these voters and the issues. Can
Speaker 1: you break down some of the segments within the Latino
Speaker 1: community and that segment that is pro this president. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: first of all, we're talking about over thirty countries in
Speaker 1: Latin America, right and trying to bring everybody here. So
Speaker 1: I always remind people that Italy didn't become Italy until
Speaker 1: they landed right there. Just so that's kind of what
Speaker 1: we're seeing here, right. But this is the thing in
Speaker 1: Latin America. What you have is that people still hold
Speaker 1: onto their roots and then they come to this country
Speaker 1: and they're reminded that they're anything but an individual, right,
Speaker 1: they're often times put together and in the Latino community though,
Speaker 1: this is where I think there's great opportunity. And when
Speaker 1: I say that our job at Bote Latino is to
Speaker 1: market democracy, we're talking to a vast majority of Latinos
Speaker 1: who are under the age of thirty three. Sixty of
Speaker 1: all latin X are under the age of thirty three.
Speaker 1: They're super young. So the mode like the majority of
Speaker 1: of whites are fifty four, the majority you're sitting down,
Speaker 1: the majority of Latinos are eleven years old. Like when
Speaker 1: I say young, they're super young. Not the average, but
Speaker 1: it's like the most like were they cluster. So if
Speaker 1: you were to see like a map and you see
Speaker 1: all these like little bumps, fifty eight over here, eleven
Speaker 1: years old over here. Right, So we're very young communities,
Speaker 1: which is not surprising why they are trying to pass
Speaker 1: the voter suppression before we could even because they're preparing.
Speaker 1: They're trying to prepare a disenfranchised group of Americans for
Speaker 1: the future. Right. And so the other thing I also
Speaker 1: remind folks is that of Latin X, we identify as black.
Speaker 1: We're from my family's Caribbean, right. I was born on
Speaker 1: Gotta Hannah, right, So that so we identifies black. You
Speaker 1: also have a whole group of people that also don't
Speaker 1: identify black right or as of color right, and that
Speaker 1: gets more complicated. Specifically in Florida is you see a
Speaker 1: lot of first wave of Cubans that came that were
Speaker 1: brought over by Ronald Reagan, who very much espoused this
Speaker 1: idea that free markets are the answer to everything. And
Speaker 1: it's an older generation that really much believe in what
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has to sell. He has scared them to
Speaker 1: believe that the Democrats are into socialism and communism. And
Speaker 1: I like to remind them is that if they believe
Speaker 1: in social Security and if they believe in Medicare, that
Speaker 1: is government doing good by its people, and that's technically
Speaker 1: a government program. And this is where I think that
Speaker 1: the BIND campaign can improve is that for most Latinos
Speaker 1: and for a lot of communities of color, we don't
Speaker 1: have supplemental income that for most social Security and Medicare represents.
Speaker 1: Medicare is our health plan when we retire, and social
Speaker 1: Security is basically our retirement plan when we retire, like
Speaker 1: nothing else is coming in the door, right, And so
Speaker 1: when the president says that he's going to take away
Speaker 1: payroll taxes, that sounds nice as a small business unless
Speaker 1: your health plan and your retirement plan happened to be
Speaker 1: social Security and Medicare, right, So so it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's opening that up. But but then you also have
Speaker 1: a very group of folks that are just very older
Speaker 1: for the most part, that are just conservative and are
Speaker 1: very much aligned with UH, with anti choice. That's not
Speaker 1: the case for young Latino's. Young Latinos, the people that
Speaker 1: we mobilize our disproportionately. If you ask them what they
Speaker 1: care about in order of preference, it is right now,
Speaker 1: it's racial inequities, it's healthcare, it's jobs in that order,
Speaker 1: and then the environment, and then you talk about immigration.
Speaker 1: And the sixth one now is talking about gun reform.
