September 28, 2020 • 27 mins
If you want to change, preserve, or build a better America, there’s one easy way to make your voice heard: Vote. This year, iHeartRadio is teaming up with over 20 incredible celebrities (plus a handful of our most popular podcasters) to get the country excited to go vote, broadcasting the personal, emotional and heartfelt stories behind why showing up to the ballot box means so much-- not just as individuals, but for our entire nation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production of I Heart Radio. Listen.
You already know this, but it's an election year. You
might already be tired of hearing about it. But here's
the thing. Democracy doesn't work without you. I'm Holly Frying,
and I'm sitting down with many of my fellow podcasters,
from Will Ferrell to Stephanie Rule, as well as other luminaries,
(00:27):
to find out about their relationships with the ballot box
and ultimately just to find out why they vote. I
hope you're exercising your right to vote, and if you're not,
I hope that their stories inspire you. Welcome to today's
unique and marvelous episode of Why I'm Voting. I have
(00:48):
the great honor of welcoming two guests at once to
the show, so that is new. Amy Lee, of course,
is a musician and songwriter. She's the co founder and
lead vocalist of the band of in Essence is one
new Umorous awards for her work, and the new effinescent
single Use My Voice was just released as a celebration
of and I quote, the power of speaking out in
(01:09):
order to promote a more just world. And Amy and
I are going to be joined today by Andy Bernstein,
who helped you found the nonpartisan voter registration organization head
Count in two thousand four. If you have been listening
to this podcast, you hear me throw to it at
the end of every episode. UH. Head Count has helped
and estimated half million voters get registered since it began.
(01:31):
So Amy and Andy, thank you both so much for
joining me today. Thank you thanks for having me. It's
such a delight Alright. So the first question I have
for you, guys is a little bit of a time traveler,
because I want to know when you first learned about
what voting was and that you, as a citizen were
one day going to have a part to play in
(01:51):
the democratic process. For me, I mean it was in school.
I remember being in high school and having a history
teacher that I loved, Mr Cummings, and it was all
about democracy and just teaching us how to be independent individuals,
and you know, encouraging us, like from from the vibe
and sentiment of like the Vietnam War era and what
(02:14):
it means to stand up for your country and how
that can look a lot of different ways. And I
remember being excited to be old enough to register to
vote when I was in school and being on like
college campus and going and voting for the first time.
And what year was that. Maybe I shouldn't tell you
what year that was. I'm not that old, Andy. What
did you learn about voting? Well, I'll date myself here.
(02:37):
I went into the voting booth with my dad when
I was nine years old, when it was Jimmy Carter
versus Wrongald Reagan, and we went in together, and he
looked at me, and there's like, go for it, and
so I I first voted. I don't know if this
is legal or not, but I was an underage voter. No,
(02:59):
I don't think. Oh no, you're exactly the thing everyone's
afraid of. The leader of headcount just he had just
outed himself on iHeart Rated Children's secretly voting. I asked
my dad years later, I said, if I had voted
differently than he wanted, would he have changed it? And
he said, yes, he would have changed it, but he
let me. He let me make my own choice. So
(03:21):
you didn't actually cast the ballot, but you got to
do like a test drive of the whole system. I
flicked that I was trying to make it. I was
trying to fix it for you, so you weren't illegally.
The bottom line is my my dad probably pulled the
lever to make it officially. But you know, it's it's
funny that you ask that, though, because I think that
(03:44):
when people are exposed really matters. And I was lucky that,
you know, in my family and my elementary school, I
remember we used to have political debates and whatnot, and
there's such a crisis of civics in America, and it's
so important that families and schools are introducing young people
(04:06):
to democracy long before they do have the legal right
to vote, so that when they get the right to vote,
they're prepared. And uh, I feel very grateful. I feel
like my family and my my education, my teachers really
encouraged that. So Amy, it sounds like you registered right
away when you turned eighteen, like you were ready to
jump on that bandwagon. I I was excited about it, yes,
and then I've just moved around and stuff my whole life.
(04:29):
So I've constantly had to like, Okay, what do I
do this time? I gotta figure this out. It's like
always complicated. I'm always out of the country on tour.
It's always a deal Um, everybody's life doesn't always line
up with it being easy. That's a big part of
why I really like account. It makes it something that
doesn't have to be overwhelming. This whole year has been
extra overwhelming. I mean that's a putting it lightly for sure.
(04:50):
So to be able to just have information in one place,
for me, I've gone to the headcount site multiple times
this week just for myself to go, wait, what is
it again? Like when when can I go do early voting?
Do I do that the same place or whatever it is.
It's just really cool to be able to quickly find
that out without having to kind of go to one
place and then they tell you to go somewhere else
and it just gets complicated, and then you have to
(05:11):
make phone calls. And it's not that we shouldn't be
willing to stand up and do all those things, but
I really really appreciate it being made more concise and simpler. Yeah,
we're at a time when lives, even without the pandemic
hanging over our heads, are more complicated than ever. We
are all ridiculously busy and overbooked, and having someone aggregate
information is like from heaven totally, Andy, did you since
(05:34):
you were already voting before you were eighteen? Did you
register right away when your Yeah, I did. I was
in college and I think I voted in college, but
I can't. I've I've tried to remember the first time
I registered, and I unfortunately can't. I know, I know
I did vote as soon as I could. But one
thing that we love is that when people registered to
vote with the headcount of concerts, remember concerts, that they
(05:56):
really can remember it. That Usually if somebody registers to
vote out of favorite bands show, it's a personal memory
that goes beyond registering to vote at the d m
V and things like that. Yeah, I love it. Do
you guys? Now? Of course, we already know that Andy
remembers the first time he voted because he was not,
But do you amy remember the first time you voted?
(06:18):
Like what it felt like to to walk away from
that polling booth and be like, yep, I did my thing.
