October 15, 2020 • 33 mins
Baratunde speaks with Maria Teresa Kumar, President of Voto Latino, about the power in numbers of Latinx voters and the work of relationship-building for this moment. Maria shares stories of what effective government looks like and its impact on the lives of the Latinx community.
Show Notes + Links
We are grateful to Maria Teresa Kumar for joining us.
Follow @mariateresa1 and @votolatino on Twitter. You can learn more about Voto Latino at https://votolatino.org/.
We will post this episode, a transcript, show notes and more at howtocitizen.com.
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HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW. ACTIONS FOR THIS EPISODE.
INTERNAL ACTIONS (Actions that help you reflect and explore your emotions and experiences related to these topics or are personal actions that don’t involve others)
Prepare yourself emotionally. This year, we have an election season, not an election day. And we may not know the result for several days or even weeks after November 3rd.
Make a plan to vote and start acting on it NOW.
If you haven’t voted yet, make your plan now. Figure out how you’re going to vote, and who you’re voting for. Plan this like it’s the biggest date of your life.
If you can, vote early and in-person. It is still the most ideal way to vote in this election.
A great resource with state-by-state information is at whenweallvote.org. Check it out then confirm your voting rules and deadlines with your county elections office.
If you plan to vote by mail (also called absentee voting in states like Wisconsin), make sure you are registered, and then VERY CAREFULLY follow the directions on how to submit your ballot.
Adopt a swing state and help get out the vote.
You can phone bank or text with others organizing in battleground states - we don’t believe it is even partisan anymore to help to ensure Biden wins since Trump is no longer interested in preserving or leading a democracy.
Go to https://votesaveamerica.com/states/#battleground-states to learn more and sign up.
EXTERNAL ACTIONS (Public actions that require relationships and interaction with others)
Make, “have you voted?” the new “how are you?” in your conversations.
Check in with the people you care about. Ask them if they plan to vote or have already voted. This is healthy peer pressure.
Once you’ve voted, let EVERYONE know (more subtle and not so subtle peer pressure on social media!)
Post the “I voted” sticker on your IG grid and ask others to do the same by tagging folks and using hashtag #ivoted #howtocitizen
Volunteer with a friend to be a poll worker.
Because of COVID-19 and the older age of most poll workers, we have a severe shortage of poll workers in many parts of the U.S. Visit powertothepolls.org and consider becoming a poll worker yourself or encouraging people you know to volunteer. More poll workers means faster voting means more people get to exercise their power.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritone Day, a show
where we reimagine the word citizen as a birth and
remind ourselves how to wield our collective power. I'm Baritone Day.
For the next few episodes of the show, We're gonna
focus on one specific form of collective power, and that
(00:28):
is voting. Voting is ground zero when it comes to
laying the foundation for How to Citizen. You can consider
these next few episodes a series within a series. We'll
bring you conversations with some of the most committed, experienced,
and insightful people working to ensure that this part of
our democracy functions well. These are the people who know
(00:50):
how to citizen and are working hard to make sure
all of us can do the same through this basic
yet profound right that we have to vote and make
our voices her. There's really no such thing as sitting
on the sidelines in an election. Every choice is a choice,
and as I saw on a recent Instagram post, not
(01:11):
voting still help someone win. For this episode, I spoke
with Maria Teresa Kumar, the CEO and founder of Voto Latino,
the largest Latino voting rights organization in America, which has
registered over five hundred thousand people to vote this year
alone and helped millions of people understand how voting impacts
(01:33):
their everyday lives in tangible ways. Now you're gonna hear
Maria in this interview say a lower number of registrants
around three hundred thousand. That's how fast they're moving. In
the time since we did this conversation, Vote to Latino
has turned up the numbers even more, and by the
time you hear this, it's gonna be even higher. One
(01:55):
key insight Maria dropped on me in this interview. She said,
November three is not election day, it's election deadline. People
are already voting. So let's go now for the interview. Hi,
my name is mamar and I'm the founding president of
(02:17):
Vote Latino, the largest voter registration outfit in the Latino community,
because we believe that a strong, robust democracy depends on
all of us. Maria, can you describe what's the typical
method of registering people to vote and what is the
Vote to Latino method and why is it different and better? Yeah, So,
the typical method is waiting for someone in front of
(02:40):
a Walmart and trying to convince them to register and
you can imagine how that could be hard if you
have a couple of kids in tow right or or
knocking on doors right in covid Era, that becomes really hard.