Speaker 1: Those are young people in Texas. You mentioned voter suppression,
Speaker 1: and we've seen a lot of attempts to discredit parts
Speaker 1: of the voting process, whether it's the count or the
Speaker 1: delivery of mail. Um. I'm curious about the other side.
Speaker 1: You know, because you work across all the states. What
Speaker 1: states are doing a good job of encouraging voters, are
Speaker 1: protecting the vote? Are there any models that we should
Speaker 1: try to replicate and hold up as a positive example
Speaker 1: of this is how you support the voting franchise. I
Speaker 1: love that question. I would say that California, where you are,
Speaker 1: is one of the best. It's such a large system
Speaker 1: that is still getting new kinks because it's trying to
Speaker 1: modernize quickly. But I'll give you an example. If you're
Speaker 1: sixteen in California, you're preregistered to vote. That's huge. We
Speaker 1: actually had to pull out of California because you guys
Speaker 1: were doing such a great job you guys. Secretary Videas
Speaker 1: and one of my close friends. And when he told
Speaker 1: me his plans, I said, well, you're gonna put me
Speaker 1: out of business. That's fantastic. But that should be your goal,
Speaker 1: Like you want to register all the voters. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: this idea that a third party organization has to do
Speaker 1: a government function of registering voters is actually absurd. My
Speaker 1: job should be about encouraging people to vote for an
Speaker 1: issue and for a candidate, like that's that's what my
Speaker 1: job should be. Persuading you you know who you should
Speaker 1: vote for. But a government function, like you don't depend
Speaker 1: the government. Doesn't depend on a government function to collect
Speaker 1: your taxes, you know, not yet. So you cited the
Speaker 1: great California Republic as one example of, you know, the
Speaker 1: opposite of voter suppression voter encouragement by pre registering sixteen
Speaker 1: year olds. What are a few other examples of people
Speaker 1: doing it right? Yeah, I'd say Colorado and Colorado. You
Speaker 1: don't have a voter registration deadline. You can just show
Speaker 1: up with your idea and you can register and you
Speaker 1: can vote the same day. That's fantastic, right, And you
Speaker 1: have pre voting, meaning that can actually vote before the
Speaker 1: actual November three, because so many people are going to
Speaker 1: be interested in the election this year, we should think
Speaker 1: of November thirty as our deadline. That's the last date
Speaker 1: of vote, and the more we can bank our vote
Speaker 1: that is going to make a difference. Because one of
Speaker 1: the things that I'm concerned with is that there's gonna
Speaker 1: be so much participation that everybody's gonna wait until the
Speaker 1: last minute. Now, as a Latina, we wait for the
Speaker 1: last minute for everything, not this time, guys, I never
Speaker 1: need to bank their vote. If if I'm talking to
Speaker 1: my fellow black folk, I'm like, no, CP time, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I have one more at least follow up. I think
Speaker 1: it's about how votilit you operate. You said social media,
Speaker 1: you use the word technology. You're engaging people who are
Speaker 1: under thirty three by and large, What do you actually do?
Speaker 1: How does it work? What is your technique? So imagine
Speaker 1: I've with selling you nikes online and you double click
Speaker 1: on it, right, So you know, we basically market democracy
Speaker 1: all the time, and we identify where you are, and
Speaker 1: not to sound creepy, we try to use it for good.
Speaker 1: Try to get you to registers. Once you register to
Speaker 1: vote with vot Latino. Then we start actually providing you
Speaker 1: with the information that you need. So where's your voting booth?