It really good, really good. The person I voted for
didn't win, which sucked, but at least I felt like
I was part of it, you know. Yeah? Do you
both make sure that you take part in your local
elections as well as the big every four year affairs.
I'm sure you both do. I am in a new
(06:38):
era of my life where I'm going to be better
about that. I have not historically been good about that. No,
I'm ready to change. I think that's great. I mean,
my thing is, I don't want anybody to feel guilty
or weird if they're not doing it like we're all
kind of sharing the experience. So I so appreciate your
frankness on that. Andy. I'm presuming you do because you
are so involved in the entire process. Well, I do,
but I'm sure that where I was doing headcount, I
(07:01):
doubt I did every local election, and statistically it's a
very you know, it's a frightening lye small percentage of
young people vote in local elections. But the local elections
are the things that really impact your life, especially if
you live in a smaller community. I live in a
small town, and you know our town local politics are
directly determining my pocketbook. You know, my property taxes and
(07:24):
where that money goes. So, you know, something that I'd
love to see in the future is that we can
use technology to make make voting more make the information
more accessible. I think the reason that a lot of
people don't vote, And there's studies on why people don't vote.
One of the number one reasons is they say they
don't know enough about the candidates. And that's the kind
(07:45):
of thing that we should be able to solve. Like
our phones just have so much information at our fingertips.
And that's sort of my long term vision here is
I'd really like to get to a point where you know,
there should be a yelp of candidates. Because if you
can pull out your phone and you know how good
the diner is on the corner in the town you've
(08:07):
never been to, because fifty people gave it reviews, it
should be the same you go into the voting booth
and get the same experience. So that's my dream. But
I'd say, like right now, you know, to anybody who
there's no shame and not what you haven't done in
the past. It's it's all about the future and local elections, man,
Like that's that is where the rubber hits the road.
(08:28):
That is where you know the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska
most became the vice president of the US. Like it's local.
You know, you want to shop local, you want to
eat locally, you want to vote local. But it also
bubbles up to the nationals. So when you can kind
of get behind people in your town, you never know
where they're gonna go next. Well. Also, like just voting
(08:48):
for representatives, they're going to be the people that keep
our presidents in check, like we need that. That's how
it has to work. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the
most direct line you have as a voter to get
your voice involved in municipalities, both local and at the
big level. Amy, I bet for you it's probably a
little tricky because you are a musician, You're often touring.
(09:09):
How do you make sure that you keep up with
the candidates in like a local election for someone like you,
the research has got to be a little bit daunting
sometimes for local elections. Yeah, I'm I'm just now, like
really coming into a time where this has become extremely
important to me. And you know, I can't pretend that
I haven't kind of had this vibe my whole life
that I just don't trust politicians in general. It's never
(09:32):
like I've had somebody like this is the guy. I
love this guy. I trust him, He's going to make
everything better. I never feel like that. I always feel
like it's it's choosing to some degree the lesser of
two evils, and I just the whole process makes me mad.
I feel like everybody's trying to sell me something and
it's really inauthentic because they have to just make things
work somehow, And in order to get a whole bunch
(09:53):
of people to root for the same thing, you gotta
like widen the net to a place that everything isn't
exactly how I would want it. Does that make sense?
So there's always sacrifices to be made for me, like
the whole thing. When when usually when we're ramping up,
I see commercials on TV for people that are running
for office, I'm always just like just kind of like going, no,
(10:14):
I don't believe it. I don't believe you, I don't
like you. I hate this whole thing. It all sucks.
So for the first time, I'm looking at and going
I can't just sit here and think that and not
get involved and not be a part of the conversation.
Because even if it's never going to be exactly the
way that I would do it if it was me,
I don't want to do it. Somebody's got to do it,
(10:34):
and I can at least help it to be as
good as possible, and the things that are the most important,
you know, the things that I feel like they're going
to make the best difference for our country. I think
that we have to get involved in whatever we can
and vote on every level that we're privileged to be
able to do that. Like our voices are heard, we
(10:56):
get to use them. We have to. We have to.
We can't waste that chance. That kind of needs nicely
into the next thing I wanted to talk about, because
there are a couple of different reasons that people will
cite for why they don't want to make the effort
to go out and vote or get their mail and
registration managed, which is like one they either think that
the outcome is kind of a lock, it's foregone conclusion
and they don't need to bother or two that they
(11:17):
can't fully like one endorse anybody in the mix. So
I'm curious what the two of you think about, like
why it is still super important to stay involved and
cast that vote anyway. Well, I think one of the
misnomers you hear sometimes as people say, well, they're all
the same and there's just there's just a fundamental lack
(11:40):
of truth to that there are often very very clear
policy differences, and you know, I really respect and here
the frustration that people have with the quality of candidates,
with the quality of government, with all of it, but
there are still things that we fundamentally as a country
people tend to have pretty strong opinions on, and usually,
(12:04):
especially at a national election, you can find very clear
differences and you're not always making a decision about the
person you're you're kind of making a decision about the
platform and the overall direction. It's always frustrating when you
hear people say, oh, it's all the same, because there's
just it just doesn't stand up. I mean, you can
look at very very very clear differences. And when you
(12:26):
think about the Supreme Court, I mean we're talking about
a presidential election. When you think about the choices of
the Supreme Court and how you see how consistently these
decisions are kind of down the middle, left right, and
who gets picked with the court decides really very very
very important things. So I think that everybody kind of
(12:46):
has to stop and say, you know, this isn't perfect,
and these are humans and and and far from perfect humans,
but there are real decisions to be made. And I
think when people pull back and look at it that way,
it's all through a really different lens. Yeah, I just
agree with with what I just said. So obviously, we
are in a strange time right where many people are
(13:08):
are going to hopefully be able to vote by mail.
