November 12, 2020 • 29 mins
On this episode of Turnout with Katie Couric, Katie shares her hopes and the need for open-mindedness as the country welcomes in the next administration. Then, we check in with some of our previous guests to get a temperature check on the country’s democracy now that the 2020 pandemic election is (almost) behind us. Jesse Littlewood from Common Cause shares his takeaways from the election, what the big turnout means for future races, and the new potential obstacles to voter access his organization is already watching and preparing to fight down the road. Finally, we check in with Annette Scott, a volunteer from the League of Women Voters, who is also a dedicated poll worker, on how Election Day went for her in New Jersey.
More about the topics and guests featured in this episode:
Read: I Gave Donald Trump a Chance After He Was Elected. The President’s Supporters Should Do the Same for Joe Biden Now (TIME)
Jesse Littlewood is the vice president for campaigns at Common Cause, a democracy and voting rights watchdog group.
Annette Scott, a volunteer with The League of Women Voters, working primarily with the New Jersey Reentry Corporation leading voter registration education.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
My fellow Americans. I'm Katie Couric, and this is turnout, volks.
The people of this nation have spoken. They've delivered us
a clear victory, a convincing victory. On Saturday, November seven,
after days of County Pennsylvania finally tipped the scales for
(00:26):
the Biden Harris ticket of victory four We the people.
We've won with the most votes ever cast from presidential
ticket in the history of the nation, seventy four millions.
That night in Wilmington, Delaware, the President elect and his
(00:48):
vice President elect sent out a message of unity. You
chose hope and unity, decency, science, at yes, truth. It's
time to put away the harsh rhetoric. Laura the temperature,
(01:12):
see each other again, listen to each other again. It
was a refreshing moment. It was also historic. But while
I may be the first woman in this office, I
will not be the last. On Sunday, the day after
those speeches, I woke up feeling like my old self again,
(01:32):
just forty, I mean four years older. Here's the thing
about President Donald Trump. I know him, or at least
I got to know him during my fifteen years on
the Today Shows. This is Today with p d. Curry.
Part of our job was to promote a reality show
(01:53):
I had never seen, called The Apprentice. Last Night, on
The Apprentice, I did the unexpected. I didn't even give
the fiery a chance to fight for her spot. His success,
in fact, was partially our responsibility. The Donald, as he
was known to Manhattan Night's, was very nice to me
during those years. He supported my colon cancer efforts after
(02:15):
my husband died, and I even attended his wedding to
Milania in two thousand five. In two thousand and sixteen
and the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I
believed Hillary would have been a far better president, and
I was disappointed and pretty shocked at the results. But
Hillary Clinton's gracious concession speech moved me. We have seen
(02:39):
that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought.
But I still believe in America and I always will.
And if you do, then we must accept this result
and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going
to be our president. We owe him an open mind
(03:00):
and the chance to lead. I tried to keep an
open mind. I prayed that somehow the awesome and humbling
job of leading our country would bring out the best
in Donald Trump. That he would rise to the occasion,
but instead it was the opposite. As Trump's character sank
(03:21):
lower and lower, we Americans were like the proverbial frog
in the water as that water got hotter and hotter.
Over the course of his presidency, we became slowly accustomed
to his norm breaking outrages until it reached a roiling boil.
I recognized that some people appreciated that Donald Trump said
(03:43):
it like it was, and that he became a vessel
for their fears and frustrations. But every day he seemed
to take his bare hands and rip apart the gaping
wound that already existed in our country, preventing any chance
of eventual healing. The birther who inexplicably promoted the false
(04:04):
notion that Barack Obama was not a US citizen, gave
birth to countless conspiracy theories and the nefarious groups that
trade in them, and he sewed mistrust in our institutions.
A reality star who locked his supporters into an alternate
reality and threw away the key. Donald Trump didn't grow
(04:25):
bigger in the job. He grew smaller. And now it
really is mourning in America. We have a president and
vice president who will conduct themselves with dignity, humility, and decency.
We must restore the soul of America. Our nation is
shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and
(04:49):
our darkest impulsals. Now what presidents say in this battle matters.
It's time for our better angelail tonight. They have a
huge task, of course, making millions of Americans who didn't
support them feel seen, heard, and cared about. They must
(05:10):
help them understand that the changing demographics of our country
isn't something to fear, but to celebrate. And job number
one is to lead the country out of an out
of control pandemic that's leaving families grieving over the lives
and livelihoods lost. I'm an optimist, but I'm not cock eyed.
(05:32):
We may never agree on everything, but I'm looking forward to,
as Joe Biden said, lowering the temperature of our national
thermostat and seeing each other as human beings, not bumper
stickers or lawn signs. Maybe then we can get back
to work and start making progress on some enormous problems
(05:53):
that won't just go away on their own. I wanted
Donald Trump to succeed, and I gave him a chance
for all those who voted for him, please do the
same for the incoming administration. So keep an open mind
and maybe, just maybe we can all work together. We're
(06:17):
going to take a short break. When we come back,
let's see how our democracy is doing. Now that the
election is almost in our rear view mirror, Now that
this unprecedented pandemic election is technically behind us, we thought
(06:41):
it'd be helpful to get a temperature read on our democracy.
Elections were far better than some of the worst case scenarios.