Speaker 1: Have you made a plan to vote? Have you? And
Speaker 1: we try to make it all inclusive. So if you
Speaker 1: were to tell me that you really cared about the environment,
Speaker 1: once you're part of our world, we will tell you
Speaker 1: when it's time for you to call your member of
Speaker 1: Congress on the environment. If you want to, volunteer will
Speaker 1: pull you in and you can volunteer from the comfort
Speaker 1: of your home. If you text the volunteer to seven
Speaker 1: three one seven nine, you can just start texting fellow
Speaker 1: voters to go out and vote about the issues they
Speaker 1: care about. And then what we do is that for
Speaker 1: those folks that are really into it, we basically we
Speaker 1: do volunteer programs where they actually come and get trained. So,
Speaker 1: for example, on October two, we're going to have our
Speaker 1: Power Summit. It's going to be virtual this time. Normally
Speaker 1: it's in person, but it's usually about five young people
Speaker 1: that are really aggressive of trying to change to their neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: and we trained them on everything they need to do,
Speaker 1: including running for office. And the idea is that we
Speaker 1: have to flip the script when people say that the
Speaker 1: system is regularly saying, now, let's be clear, the system
Speaker 1: works for those who occupy. We are part of the
Speaker 1: largest most diverse generation of Americans as time that we
Speaker 1: flex and that we occupy our institutions. Because they're still
Speaker 1: using our taxes. They might as well put our taxes
Speaker 1: to work for good, at least most of ours. They're
Speaker 1: not using the presidents because he doesn't even doesn't that
Speaker 1: that got me pretty fired up. And the idea of
Speaker 1: of marketing democracy, it's almost voto Latino is like the
Speaker 1: first step, you know, and it's it's you're following through
Speaker 1: in terms of the volunteering and the contacting you representative.
Speaker 1: Are there things that you have planned that you're excited
Speaker 1: about in terms of how your model is going to
Speaker 1: continue to evolve. So I'll share with you. We started
Speaker 1: about four years ago, we started encouraging yan Latinos to
Speaker 1: run for office. That was part of our you know,
Speaker 1: an experiment. And since that time we've had six and
Speaker 1: people run. Of the six, five of one and they're
Speaker 1: all the youngest in their chamber, so the youngest and
Speaker 1: there's Will Boarder, shut Younggester and city Council and currently
Speaker 1: the youngest in Congress. And so what we would like
Speaker 1: to do is basically built off of that and just
Speaker 1: encourage more people to run for office. I think that
Speaker 1: what folks don't realize is that young Latinos they've been
Speaker 1: navigating America for their families long before they turn eighteen
Speaker 1: years old, oftentimes because they know the language. I was
Speaker 1: translating from my mom when I was six seven years old,
Speaker 1: you know, always with this nervousness of when I was
Speaker 1: with my grandmother in the doctor's office, Am I going
Speaker 1: to get her medication? Right? I mean, like some stuff
Speaker 1: that's kind of big and quite frankly translating less well
Speaker 1: when I came to school just can conveniently. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to translate this particular note from this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're saying that a lot of folks in the
Speaker 1: Letics community have experienced navigating the system on behalf of
Speaker 1: their families, right, for everything but democracy. Right. We know
Speaker 1: how to buy the best cell phone plan because we're
Speaker 1: getting marketed that, right, but when it comes to democracy,
Speaker 1: we don't. And so like only eight out of fifty
Speaker 1: states requires to education to graduate from high school when
Speaker 1: you're in places like Texas where close to a good
Speaker 1: six of our kids are of color. Where are they
Speaker 1: learning democracy? So we try to feel invital to him.
Speaker 1: We try to fill that gap, because again, our democracy
Speaker 1: is only as strong as our participation. And when we
Speaker 1: have such a lopside participation, we're only one side with
Speaker 1: one viewpoint is participating. We get what we get right
Speaker 1: now in the White House, right, And so our job
Speaker 1: is to flex. And again we're gonna be the largest
Speaker 1: generation coming out to the polls. You're gonna have twelve
Speaker 1: million more young voters than baby boomers for the first time.
Speaker 1: Two thirds of them are young people of color. We
Speaker 1: have a belief in this show about the word citizen,
Speaker 1: and we are interpreting it not as a legal status,
Speaker 1: but as a verb. If you were to interpret the
Speaker 1: word citizen as a verb, what does it mean to you?
