October 1, 2020 • 26 mins
The right to vote can sometimes be described as a “struggle,” a “fight,” even a “war.”
But how did this come to be and who has been fighting to make every generation’s path to the ballot a little less arduous? On this episode of Turnout, Katie Couric goes back to the beginning, to find out what our founding can tell us about the continuing war on voting rights. Katie speaks with historian and biographer Jon Meacham about the framers’ hopes and dreams and who was left out of the more perfect union they designed. Then, Wendy Weiser, of the Brennan Center for Justice, and voting and Civil Rights expert Gilda Daniels help define voter suppression — and the many names it goes by. Finally, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown shares the ways she is helping to modernize her state’s election system — and the ways the rest of the country can and should follow suit.
Guests:
Jon Meacham, author “His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope”
Wendy R. Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law
Gilda Daniels, law professor at the University of Baltimore law school, litigation director at the Advancement Project, and author of “Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America.”
Charles Stewart III, MIT professor of political science and founder and director of the MIT Election Lab
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So our most urgent request to the President of the
United States and every member of Congress is to give
us the right to vote. The right to vote is
very basic. We're going to neglect that right, and all
of our talk about freedom is hollow. The right to
vote has never been just granted freely. It has always
(00:26):
been fought for. We do not want our freedom gradually.
What we want to be free now, it's been fought
for it on the streets. It's been fought for. This
is not a partisan issue. Is wrong. This is an
American issue, deadly wrong to deny any of your fellow
America the right to vote in this because our democracy
(00:48):
is found it or ensuring that every eligible citizen has
access to the ballot box. By John, We've got to
fight even harder for the most powerful tool that we have,
which is the words to vote. This is how in
America we get voting right. I'm Katie Kuric, and this
(01:15):
is Turnout, a podcast exploring America's voting record, past, present
and future. Voting is a cornerstone of our democracy. We
the people have a say and who governs us and
what happens in our communities and in our country. But
the reality of how voting works in America and who
(01:35):
gets to do it has never been as fair or
as clear cut as the story of this nation promised.
In fact, the act or even attempt to vote is
often described as a fight, a struggle, sometimes even a war.
But how did this happen? And who has been waging
this battle? Who's been fighting to make every generation's path
(01:58):
to the ballot a little less our joy us? And
who among us has taken up the baton? These are
the questions at the heart of this series, and the
only way to start is at the beginning. For all
of our imperfections, the nation was conceived in an experiment
(02:18):
of liberty that would remove the American experience from the monarchs,
the nobles, the inherited power of the old world. And
who better to begin with, how are you John, trying
to save America? You know than one of this country's
(02:38):
leading historians and biographers, John mitchum I invited him into
my zoom studio to find out what our founding tells
us about the continuing war over voting. Religious liberty, freedom
of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press. These
were essential liberties that the founders believed in were willing
(03:01):
to die for what were the hopes and dreams John,
of the Founding fathers. The hope was that we would
be a popular government, not necessarily a democracy, but a
government that literally was based on the authority, the ultimate
authority of the people. And so the work of Philadelphia
in seventeen eighty seven through the ratification in sevent was
(03:25):
to find a way for the people to be sovereign. Comma.
But and so much of America hangs on the comma.
But they believed that the people could ultimately be trusted
to choose their rulers. They did not believe that the
people themselves could rule from day to day, and they
(03:48):
believed that those rulers would be manifestations of the people themselves.
And the people were subject to appetite and ambition, and so,
as Madison said, ambition had to be made to counteract ambition.
Which is why you have the electoral College, you have
the Senate, you have divided kinds of representation, to try
(04:10):
to find a way to achieve that most elusive of things,
which was balanced. When the Founding Fathers set up the system,
it was predicated on a lot of these ideas of
limited government, a social contract popular sovereigntry, but it was
far from a perfect union. How so, well, let's see,
(04:33):
if you were an enslaved person, you were counted as
three fifths of a person, which was particularly insulting when
you think about it, because you were being counted as
a unit of power for those who owned you. That
was a major imperfection. The perpetuation of slavery, the removal
(04:53):
of Native people's women until nine, we're not granted the suffrage,
So that's an imperf action. So we defined, we, meaning
white men, defined citizenship quite narrowly and largely for ourselves.
So that's the largest imperfection, and all in these other
(05:14):
implications all flowed from them. Why were the founding fathers
so narrow minded? John, We see them as limited. We
see them as actively standing in the way of the
creation of a multi ethnic democracy in our native region.
(05:36):
You're from Virginia, from Tennessee. We did not have a
presidential election without some form of apartheid until nineteen sixty.