But normally, if we were not smack dab in the
middle of the strangest year possibly and certainly in the
history that we have all lived through, would you normally
opt to do a mail in be an early voter
or do you like to go day of It just
depends on my life. I know this is tricky for you, Amy,
because you are on the road to it. Yeah, I
(13:28):
think that early voting is going to be what we
do this year because we're here obviously, and anyway that
we can kind of avoid the biggest crowd possible. I
think we want to do. But I know exactly where
to go. I feel like IM comfortable with the with
the polling place and everything. I don't know. I'm just
gonna go do it, but I am going to do
it early because everything is crazy and I feel like
(13:50):
this year, especially day to day, you don't know what's
going to happen tomorrow really, and I just want to
know that that got done, you know. And I think
that I was talking to Andy yesterday. I called him
and I was just asking about the whole situation with
mail in voting and like is it safe, and like
will it continue to be safe? And what should we do?
(14:11):
And I actually let you answer the Sandy, because you're
the one told me. But I think it's consistently good
advice that it's not that it isn't safe. It is
still safe to mail in, but do it early, Do
it as as soon as you can, like, just give
them so much time to get it, and make sure
that it's right. Have somebody look at it for you.
Just make sure, yep, like family member, that you did
(14:32):
it right. You you, you signed your name, you did
all the crossed all the teas and dotted all the eyes.
You know, Andy, what do you have to add to
that in terms of tips for voters? You know, it's
such an important question right now in a way that
I think we've never recognized as a country that how
you vote it can impact your health, but it can
also impact whether your vote counts or not. And it's
(14:54):
been an interesting progression where just to backtrack a little bit,
I think in the spring, it was very clear need
for mail and voting increased because you really had lockdown situations.
You know, the need was obvious. And some of the
really positive things that came out is even though people
weren't leaving their homes, we saw some record turnout. Nebraska
had record turned out and this was even after the
(15:16):
Democratic presidential had been decided. So people really embraced early voting,
and then it became very politicized. As we all know now,
we look at it from a headcount standpoint. Our job
is to get information out there, and early voting and
absentee voting and mail and voting is just like until
a few months ago, this was a very boring, dry thing.
(15:37):
It was a bureaucratic thing almost. But we look at
the stats, like Americans were already voting by mail. You
had five states that did pretty much all vote by
mail and it was problem free. So it was very
clear that voting by mail is extremely legit. It's how
the military votes. There's no partisan advantage. There are studies
that show that. So kind of first step was setting
(16:00):
fact straight and trying to get beyond the politics and
just basically say, hey, this is not a new thing.
This has been around a long time, but now we
get to we get through that, and what's coming out,
I think is a lot more awareness about some of
the undercounts that have happened with with absentee voting, and
(16:22):
all the reasons that absentee ballots have been rejected in
the past, and some of the real risks of your
vote not being counted if you don't get your ballot
in on time and correctly. And so the things that
everybody should know is one, if your ballot in most states,
the ballot needs to arrive on time. It does, it's
not the postmark, and there are certain situations where you
(16:45):
won't even get a postmark. So it's got to be
there on time. So to Amy's point, get it in early.
Get it in at least two weeks early. With all
the stuff going on with the post office. You can't
leave that to the last minute. It's just not a
your way to vote at the last minute. Then the
other things are that ballots can be rejected because of
stray marks, because of a missing signature on an envelope,
(17:09):
or because your signature doesn't match what's on file. Now,
when it comes to like filling it out, correctly. We
recommend is have a family member look at it, just
kind of have a proofreader. Make sure you get a
second set of eyes on it. Make sure you're doing
everything correctly. Now, the signature match this thing is a doozy.
There are some states where they're pulling your signature from
(17:29):
the d m V where you may have filled it
out with a stylus and it's not Nobody does their
real perfect signature on a stylus. The good news is
there a lot of states where you can go online
and look at your signature and make sure it's the same.
There's also a lot of states where you can track
your ballot almost like you track a Domino's pizza delivery
on an app, and it will tell you when your
(17:50):
ballot is properly received. And there's something called a cure
period where you can fix it if it's not okay.
This varies by every state. You can go to the
headcount web site and get information on this. We have
a page called head Count Doubt or work Slash, Vote
from Home, or just go to our main page and
you'll find it there. But I think we're at a
point now where the education that's needed for an individual
(18:13):
voter to know exactly what happens in their state and
how to make sure voting by mail is done where
there's a hundred percent chance your vote is gonna get counted,
it takes a little bit extra. The nice thing, though,
is you can do it from your home. You do
it on your phone or on your computer. So we
don't say to anybody this is the way you should vote,
this is the way you shouldn't. It's an individual choice.
(18:34):
But it's very important to be informed about what's going
on in your state because there is a real possibility
that millions and millions of votes could not be counted
this year because of crazy things like your signature didn't
match what you scrawled one day on a style of
using a stylus at the DMV. So very very important
to be educated and don't get caught up in the
(18:55):
politics like this has become a right left thing. That
is garbage, that is a made up thing. This is
your right to vote whoever you're voting for, do it
in a way where it is secure, and don't listen
to any politician talking about the meaning of different kinds
of voting. Get the information for yourself. Know that your
(19:18):
vote is secure and vote the way that you are
most comfortable doing it. An early in person voting is
a very very good option. I will add this tip.
If you're a person that maybe lives by yourself and
you don't have someone handy to look over your ballot,
take a picture of it. We have all the technology
in our pocket to get through these problems. Take a
picture and text it to your best friend or someone
(19:39):
in your family. Totally every phone has a really good
quality camera almost at this point, so make sure that
you double check. We want to make sure nothing makes
your vote not be counted. Now onto a slightly more
fun question. So presumably you have both voted, either early
or by mail, and you're ready, and it is election day,
and I wonder how that day normally plays out for you.
(19:59):
Do you like to watch all of the information as
it's being kind of constantly spat at you by every
form of media. Do you like to get away from it?