And in the Latino community in particular, since there's so
much anxiety among anybody knocking on your door, even if
you're a U. S. A Wison, that creates another friction
(03:02):
of participation. And so fifteen years ago I set out
with my partner in crime Rosario, and she's like, what
do you think if we do as a campaign? And
that I love that she could drop in the first
name though She's so she had done a whole bunch
of P S A s. And she's like, do you
think we could do anything more than this? And that's
(03:22):
around the same time I met her, and I was like, well,
how how hard can this be? Oh my gosh. Fifteen
years later, the experiment is finally coming to fruition. So
the idea was to register voters online and to register
and let the at scale. And this is what during
a time when someone was telling us that let the
knows didn't speak English, that what was social media with,
you know? And how do why would you use celebrity voices,
(03:45):
and so this was back again sixteen years ago, and
now I can tell you that in that year we
registered two thousand, four hundred people. As of this morning,
January one, we have registered over three hundred and sixty
seven thousand individuals since January one, and we are talking
to roughly fifteen million people a month across our social
media channels. Wow, and what's your goal for? Ideally would
(04:07):
be endless, but there's an upper limit on the population, right.
So the biggest challenge of the Latino community is closing
the voter registration gap, because we have thirty two million
Latinos who are eligible to vote, but only half of
us are registered. And of the fifteen million that are unregistered,
ten million of US are under the age of thirty
three and four million of US are brand new voters
(04:32):
since elections. So you have four million young voters who
heard the President called their family loved ones, rapists, and
criminals who are eligible to cast a ballot this year.
And so our voter registration is concentrated in six states
where we believe they could make the most impact, meaning
that they could flip at Texas, they could flip Florida,
they could flip Arizona. They could flip Georgia and North
(04:53):
Carolina and Pennsylvania. And our goal is to register at
least five thousand folks, but to be honest, we're actually
closer on track to registering over six That's an incredible number.
And I want to understand, you've been at this fifteen
sixteen years. What have you learned about what what actually works?
(05:15):
Because you described as Walmart parking lot scene and I
can imagine that does not work. And some celebrity voices
probably don't work if they're not really connecting to folks.
So over these years of experimentation, what have you learned
about what actually works to get people to register and
to actually vote. The number one thing is you have
to talk to them, and you actually kept to create
a space. Right. So, when we started Vote Latino, if
(05:36):
you ask someone to register to vote, but the moment
that they walk out, everything that government does for them
is broken. Their schools are broken, they don't have access
to healthcare, they don't have way E equity. It's hard
to convince someone that voting will make a difference. Right,
And so at Vote Latino, when I say we talked
to fifteen million people a month, we're educating people about
what happens when you have a good government, what happens
(05:59):
when you vote, what happens with how do you actually
transform the health care system, the educational system, address the environment,
get background checks on people, making sure that you have
good d as for police, reform that and then people
start to making the connections. And I can tell you
that the difference is that when we started doing this work,
getting people to make the contection, for example, between protesting
(06:20):
and voting was almost impossible. It's really really hard because
no one was used to the protesting and they were
starting to learn a habit of protesting, and then they
would still vote and wouldn't see any difference. This past June,
when Vote Latino, we were planning on registering roughly twenty
folks in June. When we connected the tragic death of
(06:40):
George Floyd and the protesting happening in the importance of
going to the ballot box to change your leadership, we
saw increase in our voter registration numbers from the previous month.
We registered twenty one folks in three days, and we
registered over a hundred thousand in the month of June.
And that was because in the Latino community. And this
(07:02):
is where again it's generation, but people don't get it,
like what is happening in the African American community resonates
and hurts so much in the Latino community because we
are experiencing so many unfortunate levels of policing as well.
Under this administration, you have eleven million undocument immigrants that
are constantly getting profiled, but in reality, it's sixty million
(07:26):
of us, right because no one knows who's documented who's not.