To do that, we brought back Jesse Littlewood of Common Cause,
and it's still had some challenges for voters that we
think could be improved because democray he works best when
more people participate, and we think that there's a lot
(07:04):
of reforms in the elections to build on. But democracy
needs to keep pushing forward to have a democracy that
truly works for everyone. During the early voting period and
on election Day, Common Cause was out there and across
the country keeping an eye on democracy at work. So
the Election Protection Coalition that Common Cause is proud to
(07:24):
be one of the leaders of not only has deployed
people in the field and too over forty states helping
to monitor the pulling places. Um, you know, many of
our volunteers were in a car or on a bicycle
sort of traveling between a couple of pulling places to
make sure that the election was running smoothly. You know,
our partners, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights under law
(07:45):
Man the eight six six are about hotline, which received
a record number of calls. And that's not necessarily because
there was a record number of problems, but there were
people who learned that there was a resource for them
to answer their questions to find out where they're polling
place was, to understand what kind of ID they needed,
and they were able to get their questions answered and
(08:07):
actually participate. Now that data is actually really vital to
be able to make a plan to change any of
the problems that did crop up on election day. So
that data, the data that comes from our field volunteers,
the data that we found from our social media monitoring program,
we're going to turn that into uh usable actionable insights
(08:28):
for state legislatures and other decision makers to see where
there were systemic problems and be able to address those
on their state level. In this country, we administer elections
on a state by state level. Sometimes county by county,
and so being able to actually be a source of
information and to help advocate for voters of any party
(08:51):
to participate and get over some of these hurdles is
something we're gonna do, you know. I think one thing
that I found really remarkable was in our social media
monitoring program. You know, we set that program up to
not only look for the disinformation that is attacking voters,
you know, telling people the wrong ways to vote, or
(09:11):
telling them that their vote doesn't count, or trying to
undercut their belief in the integrity of the system. We
also set that system up because we know many voters
don't know the hotline number or don't know who to
call if they have a problem. And we found just
a remarkable number of instances of voters tweeting out that
they had a problem that they were told they had
(09:31):
to use a provisional ballot, or that there was a
long line at their polling place, or they couldn't be
found in the voter rules. And we were able to
connect with those voters because we have this network of
volunteers and tell them, Okay, you can actually get your
problem solved. You can call eight six six r vote um,
if you're being told to use a provisional ballot, you
should talk to the s R Vote volunteer or your
(09:52):
administrator and find out why, because maybe you're just in
the wrong polling place, and if you go to a
different polling place, you won't have to vote provisionally. So
we saw a lot of folks use these social media
tools to kind of throw up a flare and ask
for help. And because we had this network of volunteers,
we were able to do a little bit of a
search and rescue mission. We found those folks and we
(10:14):
were able to get them that information. And because social
media is a publishing platform, other people saw that too
when they saw their friends ask for help and that
a resource was there. I think that's important on an
individual level, but also, and I'd be a little cheesy here,
it's it's also important on kind of a societal democratic
(10:34):
participation level. There's so much happening right now in especially
on social media that is a competing it's a partisan warfare,
it's two parties attacking each other either about policies or
about the election process. And to see that there was individuals, voters,
people just like them saying we're here to help you.
I don't care what party you're part of. I don't
(10:55):
care who you're voting for. You have a right to vote.
I'm here to help you. I think that actually matters
to push back on the way that you know, politics
right now is kind of a blood sport and a
winner take all contests, and instead we were able to
have democracy and action of voters helping voters, you know,
stepping outside of our own partisan bubble and saying there's
(11:17):
gonna be problems that people have. I don't really care
where or you know, what party they are, but I'm
going to step in and try and help them. And
I think that that goes to the process of rebuilding
a stronger civic fabric in this country. Jesse says, big picture,
there are two major takeaways from election. Number one takeaway
(11:39):
from me is that when you give people opportunities to
vote on a day other than the first Tuesday in November,
they will take you up on the offer and it
will make your first day in November election day run
much smoother. Expanding early vote, expanding vote by mail, those
are huge benefits not just two voters, but to the
(11:59):
people who need to administer the elections because it reduces
the volume that you have to go through on that day.