Do you like to just go have a quiet day? What?
How how do you deal with the election on the
day of when it can be very stressful? It can
be stressful. Last time for the big one, we were
on tour and it went, you know, late into the night, remember,
(20:22):
and it was kind of close, but it didn't go
the way I thought it was going to go. And
I totally had a show the next day and I
had to get up early, and I was like, Okay,
we know what's gonna happen here. I'm going to bed,
like we've been watching it. My husband and I had
just been sitting there like watching it a while, kind
of hanging out, having popcorn. Yeah, sort of like that,
sort of like, oh, let's see what happens. I hope
we went. And then I went to bed and woke
(20:43):
up and I was like, you're kidding. I did not
think that was going to happen at all. I feel
like that's another another point about why it's so important
to vote. You really never know how close it might be. Well,
you do the same thing this year, or were you
just like go to bed and pretend it's not happening,
deal with it when it shakes out. I care a
lot this year. I'm going to be watching how about you?
(21:05):
Well in head Count put on a show. We put
on a show called Soundtrack to History where we had
a band play at the Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, New York,
and they were basically improvising to the election returns. We
had a huge video screen behind them. They basically interpreted
(21:27):
the energy of the room and what was happening and
made hours of incredible music. And the music it was
a journey. Um we had Robert Randolph, the incredible steel
pedal guitar player, and um several other just really virtuous
of musicians. A guy named Matt Butler was called the
(21:47):
Everyone Orchestra. He basically conducted this improvisational show and it's
on YouTube and I went and watched it one year later,
and it was really crazy, like the vibe started one
way and they're interpreting this is a New York City,
so you can guess what the vibe of the room is.
And it was musically and artistically truly incredible. The musicians
(22:09):
did it, just a great job of taking this this
historic moment and laying down a live soundtrack. Now we're
not planning on that again. Obviously concerts are not happening
right now, but I think we may come up with
something like that because we just feel like art, you know,
art always has a place. And when I went back
(22:30):
and watched that music, I was like, Wow, they this
was an artistic accomplishment to take this moment and put
a live soundtrack to it so we'll see that is
so creative, beautiful, and that's a big ask. It was
for musicians, Oh my god, the musicians it was. It
was a really really hard night because the energy. You know,
(22:51):
normally a musician looks like there's this relationship just between
the musician and the crowd, and the crowd is watching
what's going on behind them, and you know, watching it
unfold in a way that people didn't expect, and the
musicians just were able to stay with it and kind
of keep the crowd together. There were a lot of
musicians at night, and I can't name them all, but like,
(23:13):
um Ma Holli was guitar player in a band named Twittle,
and Marco Benevento of Jay Rad and Mark Brownstein are
founder from a band called the Disco Biscuits. What these
guys pulled off it was special. And I don't know
if we'll ever do anything like that again, because I
think it was so hard on them. But but I
remember saying that night, I said, I'll process the politics tomorrow. Tonight.
(23:39):
I was just wanting to celebrate the artistic success of
this crazy hair brained scheme. And I remember that part fondly,
but people have come up to me since then and
told me, well, people had a variety of experiences that night.
Let's just put it that way, right. That's amazing, though
I can't imagine the pressure as a performer to like
(23:59):
blow at the shifting winds of that evening and still
come through it. Like That's impressive on a multitude of levels.
All Right. My last question is kind of your elevator
pitch for voting. So if you meet someone who is like, no,
I'm I have the right to vote, I'm even registered,
but I'm I'm probably not going to do it, what
is the one thing that you tell them to make
(24:19):
sure that they understand how important it is. Nobody can
speak for you. Nobody can speak for you, but you
you have to speak for yourself. Don't let somebody take
that from you. Use your voice, you know. I want
to echo that. And can I just talk a little
bit about some of the really fun stuff we're doing
with Evanescence, Yes? Absolutely. You know, Amy has this really
(24:40):
truly tremendous anthemic song that I hope the whole world
gets to know. And I hope it becomes a true
anthem of this election. But we work together with her
awesome team to create a whole little thing where anybody
who checks their voter registration status, which is also a
really important thing to do, is to check your status. Well,
if you do that, you can get to see a
(25:01):
private show with Evanescence that will happen in October. You
can go to use my voice dot org and check
it out, and it takes like thirty seconds to check
your registration status. And you know, millions of people get
knocked off the voter rolls every year for various reasons,
so it's just one of those things that everyone should do.
It's so fast. Go to use my voice dot org
(25:24):
and it'll take you thirty sexons to check your registration
status and then you'll automatically when Amy and the band
put on the show, you'll get a free e ticket
for it. Pretty pretty good deal. I gotta I gotta
figure out how we're gonna do that. We're gonna do
like a from home thing, because we're not you call
it a show, and I'm instantly intimidated. It's going to
be something we're going to do a performance. But we're
gonna figure out how exactly we're gonna do that. I
(25:45):
think it's going to be some kind of a like
split screen deal where you know, there's been a lot
of that lately. It's been an interesting ride during this time,
you know, making music and finding a way to connect
with the fans that we've never done before, just because
it's just so different. You haven't had to. So we
haven't decided exactly what we're gonna do yet, but the
whole band's excited to create something so cool. In my
(26:06):
head now, I want everybody to not only take part
in this, but also to think of use your voice
as their walk up music for the ballot, like that's
their entrance theme. It's awesome. Absolutely, Yes, Amy and Andy,
thank you both so much for spending this time with
me today. I can't tell you how much I appreciate
it and hearing the passion that both of you have
clearly for this important topic, and how just frank and
(26:29):
honest you are about the whole process and your place
in it. It means the world. So thank you so much,
Thank you, Thanks for taking the time. Really fun. Good
luck vote. Hey are you not registered to vote yet?