But I'm careful about glibly condemning the past. King George
the Third of England said of George Washington in seventeen
eighty three, if Washington actually gives up command of the
(05:59):
Continental Army and retires, he will be the greatest man
in the world because the voluntary surrender of power to
these republican lower case our institutions was for its time
quite radical. The story of the country, though, and the
reason you're doing this is it has been an unfolding story. Bloody, tragic, slow,
(06:23):
painful and provisional, but an unfolding story of applying the
implications of that initial declaration in seventeen seventy six that
we were all created equal and should therefore be treated equally.
Was the fight for voting rights? John, there from the
very beginning, And who were the people who were waiting
(06:45):
in Abigail Adams wrote a letter to John Adams in
seventeen seventy six saying, to her husband, remember the ladies
trying to seek more rights for women. There was an
immense amount of tension Seneca Falls was at The rights
of black people to vote was even more complicated because
(07:06):
of the slave states. That was an immensely complicated political situation.
But the Fifteenth Amendment tells you that during the reconstruction
years after the Civil War, there was a full expectation
on behalf of the national authorities that the suffrage was
a fundamental element of citizenship. When you look back at
(07:31):
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Alice Paul
and Frederick Douglas, these generations of reformers, you know, we
look at them now and they're kind of statues and
postage stamps. These were human beings struggling trying to get
just enough attention and to convert that attention into real reform.
And so the story of the country, in many ways,
(07:53):
is the story of this remarkably tumultuous battle for power
from generation degeneration coming up. Voting rights is about power.
Voting rights has always been, and we will always be
about power. Some of the weapons waged in America's voting wars,
that's right after this. When I'm talking about vote suppression,
(08:22):
I'm talking about intentional or reckless steps to deny eligible
voters the right to vote and their ability to vote.
Wendy Wiser is the director of the Democracy Program at
the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank focused
on defending systems of justice, voting rights and elections being
(08:45):
a big part of that. There are a variety of
tactics that have been used, some using the arms of
the state, some using private vigilantes. But any attempt to
interfere with the ability of an eligible us in to
vote and to make it hard for them to do so,
or to prevent them from doing so, is vote suppression
(09:07):
and is anathema to our constitutional system into our system
of government. Voter suppression is not new. Gilda Daniels is
a voting and civil rights expert, an author of Uncounted,
The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America, which just came
out this year. Historically, we have seen literacy tests, whole taxes, vouchers,
(09:29):
fell in disaffranchisement, voter intimidation, economic terror. When I talked
to my grandmother, asked her, you know why didn't she
vote before the nineteen sixties, Right, She was in her
forties when she voted for the first time, and she said,
black people didn't vote in Black people didn't vote because
they could lose their land, they could lose their lives.
They were all these barriers. The thing is, these voter
(09:53):
suppression tactics aren't just a relic of the past. They're
as current as the phone you're probably using right now
to listen to this podcast. What has changed, says Gilda Daniels,
are what these voter suppression tactics are called. Today. We
see restrictive voter i D laws, voter purges, proof of
(10:15):
citizenship laws, voter deception. We still have feiing disenfranchisement, which
certainly became a source of voter suppression at the turn
of the twentieth century. We see it in the twenty
one century as well, where there are more than six
point one million people who do not have the right
(10:36):
to vote because of fellion disenfranchisement. Voting rights is about power.
Voting rights has always been and will always be about power.
And to the extent there people with the power, and
they understand the power of the vote. Whether those persons
or Republicans or Democrats, what the name of the party
is doesn't matter. People who have power want to keep
(10:57):
it and want to keep folks from They want to
keep folks exsing that say. But just as there have
always been those who try to suppress the vote, there
have been those fighting to reclaim it, to expand that
power among the people. That Wendy Weiser says is what
democracy is all about. Democracy is a a group sport.
(11:22):
It requires us to all participate and defend it, and
if we don't invest ourselves in it, it won't be
able to hold itself up without us. The right to
vote has never been just granted freely. It has always
been fought for, and when thinking about what most impedes
(11:45):
access to the ballot, Wendy says, we have to consider
the very thing that grants us that access in the
first place, voter registration. The United States does have among
the lower voter participation rates among the world major democracies.
One of the reasons actually is our voter registration system.
(12:05):
We actually are unique in the world for the most part,
requiring voters to take the affirmative step of registering themselves
to vote rather than the government signing them up, and
then to keep their registration up to date. There is
a strong argument to be made at voter registration itself
was created as a way of suppressing the vote. This
(12:27):
is Charles Stewart, founder and director of the m I
T Election Lab. What you just all you had to
do was to show up a vote. That's a good question.