I also think that voters are getting the message pretty
clearly that UM, their vote matters when you see that
the margin of victory and some of these contests is
really really narrow. Now, Common Cause is not a big
proponent of the electoral college. In fact, we support the
(12:21):
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact because the way the electoral
college works UM is a real voter depression in terms
of making folks feel like their vote doesn't actually count
in the presidential contests in many states. But as we saw,
there are some very close races and some of these
key battleground states, and I think it sends a message
clearly to the voters that every vote does matter, and
(12:44):
the narrow margin of victory means how important is for
everyone to turn out and make their voice heard in
our democracy when we come back, what that big turnout
could mean for future elections. That's right after this. I
(13:11):
believe that we had a higher turnout than almost at
any other point in the history of the electorate. Again,
here's Jesse Littlewood of Common Cause, and that is I
think a testament to the great work of elections workers,
as well as the changes that we made to the
election systems in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which could
have crashed our turnout and instead it actually increased it
(13:34):
from the last four years, which is a remarkable success story. Now,
there were very real problems that happened to individuals over
the course of election day. There's far too many barriers
to be able to exercise your vote, especially when it
comes to people of color and low income communities, or
people with disabilities, or other folks like students who still
(13:55):
have a lot of barriers in their way in order
to be able to vote. But we saw no large
scale meltdown of the election process, and I think that
has a lot to do with the fact that the
changes that we made in the process included expanding the
vote by mail system to far more voters than ever before,
and it also the number of early days that voters
(14:17):
could participate meant that a very large portion of the
votes were already in before the singular election day on
the first Tuesday in November. And because of that, that
reduced some of the administrative challenges that we've seen in
the past. High turnout is good news, but Jesse says
(14:37):
there were still those familiar barriers to the ballot. The
thing I don't want to do is erase the challenges
that some people still have and being able to exercise
their right to vote. And those challenges don't happen just
on election day. They come through restrictive laws like strict
voter ID laws that we know disenfranchise individuals, particularly voters
(14:57):
of color more so than others. Those barriers still exist,
right and the challenges of removing people unduly from the
voter roles when they haven't been active in the most
recent elections, these challenges are still there. And yet despite
that democracy one people overcame those barriers. More people participated
as a voter in this election than in previous periods,
(15:19):
and that was because of the interest in participating in
the democracy and the fact that elections workers really stood
up to the challenge and we're able to do more
um in terms of actually administering this election. Despite not
having the resources that they needed to have to be
able to fully administer it in the challenges that we had,
(15:41):
they did a lot with what they were able to do,
so I would call it certainly a qualified success. I
wouldn't say that it was perfect because democracy is a process,
it is not a destination, and we are still need
to eliminate any of the barriers two people participating in
our democracy, of which they're there, still exists far too many.
(16:01):
This election also brought to the surface new potential obstructions
to voting that organizations like Common Cause are watching and
plant to fight. While we were expecting a large amount
of disinformation about the elections, I think I was still
surprised by the volume, the consistency, and the sort of
(16:23):
ferocity of it. And I think while we have seen
it increase sort of year over year, I am concerned
that specifically around the disinformation about the participation in democracy
will continue to be just a tactic used by partisans
in order to secure victory for their preferred candidate. Uh
(16:43):
whether or not that becomes really part of the party
and the campaign apparatus remains to be seen. We know
that there were a number of legal challenges filed by
the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee about certain
types of reforms that were made to do expansion of
the voting process, including the vote by mail system and
(17:04):
early voting drop boxes, and how many are allowed per
county that kind of legal push to restrict reforms that
could give more people access to voting, I think is
really troubling and something that will be really important to
pay attention to in the future. While it appears that
(17:25):
President Trump has lost reelection, Republicans across the country did
not fare that badly, and so it is going to
be interesting to see how the Republican National Committee and
the Republican Party decides to steer their course when it
comes to deciding what are the kinds of voting reforms
they they want to encourage. We're kind of voting reforms
(17:45):
they want to discourage. What is troubling about that is
that by and large, states and the elections administrators in
those states have a pretty good idea, especially when they're
are in dialogue with voter protection groups, what voters need
to be successful and to be able to participate and
to see it become a key campaign tactic to try
(18:06):
and change the rules of this system. I don't think
that is beneficial to voters or to our democracy. So
we're gonna watch dog that kind of process um in
the future, as we continue to look at how polling
places are deployed and other kinds of reforms. UM, we'd
like to see a lot of the kind of reforms
that clearly increased turnout remain in place. UM As we
(18:30):
voters are now starting to get experienced with more vote
by mail options, those are positive reforms that will help
more voters turn out. So we'd like to see what
can be done to ensure that those are permanent reforms
that are available to more voters in future elections. It's
(18:52):
great that we saw more Republicans, Independents, and Democrats participate
in this election than any other. That's the bottom line
of what a good democracy it looks like is when
there is a robust contest between competing ideas and the
body politics decides to make their voice heard in what
that outcome is going to be. But my hope, and
(19:13):
this may be something of rose color glasses, but my
hope is that it's also people determining for themselves that
it's important to be an active citizen right and to
actually decide for themselves that what they're gonna do is
they're going to participate in one of the ways, one
of the most important ways, not the only way, but
one of the ways of making their voice heard in
(19:34):
shaping the future. And the decisions of our country, and
that means deciding to vote. And I hope that everyone,
regardless of your political belief, decides that that is something
you will continue to do throughout future elections. And as
for President Trump so far refusal to concede, Jesse says,
the fact is the process continues, whether a losing candidate
(19:57):
wants it to or not. The will the people decides,
the votes were cast, the votes are counted, the process
moves forward, and those are that's who is the next
person elected as president or in any other office. So
in some sense, it's immaterial. The president's decision to not
concede the election is immaterial to the progress of our
(20:19):
electoral system. And that's the way it should be because
it's not up to the person in the office to
decide what the process is. It's up to the voters
in our democracy and the process that's laid out through
our laws. But Jesse says, the president's continued rhetoric is
crossing a line that we've never seen before. It is
(20:40):
corrosive to our democratic process and participation by voters in
future elections. When a losing candidate doesn't concede the election,
that's just the reality, because then it makes individuals potentially
not trust the results of the system or the way
that the system is set up and operates. I don't
(21:00):
think that they get well, that's not the way that
the process plays out. I think it is really disappointing,
and I think it is dispiriting from someone my perspective
of someone who wants to see a robust democracy not
only in but in all future elections, to see um,
that kind of response coming from someone who you know
(21:21):
is going to you know, leave kicking and screaming instead
of reflecting on the process played out and that the
if the voters have spoken, there the will that they're
going to accept. When I think about the fact that
many top Republicans, although some have congratulated, you know, and
said we congratulate President Eleft Biden, many have not, I
(21:43):
think it's again it ultimately it's immaterial to the results
of the election, which will play out based off of
the will of the people, the votes that are counted,
and the process that goes forward. I think it is
really disappointing and it is potentially a source of additional
inflict among voters and our country when at the result
(22:04):
of a tension filled, highly partisan, really intense election that
they are unwilling to quickly move the country forward when
the result is very clear those Republican elected officials were
elected through a democratic process just like the kind that
we had days ago that clearly has resulted in many
(22:26):
races being called. I wish that they would, um, you know,
take the opportunity to stand up for the process, even
if the candidate that they preferred wasn't the victor, and
put their country over their party. Jesse reiterates that there
was plenty of hope in the election process. I am
(22:48):
really just floored by the response of election workers poll workers. Uh.