But you think it's something you want to do, you
may still have time. Voter registration deadlines vary by state,
(26:50):
so to find out the scoop for where you are,
check out a nonpartisan registration voting site like head count
dot org or fair vote dot org. Why I'm Voting
is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows
Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production of I Heart Radio. Listen.
You already know this, but it's an election year. You
might already be tired of hearing about it. But here's
the thing. Democracy doesn't work without you. I'm Holly Frying,
and I'm sitting down with many of my fellow podcasters,
from Will Ferrell to Stephanie Rule, as well as other luminaries,
(00:27):
to find out about their relationships with the ballot box
and ultimately just to find out why they vote. I
hope you're exercising your right to vote, and if you're not,
I hope that their stories inspire you. Welcome to today's
unique and marvelous episode of Why I'm Voting. I have
(00:48):
the great honor of welcoming two guests at once to
the show, so that is new. Amy Lee, of course,
is a musician and songwriter. She's the co founder and
lead vocalist of the band of in Essence is one
new Umorous awards for her work, and the new effinescent
single Use My Voice was just released as a celebration
of and I quote, the power of speaking out in
(01:09):
order to promote a more just world. And Amy and
I are going to be joined today by Andy Bernstein,
who helped you found the nonpartisan voter registration organization head
Count in two thousand four. If you have been listening
to this podcast, you hear me throw to it at
the end of every episode. UH. Head Count has helped
and estimated half million voters get registered since it began.
(01:31):
So Amy and Andy, thank you both so much for
joining me today. Thank you thanks for having me. It's
such a delight Alright. So the first question I have
for you, guys is a little bit of a time traveler,
because I want to know when you first learned about
what voting was and that you, as a citizen were
one day going to have a part to play in
(01:51):
the democratic process. For me, I mean it was in school.
I remember being in high school and having a history
teacher that I loved, Mr Cummings, and it was all
about democracy and just teaching us how to be independent individuals,
and you know, encouraging us, like from from the vibe
and sentiment of like the Vietnam War era and what
(02:14):
it means to stand up for your country and how
that can look a lot of different ways. And I
remember being excited to be old enough to register to
vote when I was in school and being on like
college campus and going and voting for the first time.
And what year was that. Maybe I shouldn't tell you
what year that was. I'm not that old, Andy. What
did you learn about voting? Well, I'll date myself here.
(02:37):
I went into the voting booth with my dad when
I was nine years old, when it was Jimmy Carter
versus Wrongald Reagan, and we went in together, and he
looked at me, and there's like, go for it, and
so I I first voted. I don't know if this
is legal or not, but I was an underage voter. No,
(02:59):
I don't think. Oh no, you're exactly the thing everyone's
afraid of. The leader of headcount just he had just
outed himself on iHeart Rated Children's secretly voting. I asked
my dad years later, I said, if I had voted
differently than he wanted, would he have changed it? And
he said, yes, he would have changed it, but he
let me. He let me make my own choice. So
(03:21):
you didn't actually cast the ballot, but you got to
do like a test drive of the whole system. I
flicked that I was trying to make it. I was
trying to fix it for you, so you weren't illegally.
The bottom line is my my dad probably pulled the
lever to make it officially. But you know, it's it's
funny that you ask that, though, because I think that
(03:44):
when people are exposed really matters. And I was lucky that,
you know, in my family and my elementary school, I
remember we used to have political debates and whatnot, and
there's such a crisis of civics in America, and it's
so important that families and schools are introducing young people
(04:06):
to democracy long before they do have the legal right
to vote, so that when they get the right to vote,
they're prepared. And uh, I feel very grateful. I feel
like my family and my my education, my teachers really
encouraged that. So Amy, it sounds like you registered right
away when you turned eighteen, like you were ready to
jump on that bandwagon. I I was excited about it, yes,
and then I've just moved around and stuff my whole life.
(04:29):
So I've constantly had to like, Okay, what do I
do this time? I gotta figure this out. It's like
always complicated. I'm always out of the country on tour.
It's always a deal Um, everybody's life doesn't always line
up with it being easy. That's a big part of
why I really like account. It makes it something that
doesn't have to be overwhelming. This whole year has been
extra overwhelming. I mean that's a putting it lightly for sure.
(04:50):
So to be able to just have information in one place,
for me, I've gone to the headcount site multiple times
this week just for myself to go, wait, what is
it again? Like when when can I go do early voting?
Do I do that the same place or whatever it is.
It's just really cool to be able to quickly find
that out without having to kind of go to one
place and then they tell you to go somewhere else
and it just gets complicated, and then you have to
(05:11):
make phone calls. And it's not that we shouldn't be
willing to stand up and do all those things, but
I really really appreciate it being made more concise and simpler. Yeah,
we're at a time when lives, even without the pandemic
hanging over our heads, are more complicated than ever. We
are all ridiculously busy and overbooked, and having someone aggregate
information is like from heaven totally, Andy, did you since
(05:34):
you were already voting before you were eighteen? Did you
register right away when your Yeah, I did. I was
in college and I think I voted in college, but
I can't. I've I've tried to remember the first time
I registered, and I unfortunately can't. I know, I know
I did vote as soon as I could. But one
thing that we love is that when people registered to
vote with the headcount of concerts, remember concerts, that they
(05:56):
really can remember it. That Usually if somebody registers to
vote out of favorite bands show, it's a personal memory
that goes beyond registering to vote at the d m
V and things like that. Yeah, I love it. Do
you guys? Now? Of course, we already know that Andy
remembers the first time he voted because he was not,
But do you amy remember the first time you voted?
(06:18):
Like what it felt like to to walk away from
that polling booth and be like, yep, I did my thing.
It really good, really good. The person I voted for
didn't win, which sucked, but at least I felt like
I was part of it, you know. Yeah? Do you
both make sure that you take part in your local
elections as well as the big every four year affairs.