And so when you talk to a mother and talks
about having that conversation that talk with their with their kids,
it's the same talk, but no one talks about it
out loud because people are ashamed and they're they're scared,
right well, it's a real anxiety about being targeted and
(07:48):
hurt by the people that you may call to your
front door because you might have instances of domestic violence
or being shot. There's a horrible incident in Los Angeles
where this young man, eighteen years old, undocumented kid, he
was moonlighting as a security guard at an auto shop
and shortly after George Floyd he was shot close to
(08:10):
seventeen times in the back by on duty police officers
and he was moonlighting because his parents had lost their
jobs to COVID. He was just trying to make ends meet,
and there's no accountability sadly in some parts of the
police force. Latinos really get it. And so when we
started talking about the issues specifically around health under COVID,
(08:31):
when we start talking specifically about jobs under COVID and
racial inequities among blacks and Latinos, that was through the
roof because even though we don't discuss it, we know
that it is something that is an epidemic as well,
sadly in the Latino community. And Trump hasn't made it easier. Obviously,
he is very much of your either. It doesn't matter
(08:51):
if you're here as a fifth generation American citizen, if
you're brown, you might as well have never shown up.
I mean, that is that type of strife. And sadly,
you have hate crimes really skyrocketing, because it's not just
the government, it's all of a sudden the agency that
other folks have that say, okay, well, you know, I
just have to point out, sadly, what happened with El Paso. Right,
(09:11):
are there stories that you have of making this connection
from voting back to the quality of people's lives that
sort of keeps you motivated that you can kind of
show people who ask you why should I vote, and
you have this result that you can point to and say, look,
this made a difference. What are those examples for you?
So until it was very much small pockets of it,
(09:34):
but we saw something remarkable. For the very first time,
we saw Generation X, Y and Z out vote their
older generation. And it was also the most diverse group
of Americans that ushered in the most diverse Congress. So
in twenty nineteen, we brought in the most women, the
most Muslims, the most l g pt Q, the youngest generation,
(09:56):
the most Latina, the most veterans, you name it. It
was the most that reflected our country, the most American
and the most Americans that actually you know, and it
only took us four year almost right, that was really easy.
But but what was really exciting about that pieces that
and people will say, and this is where we have
to make sure that there's a case for why we
need diversity and entertainment, why we need diversity in Silicon Valley,
(10:18):
why we need diversity in our schools, That new legislative
body that reflected our values most came up with four
hundred pieces of legislation that is a blueprint to our
America that we deeply believe in. It talked about modernizing
our elections. It talked about background checks, It talked about
policing and reforming policing. It talked about making sure that
(10:40):
there was a path to citizenship for immigrants. It talked
about the environment that, oh, my gosh, climate change is real.
Let's address that thing. So there's four hundred pieces of
legislation that this diverse body was able to discuss and
actually pass that now is basically rotting away at the
Senate because Mr McConnell and the rest of the Senate
does not look like America. So when people say my
(11:02):
vote doesn't matter, like no, no, no, tell me your issues,
I bet you they've passed it. I was never able
to say that before. You know what, when I hear
about the black community or read about the Latin X community,
(11:23):
I know enough to know that there's multiple communities within
that um and so within the vote of Latino universe.
I'd love to ask you about what that Latino or
Latino community is, and in particular those who actually support
this president, which you know are headlines that I'm coming across,
and you're closer to these voters and the issues. Can
(11:43):
you break down some of the segments within the Latino
community and that segment that is pro this president. Yeah, So,
first of all, we're talking about over thirty countries in
Latin America, right and trying to bring everybody here. So
I always remind people that Italy didn't become Italy until
they landed right there. Just so that's kind of what
(12:06):
we're seeing here, right. But this is the thing in
Latin America. What you have is that people still hold
onto their roots and then they come to this country
and they're reminded that they're anything but an individual, right,
they're often times put together and in the Latino community though,
this is where I think there's great opportunity. And when
I say that our job at Bote Latino is to
market democracy, we're talking to a vast majority of Latinos
(12:29):
who are under the age of thirty three. Sixty of
all latin X are under the age of thirty three.
They're super young. So the mode like the majority of
of whites are fifty four, the majority you're sitting down,
the majority of Latinos are eleven years old. Like when
I say young, they're super young. Not the average, but
it's like the most like were they cluster. So if
you were to see like a map and you see
(12:50):
all these like little bumps, fifty eight over here, eleven
years old over here. Right, So we're very young communities,
which is not surprising why they are trying to pass
the voter suppression before we could even because they're preparing.
They're trying to prepare a disenfranchised group of Americans for
the future. Right. And so the other thing I also
remind folks is that of Latin X, we identify as black.