Speaker 1: I citizen for my neighbor. Right. Our job, my job,
Speaker 1: I think everybody's job, is to recognize that COVID has
Speaker 1: exposed over fifty years of what the civil rights movement
Speaker 1: was about, that there were institutional inequities in our system,
Speaker 1: that where the fought lines were around race and gender,
Speaker 1: and if you look at disproportionately the people who are
Speaker 1: at the front lines. Our communities always knew we were
Speaker 1: essential workers right, and COVID is exposed what that means.
Speaker 1: It means sacrificing, sometimes your family time and sometimes sacrificing
Speaker 1: your bodies to ensure that our families can be fed.
Speaker 1: But so can the country can be nurtured. And so
Speaker 1: for us to citizen right is to address the neediest,
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable around us. I do think that COVID, well,
Speaker 1: as painful as it's been, is giving us an opportunity
Speaker 1: of a generation f DR right after the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to reimagine and think what America meant,
Speaker 1: and that meant providing public schooling, meant providing social security,
Speaker 1: it meant providing fair wages because you actually were able
Speaker 1: to organize under a union, you had, like this, a
Speaker 1: whole list of what our priorities were as Americans. COVID
Speaker 1: is going to allow us to think as audaciously and
Speaker 1: as big, and what we need to do is that
Speaker 1: we need to citizen right so that everything is possible
Speaker 1: to re calibrate where we are. I don't think that
Speaker 1: there's now an American who can't say that where you
Speaker 1: grow up in your zip coat, in the color of
Speaker 1: your skin or your gender don't matter. If anything, COVID
Speaker 1: has demonstrated those faultlines are very real. But as you know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned I have two little ones that are six
Speaker 1: and eight years old. There technically the beginning of what
Speaker 1: is called the majority minority country where no one is
Speaker 1: a majority. I would say, you know, the future has
Speaker 1: been born and we're not ready. So just like you know,
Speaker 1: World War One defined America in the world for the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, one can claim that the twentieth century started February.
Speaker 1: And how we actually legislate coming out of that, out
Speaker 1: of the pandemic is where we are for our citizens,
Speaker 1: but also for the world at large. Are we going
Speaker 1: to step up to that leadership that is so so needed? Yeah,
Speaker 1: watch out America, Maria Terressa Kumar, thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: I think there's one. I'm already registered and I double
Speaker 1: check every week. But if I weren't, I would register
Speaker 1: through Vote to Latino just so you could market democracy
Speaker 1: to me and I'd love to experience that. There's also
Speaker 1: something you made me think of when when you described
Speaker 1: very young Latin X folks having to navigate on behalf
Speaker 1: of their families. That's representative democracy right there. Like there's
Speaker 1: a constituency and you're in a service position and you
Speaker 1: have to understand and sort of provide in this way.
Speaker 1: So it's not surprising that five of your six one
Speaker 1: if that's the group that you're pulling from with that
Speaker 1: depth of experience. Is there anything you want to add
Speaker 1: on this top pick of voting or how to be
Speaker 1: a citizen? I think more than anything, we just want
Speaker 1: to make sure that you have a voting plan. Make
Speaker 1: sure like just like you make a plan to go
Speaker 1: to the doctors or you know, go go on a date,
Speaker 1: like make a plan for voting, and try to do
Speaker 1: it early the fastest you can do it, because I
Speaker 1: will tell you this, usually on November three, on election day,
Speaker 1: everybody's calling the shots. Everybody's gonna say this person is
Speaker 1: gonna win this year. We're not going to have that,
Speaker 1: and we have to be prepared. But a lot of people,
Speaker 1: millions of us, are gonna be voting by mail, and
Speaker 1: as a result, some of them, it's going to take
Speaker 1: us sometimes weeks to count them, Like in Georgia took
Speaker 1: us two weeks after the Georgia Primary to count those
Speaker 1: all those ballots. So one be a savvy voter. So
Speaker 1: if someone tells you on November three that we know
Speaker 1: who won, they're following you. We don't know, okay, So
Speaker 1: just give every let it, let it work through the system,
Speaker 1: because you know, every vote does count. And number two,
Speaker 1: the more that the folks on the progressive side, the
Speaker 1: more that people vote, it inspires other people to come
Speaker 1: along and they feel like they're part of the winning team.