Why do people have to register to vote in the
first place. It turns out voter registration is also a
relic of the past that's still in use today. Voting
has always happened in this country, even before the Revolution.
(12:50):
In the early seventeen hundreds, voting was a social occasion
with drinking and dancing. When it came time to vote,
the colonists who were eligible would gather together and signify
their choice by standing or saying something. But that's the thing.
It was always those who were eligible participating, which was
for a long time just white male landowners. As more
(13:15):
and more people came to the New World, colonists wanted
to ensure the electric continued to be just white male landowners,
so they started to make it more official. In Massachusetts,
in seventeen forty two, voters had to present physical proof
of land ownership before they could take part. By eighteen hundred,
(13:36):
Massachusetts made that process unofficial law, and it became the
first voter registration law in the country. Registration laws didn't
really catch on until after the Civil War, when formally
enslaved black people as well as immigrants, started flooding northern
states and cities. The registration laws that got enacted in
(13:57):
the eighteen eighties and nineties were almost all in the
cities were always all intended to keep immigrants from southern
Europe from voting. They're enacted by legislatures, state legislatures dominated
by rural interests and trying to keep the city vote
down by registration laws spread west, south and into rural areas,
(14:21):
always with the intention of keeping certain people out of
the voting process. So the history of voter registration is
one of exclusion, which begs the question in the century,
why have registration at all if you care about access
to the polls? Coming up a governor who had that
(14:42):
very same thought, we want people to participate. There should
not be a litmus tests for participating in this very
fundamental act of democracy, the act of voting, and how
her state finally turned the tide on voter registration. If
(15:08):
you wanted to look for a model of a state
actively trying to open access to the ballot box, look
no further than Oregon. In Oregon, we actually really believe
that your vote is your voice, and every single voice matters.
Governor Kate Brown has been leading the state since two
thousand fifteen, but her passion for voter access can be
(15:29):
traced back to the nineteen nineties and the beginning of
her career in public service. It actually began with my
first election to the Oregon State House, and I literally
won that election by seven votes. And I have to
tell you, over twenty years later, I have people come
up to me on the street and they now call
(15:51):
me governor. Of course, say Governor Brown, Governor Brown, I
was your seventh vote. I was the reason that you
won your race. And it's absolutely true. Everyone who voted
for me, everyone who volunteered for me, they were the
reason that I won that race. And so I am
living proof that every vote matters and that every vote
(16:12):
needs to be counted. And I brought I have brought
that with me every step of my career in the
legislature as Secretary of State and certainly as Oregon's governor.
And two thousand eight, Governor Brown was elected Secretary of State,
and that role she was in charge of Oregon's voting
process and was focused on removing barriers to the ballot.
Oregon was the first state in the country to be
(16:35):
all vote by mail. The creators a Vote by Mail.
Their vision was that every eligible Oregonian should be able
to have a ballot be put in their hands, that
every Oregonian should receive a ballot in the mail, and
we wanted to frankly extend that vision and make it
(16:56):
more accessible to register to vote. We implemented online voter registration,
and then the concept of automatic voter registration came about,
and we wanted as many people to participate as possible.
We wanted it to be an inclusive process, not an
exclusive process. So we moved forward with a proposal that
(17:20):
literally automatically registers every eligible Oregonian through our Department of
Motor Vehicles, and then folks who don't want to participate,
they can sign a letter and opt out. As a result,
we have over of eligible Oregonians registered. We went from
being one of the lowest states in the country in
(17:42):
terms of people of color being registered to now the
second in the entire country. We also see that the
electorate has diversified. We have more people of color, we
have more folks from more rural communities registered, and honestly,
we just have the bash bulk of Oregonians registered. And
(18:03):
that's a really good thing. Why is this working so
well because it's easy, I think so. I literally had
legislators asked me, it's already so easy to register to vote,
why would we make it easier. And the answer to
that is really simple, because we can. We want people
to participate. There should not be a litmus tests for
(18:27):
participating in this very fundamental act of democracy, the act
of voting. Was it a struggle? How hard was it
to get get it passed? Hi, you're laughing at me?
It was absolutely a struggle. I first introduced the legislation
in it crushed my heart when it failed on the
state Senate floor by literally one vote. But we worked
(18:50):
hard during that election cycle and picked up another Democrat
in the election cycle, so I knew as we moved
into the legislative session that we would have the votes
that we needed. And then we knew that this was
a first in the country system. We knew that there
were other states likely to follow our lead, so the
(19:12):
implementation was really a challenge. We created a blueprint. We
wanted to make sure that if this was a success,
that other states could follow and I think we've had
seventeen or eighteen other states follow our lead. I was
gonna say, you have had now at least eighteen states
who have followed your lead. That must be a pretty
(19:33):
good feeling. It feels really really good. But what I
think is most important is that we work throughout the
entire country, frankly, to make voting as convenient and accessible
to our voters, that we make sure that it's safe.