I'm sure you both do. I am in a new
(06:38):
era of my life where I'm going to be better
about that. I have not historically been good about that. No,
I'm ready to change. I think that's great. I mean,
my thing is, I don't want anybody to feel guilty
or weird if they're not doing it like we're all
kind of sharing the experience. So I so appreciate your
frankness on that. Andy. I'm presuming you do because you
are so involved in the entire process. Well, I do,
but I'm sure that where I was doing headcount, I
(07:01):
doubt I did every local election, and statistically it's a
very you know, it's a frightening lye small percentage of
young people vote in local elections. But the local elections
are the things that really impact your life, especially if
you live in a smaller community. I live in a
small town, and you know our town local politics are
directly determining my pocketbook. You know, my property taxes and
(07:24):
where that money goes. So, you know, something that I'd
love to see in the future is that we can
use technology to make make voting more make the information
more accessible. I think the reason that a lot of
people don't vote, And there's studies on why people don't vote.
One of the number one reasons is they say they
don't know enough about the candidates. And that's the kind
(07:45):
of thing that we should be able to solve. Like
our phones just have so much information at our fingertips.
And that's sort of my long term vision here is
I'd really like to get to a point where you know,
there should be a yelp of candidates. Because if you
can pull out your phone and you know how good
the diner is on the corner in the town you've
(08:07):
never been to, because fifty people gave it reviews, it
should be the same you go into the voting booth
and get the same experience. So that's my dream. But
I'd say, like right now, you know, to anybody who
there's no shame and not what you haven't done in
the past. It's it's all about the future and local elections, man,
Like that's that is where the rubber hits the road.
(08:28):
That is where you know the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska
most became the vice president of the US. Like it's local.
You know, you want to shop local, you want to
eat locally, you want to vote local. But it also
bubbles up to the nationals. So when you can kind
of get behind people in your town, you never know
where they're gonna go next. Well. Also, like just voting
(08:48):
for representatives, they're going to be the people that keep
our presidents in check, like we need that. That's how
it has to work. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the
most direct line you have as a voter to get
your voice involved in municipalities, both local and at the
big level. Amy, I bet for you it's probably a
little tricky because you are a musician, You're often touring.
(09:09):
How do you make sure that you keep up with
the candidates in like a local election for someone like you,
the research has got to be a little bit daunting
sometimes for local elections. Yeah, I'm I'm just now, like
really coming into a time where this has become extremely
important to me. And you know, I can't pretend that
I haven't kind of had this vibe my whole life
that I just don't trust politicians in general. It's never
(09:32):
like I've had somebody like this is the guy. I
love this guy. I trust him, He's going to make
everything better. I never feel like that. I always feel
like it's it's choosing to some degree the lesser of
two evils, and I just the whole process makes me mad.
I feel like everybody's trying to sell me something and
it's really inauthentic because they have to just make things
work somehow, And in order to get a whole bunch
(09:53):
of people to root for the same thing, you gotta
like widen the net to a place that everything isn't
exactly how I would want it. Does that make sense?
So there's always sacrifices to be made for me, like
the whole thing. When when usually when we're ramping up,
I see commercials on TV for people that are running
for office, I'm always just like just kind of like going, no,
(10:14):
I don't believe it. I don't believe you, I don't
like you. I hate this whole thing. It all sucks.
So for the first time, I'm looking at and going
I can't just sit here and think that and not
get involved and not be a part of the conversation.
Because even if it's never going to be exactly the
way that I would do it if it was me,
I don't want to do it. Somebody's got to do it,
(10:34):
and I can at least help it to be as
good as possible, and the things that are the most important,
you know, the things that I feel like they're going
to make the best difference for our country. I think
that we have to get involved in whatever we can
and vote on every level that we're privileged to be
able to do that. Like our voices are heard, we
(10:56):
get to use them. We have to. We have to.
We can't waste that chance. That kind of needs nicely
into the next thing I wanted to talk about, because
there are a couple of different reasons that people will
cite for why they don't want to make the effort
to go out and vote or get their mail and
registration managed, which is like one they either think that
the outcome is kind of a lock, it's foregone conclusion
and they don't need to bother or two that they
(11:17):
can't fully like one endorse anybody in the mix. So
I'm curious what the two of you think about, like
why it is still super important to stay involved and
cast that vote anyway. Well, I think one of the
misnomers you hear sometimes as people say, well, they're all
the same and there's just there's just a fundamental lack
(11:40):
of truth to that there are often very very clear
policy differences, and you know, I really respect and here
the frustration that people have with the quality of candidates,
with the quality of government, with all of it, but
there are still things that we fundamentally as a country
people tend to have pretty strong opinions on, and usually,
(12:04):
especially at a national election, you can find very clear
differences and you're not always making a decision about the
person you're you're kind of making a decision about the
platform and the overall direction. It's always frustrating when you
hear people say, oh, it's all the same, because there's
just it just doesn't stand up. I mean, you can
look at very very very clear differences. And when you
(12:26):
think about the Supreme Court, I mean we're talking about
a presidential election. When you think about the choices of
the Supreme Court and how you see how consistently these
decisions are kind of down the middle, left right, and
who gets picked with the court decides really very very
very important things. So I think that everybody kind of
(12:46):
has to stop and say, you know, this isn't perfect,
and these are humans and and and far from perfect humans,
but there are real decisions to be made. And I
think when people pull back and look at it that way,
it's all through a really different lens. Yeah, I just
agree with with what I just said. So obviously, we
are in a strange time right where many people are
(13:08):
are going to hopefully be able to vote by mail.