(13:13):
We're from my family's Caribbean, right. I was born on
Gotta Hannah, right, So that so we identifies black. You
also have a whole group of people that also don't
identify black right or as of color right, and that
gets more complicated. Specifically in Florida is you see a
lot of first wave of Cubans that came that were
(13:33):
brought over by Ronald Reagan, who very much espoused this
idea that free markets are the answer to everything. And
it's an older generation that really much believe in what
Donald Trump has to sell. He has scared them to
believe that the Democrats are into socialism and communism. And
I like to remind them is that if they believe
(13:55):
in social Security and if they believe in Medicare, that
is government doing good by its people, and that's technically
a government program. And this is where I think that
the BIND campaign can improve is that for most Latinos
and for a lot of communities of color, we don't
have supplemental income that for most social Security and Medicare represents.
(14:16):
Medicare is our health plan when we retire, and social
Security is basically our retirement plan when we retire, like
nothing else is coming in the door, right, And so
when the president says that he's going to take away
payroll taxes, that sounds nice as a small business unless
your health plan and your retirement plan happened to be
social Security and Medicare, right, So so it's kind of
(14:37):
it's opening that up. But but then you also have
a very group of folks that are just very older
for the most part, that are just conservative and are
very much aligned with UH, with anti choice. That's not
the case for young Latino's. Young Latinos, the people that
we mobilize our disproportionately. If you ask them what they
care about in order of preference, it is right now,
(14:58):
it's racial inequities, it's healthcare, it's jobs in that order,
and then the environment, and then you talk about immigration.
And the sixth one now is talking about gun reform.
Those are young people in Texas. You mentioned voter suppression,
and we've seen a lot of attempts to discredit parts
of the voting process, whether it's the count or the
(15:20):
delivery of mail. Um. I'm curious about the other side.
You know, because you work across all the states. What
states are doing a good job of encouraging voters, are
protecting the vote? Are there any models that we should
try to replicate and hold up as a positive example
of this is how you support the voting franchise. I
love that question. I would say that California, where you are,
(15:41):
is one of the best. It's such a large system
that is still getting new kinks because it's trying to
modernize quickly. But I'll give you an example. If you're
sixteen in California, you're preregistered to vote. That's huge. We
actually had to pull out of California because you guys
were doing such a great job you guys. Secretary Videas
(16:03):
and one of my close friends. And when he told
me his plans, I said, well, you're gonna put me
out of business. That's fantastic. But that should be your goal,
Like you want to register all the voters. I mean, look,
this idea that a third party organization has to do
a government function of registering voters is actually absurd. My
job should be about encouraging people to vote for an
issue and for a candidate, like that's that's what my
(16:24):
job should be. Persuading you you know who you should
vote for. But a government function, like you don't depend
the government. Doesn't depend on a government function to collect
your taxes, you know, not yet. So you cited the
great California Republic as one example of, you know, the
opposite of voter suppression voter encouragement by pre registering sixteen
year olds. What are a few other examples of people
(16:46):
doing it right? Yeah, I'd say Colorado and Colorado. You
don't have a voter registration deadline. You can just show
up with your idea and you can register and you
can vote the same day. That's fantastic, right, And you
have pre voting, meaning that can actually vote before the
actual November three, because so many people are going to
be interested in the election this year, we should think
(17:06):
of November thirty as our deadline. That's the last date
of vote, and the more we can bank our vote
that is going to make a difference. Because one of
the things that I'm concerned with is that there's gonna
be so much participation that everybody's gonna wait until the
last minute. Now, as a Latina, we wait for the
last minute for everything, not this time, guys, I never
need to bank their vote. If if I'm talking to
(17:28):
my fellow black folk, I'm like, no, CP time, no, no, no,
I have one more at least follow up. I think
it's about how votilit you operate. You said social media,
you use the word technology. You're engaging people who are
under thirty three by and large, What do you actually do?
(17:50):
How does it work? What is your technique? So imagine
I've with selling you nikes online and you double click
on it, right, So you know, we basically market democracy
all the time, and we identify where you are, and
not to sound creepy, we try to use it for good.
Try to get you to registers. Once you register to
vote with vot Latino. Then we start actually providing you
(18:12):
with the information that you need. So where's your voting booth?