I know in two thousand, nineteen thirty eight collected registration
and turnout numbers in eight states that have automatic voter
(19:56):
registration and found that overall turnout was still significantly higher
for those who registered themselves. What do you make of that, Well,
I think it's really important that we get people registered,
and that automatic systems mean that more people will participate.
We know that um in our first election with automatic
(20:18):
voter registration, we saw roughly forty of these newly registered
voters participate. I think it's important that more voices participate
and that we make it easier rather than harder, for
people to have their voice be heard. I think it's
as simple as that. In fact, ultimately five eight found
(20:41):
that automatic voter registration contributed to a boost an overall
civic engagement. I think that's absolutely right, and I think
that's a good thing for our country. And I think
particularly right now with what we're seeing on the ground
with the pandemic, with the clarion call for racial astice,
I think it is so important. When the fabric of
(21:03):
our society is fraid, it's key that the foundation of
our democracy remains strong and ensuring people can exercise this
very fundamental right is absolutely fundamental. A lot of countries
give people the day off to vote, and they say
it's a national holiday, and they do everything they can
(21:25):
to make it easier for people if they do want
to go to the polls to go to the polls.
Why hasn't the United States done something like that. I
love the idea of a national holiday for election Day.
I know that we are seeing companies across the United
States of America giving their employees this particular day off.
(21:47):
They are encouraging their employees to be poll workers. You're
probably aware that the vast majority of our elections holding
officers and poll workers tend to be volunteers, and they
tend to be in a generation that's particularly susceptible to COVID,
and so we really do need, i'll say, other folks
(22:10):
to engage in this critically important process. My daughter, who
is twenty four is going to be a poll worker.
That's so great. We know that if we can engage
young people, particularly those under the age of um. The
earlier we engage them, we know that we will create
lifelong voters. And I think that's so important if we
(22:31):
want our democracy to be successful. Oh honey, she is engaged.
I'll bet she is. I'll bet she is. Why is
voter access so critically important, not just for Oregon and
other states, but for the country at large. Well, we
are wrestling with a number of difficult issues right now.
(22:52):
We know that the pandemic has impacted our historically underserved
communities of color uh and low incommunities disproportionately than others.
We are seeing wildfires erupt in the West in states
like Oregon, California, Washington, and Colorado. These devastating fires are
(23:14):
also impacting our communities that are on the economic edge.
And I think it's so important in this day and
age that in order to tackle these issues, that we
get as many voices to the table. And I think
that voting is the easiest way to begin that process.
We have got to open the door, make this process
(23:37):
more inclusive, and ensure that Americans understand their right, their
fundamental right to vote. We talk about the rights to
free speech and the right to exercise our freedom of religion.
We don't require you to sign up for either one
of those. It's just given to you by virtue of
your citizenship. The fundamental right to vote should be the saying,
(24:00):
by virtue of your citizenship, your residency, and your age,
you should be able to access this right. And I
absolutely think that America is stronger and better when we
all participate. Once again, John meet Chum, the wider the
vote has been wielded, the stronger we've become. We became
(24:23):
the most powerful country in the history of the world
as more people were allowed to participate. It's just a fact.
We have always grown stronger the more widely we've opened
our arms. So why doesn't everyone get on board and
make it easier to vote for the good of the country.
That's a question will continue to explore in this series
(24:46):
through conversations with the people who have been and continue
to fight for voting rights. Next week, on turnout, Mississippi
looked up and said, Lord, we got all these black people,
and these black people are really voting. It's going to
transform Mississippi. We can't have that. If so, you saw
(25:07):
this move to eliminate African Americans from the electorate. How
America's fight for voting rights is wrapped up in the
fight for racial equality. Hey, listeners, before you go, I
just want to remind you there's still time to check
your registration to make sure you can vote in this election,
(25:27):
and while you're at it, check your parents, your friends,
your cousins and ants. To make that process easier. I'm
partnering with the social justice organization Do Something. To find
out how to check your registration or to register to vote,
text Katie to three eight three eight three. You can
also go to vote dot org to find out where
and how to vote in your state, and subscribe to
(25:50):
my morning newsletter wake Up Call for the latest election information.