You know, we had a whole wave of young people
applying to be poll workers, so that poll workers who
are historically older, we're able to not be at risk
of potential coronavirus. Uh. You know at the polling place,
(23:10):
we saw more volunteers in the election protection program than
we've seen in any other cycle that we've been involved in.
They're just to me, it felt like there was a
wave of civic participation, not just in voting, but in
putting democracy into action and stepping out of your partisan
self and into a democratic self and helping to build
a stronger civic society and a civic fabric where we
(23:32):
encourage each other, even if we don't agree on all
the issues, encourage each other to participate. And speaking of
strong civic participation, before we go today, there's someone else
we wanted to check in with. I continued up until
October registry, going to the parole facilities, the state parole facilities.
(23:52):
You may remember in that Scott the volunteer for the
League of Women Voters. She helps register return citizens in
New Jersey for the first time in a hundred and
seventy six years when the law the law it went
in effect March seventeen that those on her all ovovation
could vote. She's featured in episode two of the series.
I wanted to make sure that they were all registered. Well,
(24:16):
of course, she's also a long time poll worker. I'm
what they call a permanent worker. And what we what
we had to do is we had to go before
we could election day, you had to go to a
refresher course. And they had set up quite a few
of them in different areas. And I went to the
(24:36):
refresher course. And what they do was they combine those
like myself who have been pro worker for years, senior
pro workers and also all the new ones, and they
had like old hundred new ones, and there were various ages,
but mostly younger because the majority of all workers are seniors,
(25:00):
because most people don't want to take off the day
even though we're paid two hundred dollars for the day,
but a lot of them. You have to be there
five fifteen in the morning because the law says you
must have the voting machines ready by six am, so
you have to get there early enough to set up
the machine, do the paperwork, all that you have to
do so that if someone comes in at six am,
(25:24):
you have to have that ready to vote, that machining
ready for them, and then eight o'clock is the last time.
So it's a very very long day and a lot
of people, you know, you have children, whatnot. From five
fifteen in the morning to eight to night. How could
you do it? But for for college students, for other people,
(25:44):
they've been begging for some time to try to get
a younger audience, a younger participants in so that we
would be able to accommodate because as more and more
of the sears retire or you know, they passed or
they're not able to anymore. There's not enough people to
(26:06):
replace them. And that's already looking beyond and the changes
in her state that she hopes will continue to expand
voting access. Yes, there's still things that need to be
changed and need to be you know, worked on and whatnot,
but hopefully we will continue to see change and what
(26:29):
I know that they're working on in New Jersey, but
you know, it doesn't have the priority of course compared
to COVID, but those who are incarcerated in New Jersey,
they want to eliminate that as a barrier because two
states Maine in Vermont, never had it so if you're
(26:51):
incarcerated for roll of privation, you could always vote. And
they were hoping that New Jersey would have been the third,
but it didn't get the support that it needed, so
I didn't do it. And she is already organizing to
help more return citizens register for future elections. I was
asked by the assistant director of the State Parole Board, Okay,
(27:15):
to please return to the facilities where I had registered
people on parolea probation, and he added more to it.
He gave me, he emailed me, He asked me to
visit this facility, and I said, oh, I'm sorry, I
don't know where it's. You know the address. I don't
know of this place. He said, oh, so he sent
(27:38):
it to me and on it about six more places.
So right now in New Jersey, there's over eighty three
thousand people on Parolla probation. And if we only registered
three thousand, that's a lot of people we missed. Huh.
So hopefully going back to these facilities, I've I've emailed
(28:00):
all the people who said they wanted to help me.
I've emailed them all and I'm waiting for them to
respond because I'm hoping to do it the first of
December to go start visiting facility that. Thank you, Annette
for all your hard work. That does it for this
(28:23):
week's episode of Turnout. Thanks everyone so much for listening
and to keep an eye on the news, you can
subscribe to my morning newsletter wake Up Call. Just go
to Katie Currek dot com to sign up. Until next time,
I'm Katie Couric and take care Democracy Fighters Everywhere. Turnout
(28:54):
is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Couric Media.