Have you made a plan to vote? Have you? And
we try to make it all inclusive. So if you
were to tell me that you really cared about the environment,
once you're part of our world, we will tell you
when it's time for you to call your member of
Congress on the environment. If you want to, volunteer will
pull you in and you can volunteer from the comfort
of your home. If you text the volunteer to seven
(18:33):
three one seven nine, you can just start texting fellow
voters to go out and vote about the issues they
care about. And then what we do is that for
those folks that are really into it, we basically we
do volunteer programs where they actually come and get trained. So,
for example, on October two, we're going to have our
Power Summit. It's going to be virtual this time. Normally
it's in person, but it's usually about five young people
(18:54):
that are really aggressive of trying to change to their neighborhoods,
and we trained them on everything they need to do,
including running for office. And the idea is that we
have to flip the script when people say that the
system is regularly saying, now, let's be clear, the system
works for those who occupy. We are part of the
largest most diverse generation of Americans as time that we
flex and that we occupy our institutions. Because they're still
(19:16):
using our taxes. They might as well put our taxes
to work for good, at least most of ours. They're
not using the presidents because he doesn't even doesn't that
that got me pretty fired up. And the idea of
of marketing democracy, it's almost voto Latino is like the
first step, you know, and it's it's you're following through
in terms of the volunteering and the contacting you representative.
(19:38):
Are there things that you have planned that you're excited
about in terms of how your model is going to
continue to evolve. So I'll share with you. We started
about four years ago, we started encouraging yan Latinos to
run for office. That was part of our you know,
an experiment. And since that time we've had six and
people run. Of the six, five of one and they're
all the youngest in their chamber, so the youngest and
(19:59):
there's Will Boarder, shut Younggester and city Council and currently
the youngest in Congress. And so what we would like
to do is basically built off of that and just
encourage more people to run for office. I think that
what folks don't realize is that young Latinos they've been
navigating America for their families long before they turn eighteen
years old, oftentimes because they know the language. I was
(20:21):
translating from my mom when I was six seven years old,
you know, always with this nervousness of when I was
with my grandmother in the doctor's office, Am I going
to get her medication? Right? I mean, like some stuff
that's kind of big and quite frankly translating less well
when I came to school just can conveniently. I don't
know how to translate this particular note from this. Yeah,
(20:41):
but you're saying that a lot of folks in the
Letics community have experienced navigating the system on behalf of
their families, right, for everything but democracy. Right. We know
how to buy the best cell phone plan because we're
getting marketed that, right, but when it comes to democracy,
we don't. And so like only eight out of fifty
states requires to education to graduate from high school when
(21:02):
you're in places like Texas where close to a good
six of our kids are of color. Where are they
learning democracy? So we try to feel invital to him.
We try to fill that gap, because again, our democracy
is only as strong as our participation. And when we
have such a lopside participation, we're only one side with
one viewpoint is participating. We get what we get right
(21:24):
now in the White House, right, And so our job
is to flex. And again we're gonna be the largest
generation coming out to the polls. You're gonna have twelve
million more young voters than baby boomers for the first time.
Two thirds of them are young people of color. We
(21:48):
have a belief in this show about the word citizen,
and we are interpreting it not as a legal status,
but as a verb. If you were to interpret the
word citizen as a verb, what does it mean to you?
I citizen for my neighbor. Right. Our job, my job,
I think everybody's job, is to recognize that COVID has
(22:10):
exposed over fifty years of what the civil rights movement
was about, that there were institutional inequities in our system,
that where the fought lines were around race and gender,
and if you look at disproportionately the people who are
at the front lines. Our communities always knew we were
essential workers right, and COVID is exposed what that means.
(22:32):
It means sacrificing, sometimes your family time and sometimes sacrificing
your bodies to ensure that our families can be fed.
But so can the country can be nurtured. And so
for us to citizen right is to address the neediest,
the most vulnerable around us. I do think that COVID, well,
as painful as it's been, is giving us an opportunity
(22:55):
of a generation f DR right after the Great Depression,
had the opportunity to reimagine and think what America meant,
and that meant providing public schooling, meant providing social security,
it meant providing fair wages because you actually were able
to organize under a union, you had, like this, a
(23:15):
whole list of what our priorities were as Americans. COVID
is going to allow us to think as audaciously and
as big, and what we need to do is that
we need to citizen right so that everything is possible
to re calibrate where we are. I don't think that
there's now an American who can't say that where you
grow up in your zip coat, in the color of
(23:36):
your skin or your gender don't matter. If anything, COVID
has demonstrated those faultlines are very real. But as you know,
I mentioned I have two little ones that are six
and eight years old. There technically the beginning of what
is called the majority minority country where no one is
a majority. I would say, you know, the future has
been born and we're not ready. So just like you know,
(23:57):
World War One defined America in the world for the
twentieth century, one can claim that the twentieth century started February.