Turnout is a production of I Heart Media and Katie
Current Media. The executive producers are Katie Curic and Courtney Littz,
Supervising producers Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Eliza Costas
and Emily Kento. Editing by Derrick Clements and Lauren Hansen,
(26:13):
Mixing by Derrick Clements. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser and
special thanks to my right hand woman Adriana Fasio. You
can follow me in all my election coverage at Katie Currek. Meanwhile, yes,
I'm Katie Currik. Thanks so much for listening. Everyone, we'll
see you next time. I'd come here to urge every
(26:35):
person under the sound of my boss to go to
the polls on the third of November and vote
So our most urgent request to the President of the
United States and every member of Congress is to give
us the right to vote. The right to vote is
very basic. We're going to neglect that right, and all
of our talk about freedom is hollow. The right to
vote has never been just granted freely. It has always
(00:26):
been fought for. We do not want our freedom gradually.
What we want to be free now, it's been fought
for it on the streets. It's been fought for. This
is not a partisan issue. Is wrong. This is an
American issue, deadly wrong to deny any of your fellow
America the right to vote in this because our democracy
(00:48):
is found it or ensuring that every eligible citizen has
access to the ballot box. By John, We've got to
fight even harder for the most powerful tool that we have,
which is the words to vote. This is how in
America we get voting right. I'm Katie Kuric, and this
(01:15):
is Turnout, a podcast exploring America's voting record, past, present
and future. Voting is a cornerstone of our democracy. We
the people have a say and who governs us and
what happens in our communities and in our country. But
the reality of how voting works in America and who
(01:35):
gets to do it has never been as fair or
as clear cut as the story of this nation promised.
In fact, the act or even attempt to vote is
often described as a fight, a struggle, sometimes even a war.
But how did this happen? And who has been waging
this battle? Who's been fighting to make every generation's path
(01:58):
to the ballot a little less our joy us? And
who among us has taken up the baton? These are
the questions at the heart of this series, and the
only way to start is at the beginning. For all
of our imperfections, the nation was conceived in an experiment
(02:18):
of liberty that would remove the American experience from the monarchs,
the nobles, the inherited power of the old world. And
who better to begin with, how are you John, trying
to save America? You know than one of this country's
(02:38):
leading historians and biographers, John mitchum I invited him into
my zoom studio to find out what our founding tells
us about the continuing war over voting. Religious liberty, freedom
of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press. These
were essential liberties that the founders believed in were willing
(03:01):
to die for what were the hopes and dreams John,
of the Founding fathers. The hope was that we would
be a popular government, not necessarily a democracy, but a
government that literally was based on the authority, the ultimate
authority of the people. And so the work of Philadelphia
in seventeen eighty seven through the ratification in sevent was
(03:25):
to find a way for the people to be sovereign. Comma.
But and so much of America hangs on the comma.
But they believed that the people could ultimately be trusted
to choose their rulers. They did not believe that the
people themselves could rule from day to day, and they
(03:48):
believed that those rulers would be manifestations of the people themselves.
And the people were subject to appetite and ambition, and so,
as Madison said, ambition had to be made to counteract ambition.
Which is why you have the electoral College, you have
the Senate, you have divided kinds of representation, to try
(04:10):
to find a way to achieve that most elusive of things,
which was balanced. When the Founding Fathers set up the system,
it was predicated on a lot of these ideas of
limited government, a social contract popular sovereigntry, but it was
far from a perfect union. How so, well, let's see,
(04:33):
if you were an enslaved person, you were counted as
three fifths of a person, which was particularly insulting when
you think about it, because you were being counted as
a unit of power for those who owned you. That
was a major imperfection. The perpetuation of slavery, the removal
(04:53):
of Native people's women until nine, we're not granted the suffrage,
So that's an imperf action. So we defined, we, meaning
white men, defined citizenship quite narrowly and largely for ourselves.
So that's the largest imperfection, and all in these other
(05:14):
implications all flowed from them. Why were the founding fathers
so narrow minded? John, We see them as limited. We
see them as actively standing in the way of the
creation of a multi ethnic democracy in our native region.
(05:36):
You're from Virginia, from Tennessee. We did not have a
presidential election without some form of apartheid until nineteen sixty.
But I'm careful about glibly condemning the past. King George
the Third of England said of George Washington in seventeen
eighty three, if Washington actually gives up command of the
(05:59):
Continental Army and retires, he will be the greatest man
in the world because the voluntary surrender of power to
these republican lower case our institutions was for its time
quite radical. The story of the country, though, and the
reason you're doing this is it has been an unfolding story. Bloody, tragic, slow,
(06:23):
painful and provisional, but an unfolding story of applying the
implications of that initial declaration in seventeen seventy six that
we were all created equal and should therefore be treated equally.