The executive producers are Katie Couric and Courtney Littz. Supervising
producers Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Eliza Costas and
Emily Pento. Editing by Derreck Clements and Lauren Hansen, Mixing
by Derrick Clements. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser and special
(29:16):
thanks to my right hand woman Adriana Fasio. You can
follow me in all my election coverage at Katie Curry. Meanwhile, yes,
I'm Katie Curry. Thanks so much for listening everyone. We'll
see you next time.
My fellow Americans. I'm Katie Couric, and this is turnout, volks.
The people of this nation have spoken. They've delivered us
a clear victory, a convincing victory. On Saturday, November seven,
after days of County Pennsylvania finally tipped the scales for
(00:26):
the Biden Harris ticket of victory four We the people.
We've won with the most votes ever cast from presidential
ticket in the history of the nation, seventy four millions.
That night in Wilmington, Delaware, the President elect and his
(00:48):
vice President elect sent out a message of unity. You
chose hope and unity, decency, science, at yes, truth. It's
time to put away the harsh rhetoric. Laura the temperature,
(01:12):
see each other again, listen to each other again. It
was a refreshing moment. It was also historic. But while
I may be the first woman in this office, I
will not be the last. On Sunday, the day after
those speeches, I woke up feeling like my old self again,
(01:32):
just forty, I mean four years older. Here's the thing
about President Donald Trump. I know him, or at least
I got to know him during my fifteen years on
the Today Shows. This is Today with p d. Curry.
Part of our job was to promote a reality show
(01:53):
I had never seen, called The Apprentice. Last Night, on
The Apprentice, I did the unexpected. I didn't even give
the fiery a chance to fight for her spot. His success,
in fact, was partially our responsibility. The Donald, as he
was known to Manhattan Night's, was very nice to me
during those years. He supported my colon cancer efforts after
(02:15):
my husband died, and I even attended his wedding to
Milania in two thousand five. In two thousand and sixteen
and the contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I
believed Hillary would have been a far better president, and
I was disappointed and pretty shocked at the results. But
Hillary Clinton's gracious concession speech moved me. We have seen
(02:39):
that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought.
But I still believe in America and I always will.
And if you do, then we must accept this result
and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going
to be our president. We owe him an open mind
(03:00):
and the chance to lead. I tried to keep an
open mind. I prayed that somehow the awesome and humbling
job of leading our country would bring out the best
in Donald Trump. That he would rise to the occasion,
but instead it was the opposite. As Trump's character sank
(03:21):
lower and lower, we Americans were like the proverbial frog
in the water as that water got hotter and hotter.
Over the course of his presidency, we became slowly accustomed
to his norm breaking outrages until it reached a roiling boil.
I recognized that some people appreciated that Donald Trump said
(03:43):
it like it was, and that he became a vessel
for their fears and frustrations. But every day he seemed
to take his bare hands and rip apart the gaping
wound that already existed in our country, preventing any chance
of eventual healing. The birther who inexplicably promoted the false
(04:04):
notion that Barack Obama was not a US citizen, gave
birth to countless conspiracy theories and the nefarious groups that
trade in them, and he sewed mistrust in our institutions.
A reality star who locked his supporters into an alternate
reality and threw away the key. Donald Trump didn't grow
(04:25):
bigger in the job. He grew smaller. And now it
really is mourning in America. We have a president and
vice president who will conduct themselves with dignity, humility, and decency.
We must restore the soul of America. Our nation is
shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and
(04:49):
our darkest impulsals. Now what presidents say in this battle matters.
It's time for our better angelail tonight. They have a
huge task, of course, making millions of Americans who didn't
support them feel seen, heard, and cared about. They must
(05:10):
help them understand that the changing demographics of our country
isn't something to fear, but to celebrate. And job number
one is to lead the country out of an out
of control pandemic that's leaving families grieving over the lives
and livelihoods lost. I'm an optimist, but I'm not cock eyed.
(05:32):
We may never agree on everything, but I'm looking forward to,
as Joe Biden said, lowering the temperature of our national
thermostat and seeing each other as human beings, not bumper
stickers or lawn signs. Maybe then we can get back
to work and start making progress on some enormous problems
(05:53):
that won't just go away on their own. I wanted
Donald Trump to succeed, and I gave him a chance
for all those who voted for him, please do the
same for the incoming administration. So keep an open mind
and maybe, just maybe we can all work together. We're
(06:17):
going to take a short break. When we come back,
let's see how our democracy is doing. Now that the
election is almost in our rear view mirror, Now that
this unprecedented pandemic election is technically behind us, we thought
(06:41):
it'd be helpful to get a temperature read on our democracy.
Elections were far better than some of the worst case scenarios.