And how we actually legislate coming out of that, out
of the pandemic is where we are for our citizens,
but also for the world at large. Are we going
to step up to that leadership that is so so needed? Yeah,
(24:20):
watch out America, Maria Terressa Kumar, thank you for your time.
I think there's one. I'm already registered and I double
check every week. But if I weren't, I would register
through Vote to Latino just so you could market democracy
to me and I'd love to experience that. There's also
something you made me think of when when you described
very young Latin X folks having to navigate on behalf
(24:41):
of their families. That's representative democracy right there. Like there's
a constituency and you're in a service position and you
have to understand and sort of provide in this way.
So it's not surprising that five of your six one
if that's the group that you're pulling from with that
depth of experience. Is there anything you want to add
on this top pick of voting or how to be
a citizen? I think more than anything, we just want
(25:03):
to make sure that you have a voting plan. Make
sure like just like you make a plan to go
to the doctors or you know, go go on a date,
like make a plan for voting, and try to do
it early the fastest you can do it, because I
will tell you this, usually on November three, on election day,
everybody's calling the shots. Everybody's gonna say this person is
gonna win this year. We're not going to have that,
and we have to be prepared. But a lot of people,
(25:25):
millions of us, are gonna be voting by mail, and
as a result, some of them, it's going to take
us sometimes weeks to count them, Like in Georgia took
us two weeks after the Georgia Primary to count those
all those ballots. So one be a savvy voter. So
if someone tells you on November three that we know
who won, they're following you. We don't know, okay, So
just give every let it, let it work through the system,
(25:46):
because you know, every vote does count. And number two,
the more that the folks on the progressive side, the
more that people vote, it inspires other people to come
along and they feel like they're part of the winning team.
And media being the media will start creating narratives of
who's winning, right, and so don't wait until the last minute.
(26:07):
Start banking early. And the more that we start banking
those votes, the more we can actually control the cycle
and inspiring people to come out and saying, oh my gosh,
my vote. I do see a difference. I keep telling
people that there's only thirty six days un till dawn,
but I need everybody to participate. Thank you, thirty six
days till dawn. We are looking forward to that sunrise.
Thank you, Thank you so much. We want to thank
(26:34):
Maria to Race the Kumar again for taking time out
of a very very busy schedule in the middle of
election season to talk with us. Please follow Voto Latino
on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, visit their website at Voto Latino
dot org. There are some amazing resources there. Even if
(26:54):
you're not Latin X. You can find this entire episode,
the transcript the call to action always at how to
citizen dot com. And if you've enjoyed this episode and others,
please leave a review and tell someone you know put
it up on social media. Word of mouth is the
best way to grow a podcast, and we think this
(27:15):
thing we're doing with you here is something worth growing.
So we'll see you out there on the socials. Now
let's get into the set of actions we're offering up
for this episode. There's a lot, and I'm not asking
you to do everything, but I want to give you
options because everything feels like it's on the line on
the internal front. Here are some of the things you
(27:37):
can do. The first thing I want you to do
is just prepare yourself emotionally. We have this historic expectation
that we know an election result the morning after quote
unquote election day, and as I've repeated many times in
this episode, we are an election season. These are election weeks.
In November three is just the deadline. But because so
(27:59):
many people are voting by mail, because this race could
be very close and come down to a few states.
Assume we won't know, and brace yourself emotionally for that,
plus all the nonsense that you know is going to
happen between now and then and possibly after. Make a
plan to vote and act on it now. If you
(28:20):
haven't voted yet, make your plan. Figure out how you're
going to vote, who you're voting for. Plan this like
it's the biggest day of your life. I'm talking about.
Get the lent out of your shirt, brush your teeth,
get that mouth wash going. You don't just run out
into an amazing first date that could be the potential
for the rest of your life. So don't just run
(28:41):
out and mark up your ballot without informing yourself. Don't
just make up the rules. Take the time to figure
out how you want to get this done and start.
I would even say pause me right now and just
figure out of this stuff out right now. If you
can vote early and in person, it's still the most
ideal way to vote in this election. If you're unable
(29:03):
to do that, if you don't feel safe doing that, obviously,
don't do that. But if you do when you have
a choice, take that route. There's a great resource with
state by state information when we all vote dot org.