Was the fight for voting rights? John, there from the
very beginning, And who were the people who were waiting
(06:45):
in Abigail Adams wrote a letter to John Adams in
seventeen seventy six saying, to her husband, remember the ladies
trying to seek more rights for women. There was an
immense amount of tension Seneca Falls was at The rights
of black people to vote was even more complicated because
(07:06):
of the slave states. That was an immensely complicated political situation.
But the Fifteenth Amendment tells you that during the reconstruction
years after the Civil War, there was a full expectation
on behalf of the national authorities that the suffrage was
a fundamental element of citizenship. When you look back at
(07:31):
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Alice Paul
and Frederick Douglas, these generations of reformers, you know, we
look at them now and they're kind of statues and
postage stamps. These were human beings struggling trying to get
just enough attention and to convert that attention into real reform.
And so the story of the country, in many ways,
(07:53):
is the story of this remarkably tumultuous battle for power
from generation degeneration coming up. Voting rights is about power.
Voting rights has always been, and we will always be
about power. Some of the weapons waged in America's voting wars,
that's right after this. When I'm talking about vote suppression,
(08:22):
I'm talking about intentional or reckless steps to deny eligible
voters the right to vote and their ability to vote.
Wendy Wiser is the director of the Democracy Program at
the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank focused
on defending systems of justice, voting rights and elections being
(08:45):
a big part of that. There are a variety of
tactics that have been used, some using the arms of
the state, some using private vigilantes. But any attempt to
interfere with the ability of an eligible us in to
vote and to make it hard for them to do so,
or to prevent them from doing so, is vote suppression
(09:07):
and is anathema to our constitutional system into our system
of government. Voter suppression is not new. Gilda Daniels is
a voting and civil rights expert, an author of Uncounted,
The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America, which just came
out this year. Historically, we have seen literacy tests, whole taxes, vouchers,
(09:29):
fell in disaffranchisement, voter intimidation, economic terror. When I talked
to my grandmother, asked her, you know why didn't she
vote before the nineteen sixties, Right, She was in her
forties when she voted for the first time, and she said,
black people didn't vote in Black people didn't vote because
they could lose their land, they could lose their lives.
They were all these barriers. The thing is, these voter
(09:53):
suppression tactics aren't just a relic of the past. They're
as current as the phone you're probably using right now
to listen to this podcast. What has changed, says Gilda Daniels,
are what these voter suppression tactics are called. Today. We
see restrictive voter i D laws, voter purges, proof of
(10:15):
citizenship laws, voter deception. We still have feiing disenfranchisement, which
certainly became a source of voter suppression at the turn
of the twentieth century. We see it in the twenty
one century as well, where there are more than six
point one million people who do not have the right
(10:36):
to vote because of fellion disenfranchisement. Voting rights is about power.
Voting rights has always been and will always be about power.
And to the extent there people with the power, and
they understand the power of the vote. Whether those persons
or Republicans or Democrats, what the name of the party
is doesn't matter. People who have power want to keep
(10:57):
it and want to keep folks from They want to
keep folks exsing that say. But just as there have
always been those who try to suppress the vote, there
have been those fighting to reclaim it, to expand that
power among the people. That Wendy Weiser says is what
democracy is all about. Democracy is a a group sport.
(11:22):
It requires us to all participate and defend it, and
if we don't invest ourselves in it, it won't be
able to hold itself up without us. The right to
vote has never been just granted freely. It has always
been fought for, and when thinking about what most impedes
(11:45):
access to the ballot, Wendy says, we have to consider
the very thing that grants us that access in the
first place, voter registration. The United States does have among
the lower voter participation rates among the world major democracies.
One of the reasons actually is our voter registration system.
(12:05):
We actually are unique in the world for the most part,
requiring voters to take the affirmative step of registering themselves
to vote rather than the government signing them up, and
then to keep their registration up to date. There is
a strong argument to be made at voter registration itself
was created as a way of suppressing the vote. This
(12:27):
is Charles Stewart, founder and director of the m I
T Election Lab. What you just all you had to
do was to show up a vote. That's a good question.
Why do people have to register to vote in the
first place. It turns out voter registration is also a
relic of the past that's still in use today. Voting
has always happened in this country, even before the Revolution.
(12:50):
In the early seventeen hundreds, voting was a social occasion
with drinking and dancing. When it came time to vote,
the colonists who were eligible would gather together and signify
their choice by standing or saying something. But that's the thing.