To do that, we brought back Jesse Littlewood of Common Cause,
and it's still had some challenges for voters that we
think could be improved because democray he works best when
more people participate, and we think that there's a lot
(07:04):
of reforms in the elections to build on. But democracy
needs to keep pushing forward to have a democracy that
truly works for everyone. During the early voting period and
on election Day, Common Cause was out there and across
the country keeping an eye on democracy at work. So
the Election Protection Coalition that Common Cause is proud to
(07:24):
be one of the leaders of not only has deployed
people in the field and too over forty states helping
to monitor the pulling places. Um, you know, many of
our volunteers were in a car or on a bicycle
sort of traveling between a couple of pulling places to
make sure that the election was running smoothly. You know,
our partners, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights under law
(07:45):
Man the eight six six are about hotline, which received
a record number of calls. And that's not necessarily because
there was a record number of problems, but there were
people who learned that there was a resource for them
to answer their questions to find out where they're polling
place was, to understand what kind of ID they needed,
and they were able to get their questions answered and
(08:07):
actually participate. Now that data is actually really vital to
be able to make a plan to change any of
the problems that did crop up on election day. So
that data, the data that comes from our field volunteers,
the data that we found from our social media monitoring program,
we're going to turn that into uh usable actionable insights
(08:28):
for state legislatures and other decision makers to see where
there were systemic problems and be able to address those
on their state level. In this country, we administer elections
on a state by state level. Sometimes county by county,
and so being able to actually be a source of
information and to help advocate for voters of any party
(08:51):
to participate and get over some of these hurdles is
something we're gonna do, you know. I think one thing
that I found really remarkable was in our social media
monitoring program. You know, we set that program up to
not only look for the disinformation that is attacking voters,
you know, telling people the wrong ways to vote, or
(09:11):
telling them that their vote doesn't count, or trying to
undercut their belief in the integrity of the system. We
also set that system up because we know many voters
don't know the hotline number or don't know who to
call if they have a problem. And we found just
a remarkable number of instances of voters tweeting out that
they had a problem that they were told they had
(09:31):
to use a provisional ballot, or that there was a
long line at their polling place, or they couldn't be
found in the voter rules. And we were able to
connect with those voters because we have this network of
volunteers and tell them, Okay, you can actually get your
problem solved. You can call eight six six r vote um,
if you're being told to use a provisional ballot, you
should talk to the s R Vote volunteer or your
(09:52):
administrator and find out why, because maybe you're just in
the wrong polling place, and if you go to a
different polling place, you won't have to vote provisionally. So
we saw a lot of folks use these social media
tools to kind of throw up a flare and ask
for help. And because we had this network of volunteers,
we were able to do a little bit of a
search and rescue mission. We found those folks and we
(10:14):
were able to get them that information. And because social
media is a publishing platform, other people saw that too
when they saw their friends ask for help and that
a resource was there. I think that's important on an
individual level, but also, and I'd be a little cheesy here,
it's it's also important on kind of a societal democratic
(10:34):
participation level. There's so much happening right now in especially
on social media that is a competing it's a partisan warfare,
it's two parties attacking each other either about policies or
about the election process. And to see that there was individuals, voters,
people just like them saying we're here to help you.
I don't care what party you're part of. I don't
(10:55):
care who you're voting for. You have a right to vote.
I'm here to help you. I think that actually matters
to push back on the way that you know, politics
right now is kind of a blood sport and a
winner take all contests, and instead we were able to
have democracy and action of voters helping voters, you know,
stepping outside of our own partisan bubble and saying there's
(11:17):
gonna be problems that people have. I don't really care
where or you know, what party they are, but I'm
going to step in and try and help them. And
I think that that goes to the process of rebuilding
a stronger civic fabric in this country. Jesse says, big picture,
there are two major takeaways from election. Number one takeaway
(11:39):
from me is that when you give people opportunities to
vote on a day other than the first Tuesday in November,
they will take you up on the offer and it
will make your first day in November election day run
much smoother. Expanding early vote, expanding vote by mail, those
are huge benefits not just two voters, but to the
(11:59):
people who need to administer the elections because it reduces
the volume that you have to go through on that day.
I also think that voters are getting the message pretty
clearly that UM, their vote matters when you see that
the margin of victory and some of these contests is
really really narrow. Now, Common Cause is not a big
proponent of the electoral college. In fact, we support the
(12:21):
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact because the way the electoral
college works UM is a real voter depression in terms
of making folks feel like their vote doesn't actually count
in the presidential contests in many states. But as we saw,
there are some very close races and some of these
key battleground states, and I think it sends a message
clearly to the voters that every vote does matter, and
(12:44):
the narrow margin of victory means how important is for
everyone to turn out and make their voice heard in
our democracy when we come back, what that big turnout
could mean for future elections. That's right after this. I
(13:11):
believe that we had a higher turnout than almost at
any other point in the history of the electorate. Again,
here's Jesse Littlewood of Common Cause, and that is I
think a testament to the great work of elections workers,
as well as the changes that we made to the
election systems in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which could
have crashed our turnout and instead it actually increased it
(13:34):
from the last four years, which is a remarkable success story. Now,
there were very real problems that happened to individuals over
the course of election day. There's far too many barriers
to be able to exercise your vote, especially when it
comes to people of color and low income communities, or
people with disabilities, or other folks like students who still
(13:55):
have a lot of barriers in their way in order
to be able to vote. But we saw no large
scale meltdown of the election process, and I think that
has a lot to do with the fact that the
changes that we made in the process included expanding the
vote by mail system to far more voters than ever before,
and it also the number of early days that voters
(14:17):
could participate meant that a very large portion of the
votes were already in before the singular election day on
the first Tuesday in November. And because of that, that
reduced some of the administrative challenges that we've seen in
the past. High turnout is good news, but Jesse says
(14:37):
there were still those familiar barriers to the ballot. The
thing I don't want to do is erase the challenges
that some people still have and being able to exercise
their right to vote. And those challenges don't happen just
on election day. They come through restrictive laws like strict
voter ID laws that we know disenfranchise individuals, particularly voters
(14:57):
of color more so than others. Those barriers still exist,
right and the challenges of removing people unduly from the
voter roles when they haven't been active in the most
recent elections, these challenges are still there. And yet despite
that democracy one people overcame those barriers. More people participated
as a voter in this election than in previous periods,
(15:19):
and that was because of the interest in participating in
the democracy and the fact that elections workers really stood
up to the challenge and we're able to do more
um in terms of actually administering this election. Despite not
having the resources that they needed to have to be
able to fully administer it in the challenges that we had,
(15:41):
they did a lot with what they were able to do,
so I would call it certainly a qualified success. I
wouldn't say that it was perfect because democracy is a process,
it is not a destination, and we are still need
to eliminate any of the barriers two people participating in
our democracy, of which they're there, still exists far too many.