But normally, if we were not smack dab in the
middle of the strangest year possibly and certainly in the
history that we have all lived through, would you normally
opt to do a mail in be an early voter
or do you like to go day of It just
depends on my life. I know this is tricky for you, Amy,
because you are on the road to it. Yeah, I
(13:28):
think that early voting is going to be what we
do this year because we're here obviously, and anyway that
we can kind of avoid the biggest crowd possible. I
think we want to do. But I know exactly where
to go. I feel like IM comfortable with the with
the polling place and everything. I don't know. I'm just
gonna go do it, but I am going to do
it early because everything is crazy and I feel like
(13:50):
this year, especially day to day, you don't know what's
going to happen tomorrow really, and I just want to
know that that got done, you know. And I think
that I was talking to Andy yesterday. I called him
and I was just asking about the whole situation with
mail in voting and like is it safe, and like
will it continue to be safe? And what should we do?
(14:11):
And I actually let you answer the Sandy, because you're
the one told me. But I think it's consistently good
advice that it's not that it isn't safe. It is
still safe to mail in, but do it early, Do
it as as soon as you can, like, just give
them so much time to get it, and make sure
that it's right. Have somebody look at it for you.
Just make sure, yep, like family member, that you did
(14:32):
it right. You you, you signed your name, you did
all the crossed all the teas and dotted all the eyes.
You know, Andy, what do you have to add to
that in terms of tips for voters? You know, it's
such an important question right now in a way that
I think we've never recognized as a country that how
you vote it can impact your health, but it can
also impact whether your vote counts or not. And it's
(14:54):
been an interesting progression where just to backtrack a little bit,
I think in the spring, it was very clear need
for mail and voting increased because you really had lockdown situations.
You know, the need was obvious. And some of the
really positive things that came out is even though people
weren't leaving their homes, we saw some record turnout. Nebraska
had record turned out and this was even after the
(15:16):
Democratic presidential had been decided. So people really embraced early voting,
and then it became very politicized. As we all know now,
we look at it from a headcount standpoint. Our job
is to get information out there, and early voting and
absentee voting and mail and voting is just like until
a few months ago, this was a very boring, dry thing.
(15:37):
It was a bureaucratic thing almost. But we look at
the stats, like Americans were already voting by mail. You
had five states that did pretty much all vote by
mail and it was problem free. So it was very
clear that voting by mail is extremely legit. It's how
the military votes. There's no partisan advantage. There are studies
that show that. So kind of first step was setting
(16:00):
fact straight and trying to get beyond the politics and
just basically say, hey, this is not a new thing.
This has been around a long time, but now we
get to we get through that, and what's coming out,
I think is a lot more awareness about some of
the undercounts that have happened with with absentee voting, and
(16:22):
all the reasons that absentee ballots have been rejected in
the past, and some of the real risks of your
vote not being counted if you don't get your ballot
in on time and correctly. And so the things that
everybody should know is one, if your ballot in most states,
the ballot needs to arrive on time. It does, it's
not the postmark, and there are certain situations where you
(16:45):
won't even get a postmark. So it's got to be
there on time. So to Amy's point, get it in early.
Get it in at least two weeks early. With all
the stuff going on with the post office. You can't
leave that to the last minute. It's just not a
your way to vote at the last minute. Then the
other things are that ballots can be rejected because of
stray marks, because of a missing signature on an envelope,
(17:09):
or because your signature doesn't match what's on file. Now,
when it comes to like filling it out, correctly. We
recommend is have a family member look at it, just
kind of have a proofreader. Make sure you get a
second set of eyes on it. Make sure you're doing
everything correctly. Now, the signature match this thing is a doozy.
There are some states where they're pulling your signature from
(17:29):
the d m V where you may have filled it
out with a stylus and it's not Nobody does their
real perfect signature on a stylus. The good news is
there a lot of states where you can go online
and look at your signature and make sure it's the same.
There's also a lot of states where you can track
your ballot almost like you track a Domino's pizza delivery
on an app, and it will tell you when your
(17:50):
ballot is properly received. And there's something called a cure
period where you can fix it if it's not okay.
This varies by every state. You can go to the
headcount web site and get information on this. We have
a page called head Count Doubt or work Slash, Vote
from Home, or just go to our main page and
you'll find it there. But I think we're at a
point now where the education that's needed for an individual
(18:13):
voter to know exactly what happens in their state and
how to make sure voting by mail is done where
there's a hundred percent chance your vote is gonna get counted,
it takes a little bit extra. The nice thing, though,
is you can do it from your home. You do
it on your phone or on your computer. So we
don't say to anybody this is the way you should vote,
this is the way you shouldn't. It's an individual choice.
(18:34):
But it's very important to be informed about what's going
on in your state because there is a real possibility
that millions and millions of votes could not be counted
this year because of crazy things like your signature didn't
match what you scrawled one day on a style of
using a stylus at the DMV. So very very important
to be educated and don't get caught up in the
(18:55):
politics like this has become a right left thing. That
is garbage, that is a made up thing. This is
your right to vote whoever you're voting for, do it
in a way where it is secure, and don't listen
to any politician talking about the meaning of different kinds
of voting. Get the information for yourself. Know that your
(19:18):
vote is secure and vote the way that you are
most comfortable doing it. An early in person voting is
a very very good option. I will add this tip.
If you're a person that maybe lives by yourself and
you don't have someone handy to look over your ballot,
take a picture of it. We have all the technology
in our pocket to get through these problems. Take a
picture and text it to your best friend or someone
(19:39):
in your family. Totally every phone has a really good
quality camera almost at this point, so make sure that
you double check. We want to make sure nothing makes
your vote not be counted. Now onto a slightly more
fun question. So presumably you have both voted, either early
or by mail, and you're ready, and it is election day,
and I wonder how that day normally plays out for you.
(19:59):
Do you like to watch all of the information as
it's being kind of constantly spat at you by every
form of media. Do you like to get away from it?
Do you like to just go have a quiet day? What?