It was always those who were eligible participating, which was
for a long time just white male landowners. As more
(13:15):
and more people came to the New World, colonists wanted
to ensure the electric continued to be just white male landowners,
so they started to make it more official. In Massachusetts,
in seventeen forty two, voters had to present physical proof
of land ownership before they could take part. By eighteen hundred,
(13:36):
Massachusetts made that process unofficial law, and it became the
first voter registration law in the country. Registration laws didn't
really catch on until after the Civil War, when formally
enslaved black people as well as immigrants, started flooding northern
states and cities. The registration laws that got enacted in
(13:57):
the eighteen eighties and nineties were almost all in the
cities were always all intended to keep immigrants from southern
Europe from voting. They're enacted by legislatures, state legislatures dominated
by rural interests and trying to keep the city vote
down by registration laws spread west, south and into rural areas,
(14:21):
always with the intention of keeping certain people out of
the voting process. So the history of voter registration is
one of exclusion, which begs the question in the century,
why have registration at all if you care about access
to the polls? Coming up a governor who had that
(14:42):
very same thought, we want people to participate. There should
not be a litmus tests for participating in this very
fundamental act of democracy, the act of voting, and how
her state finally turned the tide on voter registration. If
(15:08):
you wanted to look for a model of a state
actively trying to open access to the ballot box, look
no further than Oregon. In Oregon, we actually really believe
that your vote is your voice, and every single voice matters.
Governor Kate Brown has been leading the state since two
thousand fifteen, but her passion for voter access can be
(15:29):
traced back to the nineteen nineties and the beginning of
her career in public service. It actually began with my
first election to the Oregon State House, and I literally
won that election by seven votes. And I have to
tell you, over twenty years later, I have people come
up to me on the street and they now call
(15:51):
me governor. Of course, say Governor Brown, Governor Brown, I
was your seventh vote. I was the reason that you
won your race. And it's absolutely true. Everyone who voted
for me, everyone who volunteered for me, they were the
reason that I won that race. And so I am
living proof that every vote matters and that every vote
(16:12):
needs to be counted. And I brought I have brought
that with me every step of my career in the
legislature as Secretary of State and certainly as Oregon's governor.
And two thousand eight, Governor Brown was elected Secretary of State,
and that role she was in charge of Oregon's voting
process and was focused on removing barriers to the ballot.
Oregon was the first state in the country to be
(16:35):
all vote by mail. The creators a Vote by Mail.
Their vision was that every eligible Oregonian should be able
to have a ballot be put in their hands, that
every Oregonian should receive a ballot in the mail, and
we wanted to frankly extend that vision and make it
(16:56):
more accessible to register to vote. We implemented online voter registration,
and then the concept of automatic voter registration came about,
and we wanted as many people to participate as possible.
We wanted it to be an inclusive process, not an
exclusive process. So we moved forward with a proposal that
(17:20):
literally automatically registers every eligible Oregonian through our Department of
Motor Vehicles, and then folks who don't want to participate,
they can sign a letter and opt out. As a result,
we have over of eligible Oregonians registered. We went from
being one of the lowest states in the country in
(17:42):
terms of people of color being registered to now the
second in the entire country. We also see that the
electorate has diversified. We have more people of color, we
have more folks from more rural communities registered, and honestly,
we just have the bash bulk of Oregonians registered. And
(18:03):
that's a really good thing. Why is this working so
well because it's easy, I think so. I literally had
legislators asked me, it's already so easy to register to vote,
why would we make it easier. And the answer to
that is really simple, because we can. We want people
to participate. There should not be a litmus tests for
(18:27):
participating in this very fundamental act of democracy, the act
of voting. Was it a struggle? How hard was it
to get get it passed? Hi, you're laughing at me?
It was absolutely a struggle. I first introduced the legislation
in it crushed my heart when it failed on the
state Senate floor by literally one vote. But we worked
(18:50):
hard during that election cycle and picked up another Democrat
in the election cycle, so I knew as we moved
into the legislative session that we would have the votes
that we needed. And then we knew that this was
a first in the country system. We knew that there
were other states likely to follow our lead, so the
(19:12):
implementation was really a challenge. We created a blueprint. We
wanted to make sure that if this was a success,
that other states could follow and I think we've had
seventeen or eighteen other states follow our lead. I was
gonna say, you have had now at least eighteen states
who have followed your lead. That must be a pretty
(19:33):
good feeling. It feels really really good. But what I
think is most important is that we work throughout the
entire country, frankly, to make voting as convenient and accessible
to our voters, that we make sure that it's safe.
I know in two thousand, nineteen thirty eight collected registration
and turnout numbers in eight states that have automatic voter
(19:56):
registration and found that overall turnout was still significantly higher
for those who registered themselves. What do you make of that, Well,
I think it's really important that we get people registered,
and that automatic systems mean that more people will participate.