(16:01):
This election also brought to the surface new potential obstructions
to voting that organizations like Common Cause are watching and
plant to fight. While we were expecting a large amount
of disinformation about the elections, I think I was still
surprised by the volume, the consistency, and the sort of
(16:23):
ferocity of it. And I think while we have seen
it increase sort of year over year, I am concerned
that specifically around the disinformation about the participation in democracy
will continue to be just a tactic used by partisans
in order to secure victory for their preferred candidate. Uh
(16:43):
whether or not that becomes really part of the party
and the campaign apparatus remains to be seen. We know
that there were a number of legal challenges filed by
the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee about certain
types of reforms that were made to do expansion of
the voting process, including the vote by mail system and
(17:04):
early voting drop boxes, and how many are allowed per
county that kind of legal push to restrict reforms that
could give more people access to voting, I think is
really troubling and something that will be really important to
pay attention to in the future. While it appears that
(17:25):
President Trump has lost reelection, Republicans across the country did
not fare that badly, and so it is going to
be interesting to see how the Republican National Committee and
the Republican Party decides to steer their course when it
comes to deciding what are the kinds of voting reforms
they they want to encourage. We're kind of voting reforms
(17:45):
they want to discourage. What is troubling about that is
that by and large, states and the elections administrators in
those states have a pretty good idea, especially when they're
are in dialogue with voter protection groups, what voters need
to be successful and to be able to participate and
to see it become a key campaign tactic to try
(18:06):
and change the rules of this system. I don't think
that is beneficial to voters or to our democracy. So
we're gonna watch dog that kind of process um in
the future, as we continue to look at how polling
places are deployed and other kinds of reforms. UM, we'd
like to see a lot of the kind of reforms
that clearly increased turnout remain in place. UM As we
(18:30):
voters are now starting to get experienced with more vote
by mail options, those are positive reforms that will help
more voters turn out. So we'd like to see what
can be done to ensure that those are permanent reforms
that are available to more voters in future elections. It's
(18:52):
great that we saw more Republicans, Independents, and Democrats participate
in this election than any other. That's the bottom line
of what a good democracy it looks like is when
there is a robust contest between competing ideas and the
body politics decides to make their voice heard in what
that outcome is going to be. But my hope, and
(19:13):
this may be something of rose color glasses, but my
hope is that it's also people determining for themselves that
it's important to be an active citizen right and to
actually decide for themselves that what they're gonna do is
they're going to participate in one of the ways, one
of the most important ways, not the only way, but
one of the ways of making their voice heard in
(19:34):
shaping the future. And the decisions of our country, and
that means deciding to vote. And I hope that everyone,
regardless of your political belief, decides that that is something
you will continue to do throughout future elections. And as
for President Trump so far refusal to concede, Jesse says,
the fact is the process continues, whether a losing candidate
(19:57):
wants it to or not. The will the people decides,
the votes were cast, the votes are counted, the process
moves forward, and those are that's who is the next
person elected as president or in any other office. So
in some sense, it's immaterial. The president's decision to not
concede the election is immaterial to the progress of our
(20:19):
electoral system. And that's the way it should be because
it's not up to the person in the office to
decide what the process is. It's up to the voters
in our democracy and the process that's laid out through
our laws. But Jesse says, the president's continued rhetoric is
crossing a line that we've never seen before. It is
(20:40):
corrosive to our democratic process and participation by voters in
future elections. When a losing candidate doesn't concede the election,
that's just the reality, because then it makes individuals potentially
not trust the results of the system or the way
that the system is set up and operates. I don't
(21:00):
think that they get well, that's not the way that
the process plays out. I think it is really disappointing,
and I think it is dispiriting from someone my perspective
of someone who wants to see a robust democracy not
only in but in all future elections, to see um,
that kind of response coming from someone who you know
(21:21):
is going to you know, leave kicking and screaming instead
of reflecting on the process played out and that the
if the voters have spoken, there the will that they're
going to accept. When I think about the fact that
many top Republicans, although some have congratulated, you know, and
said we congratulate President Eleft Biden, many have not, I
(21:43):
think it's again it ultimately it's immaterial to the results
of the election, which will play out based off of
the will of the people, the votes that are counted,
and the process that goes forward. I think it is
really disappointing and it is potentially a source of additional
inflict among voters and our country when at the result
(22:04):
of a tension filled, highly partisan, really intense election that
they are unwilling to quickly move the country forward when
the result is very clear those Republican elected officials were
elected through a democratic process just like the kind that
we had days ago that clearly has resulted in many
(22:26):
races being called. I wish that they would, um, you know,
take the opportunity to stand up for the process, even
if the candidate that they preferred wasn't the victor, and
put their country over their party. Jesse reiterates that there
was plenty of hope in the election process. I am
(22:48):
really just floored by the response of election workers poll workers. Uh.