How how do you deal with the election on the
day of when it can be very stressful? It can
be stressful. Last time for the big one, we were
on tour and it went, you know, late into the night, remember,
(20:22):
and it was kind of close, but it didn't go
the way I thought it was going to go. And
I totally had a show the next day and I
had to get up early, and I was like, Okay,
we know what's gonna happen here. I'm going to bed,
like we've been watching it. My husband and I had
just been sitting there like watching it a while, kind
of hanging out, having popcorn. Yeah, sort of like that,
sort of like, oh, let's see what happens. I hope
we went. And then I went to bed and woke
(20:43):
up and I was like, you're kidding. I did not
think that was going to happen at all. I feel
like that's another another point about why it's so important
to vote. You really never know how close it might be. Well,
you do the same thing this year, or were you
just like go to bed and pretend it's not happening,
deal with it when it shakes out. I care a
lot this year. I'm going to be watching how about you?
(21:05):
Well in head Count put on a show. We put
on a show called Soundtrack to History where we had
a band play at the Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, New York,
and they were basically improvising to the election returns. We
had a huge video screen behind them. They basically interpreted
(21:27):
the energy of the room and what was happening and
made hours of incredible music. And the music it was
a journey. Um we had Robert Randolph, the incredible steel
pedal guitar player, and um several other just really virtuous
of musicians. A guy named Matt Butler was called the
(21:47):
Everyone Orchestra. He basically conducted this improvisational show and it's
on YouTube and I went and watched it one year later,
and it was really crazy, like the vibe started one
way and they're interpreting this is a New York City,
so you can guess what the vibe of the room is.
And it was musically and artistically truly incredible. The musicians
(22:09):
did it, just a great job of taking this this
historic moment and laying down a live soundtrack. Now we're
not planning on that again. Obviously concerts are not happening
right now, but I think we may come up with
something like that because we just feel like art, you know,
art always has a place. And when I went back
(22:30):
and watched that music, I was like, Wow, they this
was an artistic accomplishment to take this moment and put
a live soundtrack to it so we'll see that is
so creative, beautiful, and that's a big ask. It was
for musicians, Oh my god, the musicians it was. It
was a really really hard night because the energy. You know,
(22:51):
normally a musician looks like there's this relationship just between
the musician and the crowd, and the crowd is watching
what's going on behind them, and you know, watching it
unfold in a way that people didn't expect, and the
musicians just were able to stay with it and kind
of keep the crowd together. There were a lot of
musicians at night, and I can't name them all, but like,
(23:13):
um Ma Holli was guitar player in a band named Twittle,
and Marco Benevento of Jay Rad and Mark Brownstein are
founder from a band called the Disco Biscuits. What these
guys pulled off it was special. And I don't know
if we'll ever do anything like that again, because I
think it was so hard on them. But but I
remember saying that night, I said, I'll process the politics tomorrow. Tonight.
(23:39):
I was just wanting to celebrate the artistic success of
this crazy hair brained scheme. And I remember that part fondly,
but people have come up to me since then and
told me, well, people had a variety of experiences that night.
Let's just put it that way, right. That's amazing, though
I can't imagine the pressure as a performer to like
(23:59):
blow at the shifting winds of that evening and still
come through it. Like That's impressive on a multitude of levels.
All Right. My last question is kind of your elevator
pitch for voting. So if you meet someone who is like, no,
I'm I have the right to vote, I'm even registered,
but I'm I'm probably not going to do it, what
is the one thing that you tell them to make
(24:19):
sure that they understand how important it is. Nobody can
speak for you. Nobody can speak for you, but you
you have to speak for yourself. Don't let somebody take
that from you. Use your voice, you know. I want
to echo that. And can I just talk a little
bit about some of the really fun stuff we're doing
with Evanescence, Yes? Absolutely. You know, Amy has this really
(24:40):
truly tremendous anthemic song that I hope the whole world
gets to know. And I hope it becomes a true
anthem of this election. But we work together with her
awesome team to create a whole little thing where anybody
who checks their voter registration status, which is also a
really important thing to do, is to check your status. Well,
if you do that, you can get to see a
(25:01):
private show with Evanescence that will happen in October. You
can go to use my voice dot org and check
it out, and it takes like thirty seconds to check
your registration status. And you know, millions of people get
knocked off the voter rolls every year for various reasons,
so it's just one of those things that everyone should do.
It's so fast. Go to use my voice dot org
(25:24):
and it'll take you thirty sexons to check your registration
status and then you'll automatically when Amy and the band
put on the show, you'll get a free e ticket
for it. Pretty pretty good deal. I gotta I gotta
figure out how we're gonna do that. We're gonna do
like a from home thing, because we're not you call
it a show, and I'm instantly intimidated. It's going to
be something we're going to do a performance. But we're
gonna figure out how exactly we're gonna do that. I
(25:45):
think it's going to be some kind of a like
split screen deal where you know, there's been a lot
of that lately. It's been an interesting ride during this time,
you know, making music and finding a way to connect
with the fans that we've never done before, just because
it's just so different. You haven't had to. So we
haven't decided exactly what we're gonna do yet, but the
whole band's excited to create something so cool. In my
(26:06):
head now, I want everybody to not only take part
in this, but also to think of use your voice
as their walk up music for the ballot, like that's
their entrance theme. It's awesome. Absolutely, Yes, Amy and Andy,
thank you both so much for spending this time with
me today. I can't tell you how much I appreciate
it and hearing the passion that both of you have
clearly for this important topic, and how just frank and
(26:29):
honest you are about the whole process and your place
in it. It means the world. So thank you so much,
Thank you, Thanks for taking the time. Really fun. Good
luck vote. Hey are you not registered to vote yet?
But you think it's something you want to do, you
may still have time. Voter registration deadlines vary by state,
(26:50):
so to find out the scoop for where you are,
check out a nonpartisan registration voting site like head count
dot org or fair vote dot org. Why I'm Voting
is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com