Speaker 1: And media being the media will start creating narratives of
Speaker 1: who's winning, right, and so don't wait until the last minute.
Speaker 1: Start banking early. And the more that we start banking
Speaker 1: those votes, the more we can actually control the cycle
Speaker 1: and inspiring people to come out and saying, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: my vote. I do see a difference. I keep telling
Speaker 1: people that there's only thirty six days un till dawn,
Speaker 1: but I need everybody to participate. Thank you, thirty six
Speaker 1: days till dawn. We are looking forward to that sunrise.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much. We want to thank
Speaker 1: Maria to Race the Kumar again for taking time out
Speaker 1: of a very very busy schedule in the middle of
Speaker 1: election season to talk with us. Please follow Voto Latino
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, visit their website at Voto Latino
Speaker 1: dot org. There are some amazing resources there. Even if
Speaker 1: you're not Latin X. You can find this entire episode,
Speaker 1: the transcript the call to action always at how to
Speaker 1: citizen dot com. And if you've enjoyed this episode and others,
Speaker 1: please leave a review and tell someone you know put
Speaker 1: it up on social media. Word of mouth is the
Speaker 1: best way to grow a podcast, and we think this
Speaker 1: thing we're doing with you here is something worth growing.
Speaker 1: So we'll see you out there on the socials. Now
Speaker 1: let's get into the set of actions we're offering up
Speaker 1: for this episode. There's a lot, and I'm not asking
Speaker 1: you to do everything, but I want to give you
Speaker 1: options because everything feels like it's on the line on
Speaker 1: the internal front. Here are some of the things you
Speaker 1: can do. The first thing I want you to do
Speaker 1: is just prepare yourself emotionally. We have this historic expectation
Speaker 1: that we know an election result the morning after quote
Speaker 1: unquote election day, and as I've repeated many times in
Speaker 1: this episode, we are an election season. These are election weeks.
Speaker 1: In November three is just the deadline. But because so
Speaker 1: many people are voting by mail, because this race could
Speaker 1: be very close and come down to a few states.
Speaker 1: Assume we won't know, and brace yourself emotionally for that,
Speaker 1: plus all the nonsense that you know is going to
Speaker 1: happen between now and then and possibly after. Make a
Speaker 1: plan to vote and act on it now. If you
Speaker 1: haven't voted yet, make your plan. Figure out how you're
Speaker 1: going to vote, who you're voting for. Plan this like
Speaker 1: it's the biggest day of your life. I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Get the lent out of your shirt, brush your teeth,
Speaker 1: get that mouth wash going. You don't just run out
Speaker 1: into an amazing first date that could be the potential
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life. So don't just run
Speaker 1: out and mark up your ballot without informing yourself. Don't
Speaker 1: just make up the rules. Take the time to figure
Speaker 1: out how you want to get this done and start.
Speaker 1: I would even say pause me right now and just
Speaker 1: figure out of this stuff out right now. If you
Speaker 1: can vote early and in person, it's still the most
Speaker 1: ideal way to vote in this election. If you're unable
Speaker 1: to do that, if you don't feel safe doing that, obviously,
Speaker 1: don't do that. But if you do when you have
Speaker 1: a choice, take that route. There's a great resource with
Speaker 1: state by state information when we all vote dot org.
Speaker 1: Look up your state there, see what your options are,
Speaker 1: and then confirm them with your county elections website yourself,
Speaker 1: and if you plan to vote by mail sometimes called
Speaker 1: absentee balloting and states like Wisconsin, make sure you're registered
Speaker 1: and fill it out and submit it very very carefully.