You know, we had a whole wave of young people
applying to be poll workers, so that poll workers who
are historically older, we're able to not be at risk
of potential coronavirus. Uh. You know at the polling place,
(23:10):
we saw more volunteers in the election protection program than
we've seen in any other cycle that we've been involved in.
They're just to me, it felt like there was a
wave of civic participation, not just in voting, but in
putting democracy into action and stepping out of your partisan
self and into a democratic self and helping to build
a stronger civic society and a civic fabric where we
(23:32):
encourage each other, even if we don't agree on all
the issues, encourage each other to participate. And speaking of
strong civic participation, before we go today, there's someone else
we wanted to check in with. I continued up until
October registry, going to the parole facilities, the state parole facilities.
(23:52):
You may remember in that Scott the volunteer for the
League of Women Voters. She helps register return citizens in
New Jersey for the first time in a hundred and
seventy six years when the law the law it went
in effect March seventeen that those on her all ovovation
could vote. She's featured in episode two of the series.
I wanted to make sure that they were all registered. Well,
(24:16):
of course, she's also a long time poll worker. I'm
what they call a permanent worker. And what we what
we had to do is we had to go before
we could election day, you had to go to a
refresher course. And they had set up quite a few
of them in different areas. And I went to the
(24:36):
refresher course. And what they do was they combine those
like myself who have been pro worker for years, senior
pro workers and also all the new ones, and they
had like old hundred new ones, and there were various ages,
but mostly younger because the majority of all workers are seniors,
(25:00):
because most people don't want to take off the day
even though we're paid two hundred dollars for the day,
but a lot of them. You have to be there
five fifteen in the morning because the law says you
must have the voting machines ready by six am, so
you have to get there early enough to set up
the machine, do the paperwork, all that you have to
do so that if someone comes in at six am,
(25:24):
you have to have that ready to vote, that machining
ready for them, and then eight o'clock is the last time.
So it's a very very long day and a lot
of people, you know, you have children, whatnot. From five
fifteen in the morning to eight to night. How could
you do it? But for for college students, for other people,
(25:44):
they've been begging for some time to try to get
a younger audience, a younger participants in so that we
would be able to accommodate because as more and more
of the sears retire or you know, they passed or
they're not able to anymore. There's not enough people to
(26:06):
replace them. And that's already looking beyond and the changes
in her state that she hopes will continue to expand
voting access. Yes, there's still things that need to be
changed and need to be you know, worked on and whatnot,
but hopefully we will continue to see change and what
(26:29):
I know that they're working on in New Jersey, but
you know, it doesn't have the priority of course compared
to COVID, but those who are incarcerated in New Jersey,
they want to eliminate that as a barrier because two
states Maine in Vermont, never had it so if you're
(26:51):
incarcerated for roll of privation, you could always vote. And
they were hoping that New Jersey would have been the third,
but it didn't get the support that it needed, so
I didn't do it. And she is already organizing to
help more return citizens register for future elections. I was
asked by the assistant director of the State Parole Board, Okay,
(27:15):
to please return to the facilities where I had registered
people on parolea probation, and he added more to it.
He gave me, he emailed me, He asked me to
visit this facility, and I said, oh, I'm sorry, I
don't know where it's. You know the address. I don't
know of this place. He said, oh, so he sent
(27:38):
it to me and on it about six more places.
So right now in New Jersey, there's over eighty three
thousand people on Parolla probation. And if we only registered
three thousand, that's a lot of people we missed. Huh.
So hopefully going back to these facilities, I've I've emailed
(28:00):
all the people who said they wanted to help me.
I've emailed them all and I'm waiting for them to
respond because I'm hoping to do it the first of
December to go start visiting facility that. Thank you, Annette
for all your hard work. That does it for this
(28:23):
week's episode of Turnout. Thanks everyone so much for listening
and to keep an eye on the news, you can
subscribe to my morning newsletter wake Up Call. Just go
to Katie Currek dot com to sign up. Until next time,
I'm Katie Couric and take care Democracy Fighters Everywhere. Turnout
(28:54):
is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Couric Media.
The executive producers are Katie Couric and Courtney Littz. Supervising
producers Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Eliza Costas and
Emily Pento. Editing by Derreck Clements and Lauren Hansen, Mixing
by Derrick Clements. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser and special
(29:16):
thanks to my right hand woman Adriana Fasio. You can
follow me in all my election coverage at Katie Curry. Meanwhile, yes,
I'm Katie Curry. Thanks so much for listening everyone. We'll
see you next time.
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