We know that um in our first election with automatic
(20:18):
voter registration, we saw roughly forty of these newly registered
voters participate. I think it's important that more voices participate
and that we make it easier rather than harder, for
people to have their voice be heard. I think it's
as simple as that. In fact, ultimately five eight found
(20:41):
that automatic voter registration contributed to a boost an overall
civic engagement. I think that's absolutely right, and I think
that's a good thing for our country. And I think
particularly right now with what we're seeing on the ground
with the pandemic, with the clarion call for racial astice,
I think it is so important. When the fabric of
(21:03):
our society is fraid, it's key that the foundation of
our democracy remains strong and ensuring people can exercise this
very fundamental right is absolutely fundamental. A lot of countries
give people the day off to vote, and they say
it's a national holiday, and they do everything they can
(21:25):
to make it easier for people if they do want
to go to the polls to go to the polls.
Why hasn't the United States done something like that. I
love the idea of a national holiday for election Day.
I know that we are seeing companies across the United
States of America giving their employees this particular day off.
(21:47):
They are encouraging their employees to be poll workers. You're
probably aware that the vast majority of our elections holding
officers and poll workers tend to be volunteers, and they
tend to be in a generation that's particularly susceptible to COVID,
and so we really do need, i'll say, other folks
(22:10):
to engage in this critically important process. My daughter, who
is twenty four is going to be a poll worker.
That's so great. We know that if we can engage
young people, particularly those under the age of um. The
earlier we engage them, we know that we will create
lifelong voters. And I think that's so important if we
(22:31):
want our democracy to be successful. Oh honey, she is engaged.
I'll bet she is. I'll bet she is. Why is
voter access so critically important, not just for Oregon and
other states, but for the country at large. Well, we
are wrestling with a number of difficult issues right now.
(22:52):
We know that the pandemic has impacted our historically underserved
communities of color uh and low incommunities disproportionately than others.
We are seeing wildfires erupt in the West in states
like Oregon, California, Washington, and Colorado. These devastating fires are
(23:14):
also impacting our communities that are on the economic edge.
And I think it's so important in this day and
age that in order to tackle these issues, that we
get as many voices to the table. And I think
that voting is the easiest way to begin that process.
We have got to open the door, make this process
(23:37):
more inclusive, and ensure that Americans understand their right, their
fundamental right to vote. We talk about the rights to
free speech and the right to exercise our freedom of religion.
We don't require you to sign up for either one
of those. It's just given to you by virtue of
your citizenship. The fundamental right to vote should be the saying,
(24:00):
by virtue of your citizenship, your residency, and your age,
you should be able to access this right. And I
absolutely think that America is stronger and better when we
all participate. Once again, John meet Chum, the wider the
vote has been wielded, the stronger we've become. We became
(24:23):
the most powerful country in the history of the world
as more people were allowed to participate. It's just a fact.
We have always grown stronger the more widely we've opened
our arms. So why doesn't everyone get on board and
make it easier to vote for the good of the country.
That's a question will continue to explore in this series
(24:46):
through conversations with the people who have been and continue
to fight for voting rights. Next week, on turnout, Mississippi
looked up and said, Lord, we got all these black people,
and these black people are really voting. It's going to
transform Mississippi. We can't have that. If so, you saw
(25:07):
this move to eliminate African Americans from the electorate. How
America's fight for voting rights is wrapped up in the
fight for racial equality. Hey, listeners, before you go, I
just want to remind you there's still time to check
your registration to make sure you can vote in this election,
(25:27):
and while you're at it, check your parents, your friends,
your cousins and ants. To make that process easier. I'm
partnering with the social justice organization Do Something. To find
out how to check your registration or to register to vote,
text Katie to three eight three eight three. You can
also go to vote dot org to find out where
and how to vote in your state, and subscribe to
(25:50):
my morning newsletter wake Up Call for the latest election information.
Turnout is a production of I Heart Media and Katie
Current Media. The executive producers are Katie Curic and Courtney Littz,
Supervising producers Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Eliza Costas
and Emily Kento. Editing by Derrick Clements and Lauren Hansen,
(26:13):
Mixing by Derrick Clements. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser and
special thanks to my right hand woman Adriana Fasio. You
can follow me in all my election coverage at Katie Currek. Meanwhile, yes,
I'm Katie Currik. Thanks so much for listening. Everyone, we'll
see you next time. I'd come here to urge every
(26:35):
person under the sound of my boss to go to
the polls on the third of November and vote
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