Speaker 1: You gotta follow those directions to a t. I'm holding
Speaker 1: my California mail in ballot in my hand right now,
Speaker 1: and this is confusing and I read a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: So just take your time with it, do some breathing exercises,
Speaker 1: double check everything. Don't give anyone any excuse to not
Speaker 1: count your vote or to challenge it. There's a bone
Speaker 1: this round here for those who are feeling a little
Speaker 1: more partisan. But I don't even think in the season
Speaker 1: we're in now that supporting Joe Biden for president is partisan.
Speaker 1: I think he is a pro small D Democrat right now,
Speaker 1: and the other candidate has shown his colors as not
Speaker 1: being down for people power. So phone bank or text
Speaker 1: and adopt a swing state. I'm gonna send you to
Speaker 1: vote Save America dot com. They have a whole battleground
Speaker 1: states adoption program. Uh, you don't actually adopt all the
Speaker 1: people in the state, but you take them on from
Speaker 1: an electoral perspective to try to make sure people are
Speaker 1: voting there because it counts a little more because of
Speaker 1: the electoral college at the federal level. But you pay
Speaker 1: attention to your whole ballot. All right, Now, there's more,
Speaker 1: Like I said, many options. On the more external facing
Speaker 1: stuff that involves other people, make the phrase have you voted?
Speaker 1: The new how are you? In your conversations. I want
Speaker 1: you to check in with the people you care about
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, that was a crazy week. Have
Speaker 1: you voted? I want you to log into your zoom
Speaker 1: and just flood the chat with have you voted? Make
Speaker 1: that a social norm. It is healthy peer pressure to
Speaker 1: encourage people to flex their power. And once you voted,
Speaker 1: you let everybody know. I want you posting that I
Speaker 1: voted sticker on your body so they show up in
Speaker 1: all your web things and your grocery store visits. And
Speaker 1: I want you posting on social media use the hashtag
Speaker 1: I voted, with the hashtag how to citizens. Lastly, on
Speaker 1: the action front, this is a bigger lift, but if
Speaker 1: you're feeling particularly young and healthy and energetic, volunteer to
Speaker 1: be a poll worker. Because of COVID nineteen and the
Speaker 1: generally older age of our poll workers, we have a
Speaker 1: severe shortage of poll workers in many parts of the US.
Speaker 1: Visit Power to the Polls dot org and consider becoming
Speaker 1: a poll work to yourself. Encourage people you know to volunteer.
Speaker 1: Bring a friend with you. More poll workers means faster
Speaker 1: voting means more people get to exercise their power, means
Speaker 1: a happier Baritune day. Host of how to Citizen a
Speaker 1: Baritune day. If you take any of these actions, let
Speaker 1: us know. Email us actions at how to citizen dot
Speaker 1: com mentioned voting in the subject line, Brag online about
Speaker 1: your citizen in using the hashtag how to citizen, and
Speaker 1: we're always open to general feedback, guest recommendations, actions you
Speaker 1: have in mind comments at how to citizen dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also text me I'm at two O two
Speaker 1: eight nine four eight eight four four. Put citizen in
Speaker 1: there so I know how you found me and share
Speaker 1: your ideas that way too. If you prefer texting, I'm
Speaker 1: reading them all myself. This has been an extraordinary pleasure
Speaker 1: We have more voting episodes coming, so stay tuned and
Speaker 1: more importantly, make your plan or work with someone you
Speaker 1: know who end vote to make their plan, and let's
Speaker 1: have record flexing of power. How the Citizen with Barrett
Speaker 1: Sunday is a production of I Heart Radio. Podcast executive
Speaker 1: produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart, and barrettun
Speaker 1: Day Thurston. Produced by Joel Smith, Edited by Justin Smith.
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