Look up your state there, see what your options are,
and then confirm them with your county elections website yourself,
(29:24):
and if you plan to vote by mail sometimes called
absentee balloting and states like Wisconsin, make sure you're registered
and fill it out and submit it very very carefully.
You gotta follow those directions to a t. I'm holding
my California mail in ballot in my hand right now,
(29:45):
and this is confusing and I read a lot, you know,
So just take your time with it, do some breathing exercises,
double check everything. Don't give anyone any excuse to not
count your vote or to challenge it. There's a bone
this round here for those who are feeling a little
more partisan. But I don't even think in the season
(30:06):
we're in now that supporting Joe Biden for president is partisan.
I think he is a pro small D Democrat right now,
and the other candidate has shown his colors as not
being down for people power. So phone bank or text
and adopt a swing state. I'm gonna send you to
vote Save America dot com. They have a whole battleground
(30:27):
states adoption program. Uh, you don't actually adopt all the
people in the state, but you take them on from
an electoral perspective to try to make sure people are
voting there because it counts a little more because of
the electoral college at the federal level. But you pay
attention to your whole ballot. All right, Now, there's more,
Like I said, many options. On the more external facing
(30:49):
stuff that involves other people, make the phrase have you voted?
The new how are you? In your conversations. I want
you to check in with the people you care about
and be like, oh, that was a crazy week. Have
you voted? I want you to log into your zoom
and just flood the chat with have you voted? Make
that a social norm. It is healthy peer pressure to
(31:13):
encourage people to flex their power. And once you voted,
you let everybody know. I want you posting that I
voted sticker on your body so they show up in
all your web things and your grocery store visits. And
I want you posting on social media use the hashtag
I voted, with the hashtag how to citizens. Lastly, on
(31:37):
the action front, this is a bigger lift, but if
you're feeling particularly young and healthy and energetic, volunteer to
be a poll worker. Because of COVID nineteen and the
generally older age of our poll workers, we have a
severe shortage of poll workers in many parts of the US.
Visit Power to the Polls dot org and consider becoming
(31:59):
a poll work to yourself. Encourage people you know to volunteer.
Bring a friend with you. More poll workers means faster
voting means more people get to exercise their power, means
a happier Baritune day. Host of how to Citizen a
Baritune day. If you take any of these actions, let
us know. Email us actions at how to citizen dot
(32:21):
com mentioned voting in the subject line, Brag online about
your citizen in using the hashtag how to citizen, and
we're always open to general feedback, guest recommendations, actions you
have in mind comments at how to citizen dot com.
You can also text me I'm at two O two
eight nine four eight eight four four. Put citizen in
(32:42):
there so I know how you found me and share
your ideas that way too. If you prefer texting, I'm
reading them all myself. This has been an extraordinary pleasure
We have more voting episodes coming, so stay tuned and
more importantly, make your plan or work with someone you
know who end vote to make their plan, and let's
(33:02):
have record flexing of power. How the Citizen with Barrett
Sunday is a production of I Heart Radio. Podcast executive
produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart, and barrettun
Day Thurston. Produced by Joel Smith, Edited by Justin Smith.
Powered by you
Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritone Day, a show
where we reimagine the word citizen as a birth and
remind ourselves how to wield our collective power. I'm Baritone Day.
For the next few episodes of the show, We're gonna
focus on one specific form of collective power, and that
(00:28):
is voting. Voting is ground zero when it comes to
laying the foundation for How to Citizen. You can consider
these next few episodes a series within a series. We'll
bring you conversations with some of the most committed, experienced,
and insightful people working to ensure that this part of
our democracy functions well. These are the people who know
(00:50):
how to citizen and are working hard to make sure
all of us can do the same through this basic
yet profound right that we have to vote and make
our voices her. There's really no such thing as sitting
on the sidelines in an election. Every choice is a choice,
and as I saw on a recent Instagram post, not
(01:11):
voting still help someone win. For this episode, I spoke
with Maria Teresa Kumar, the CEO and founder of Voto Latino,
the largest Latino voting rights organization in America, which has
registered over five hundred thousand people to vote this year
alone and helped millions of people understand how voting impacts
(01:33):
their everyday lives in tangible ways. Now you're gonna hear
Maria in this interview say a lower number of registrants
around three hundred thousand. That's how fast they're moving. In
the time since we did this conversation, Vote to Latino
has turned up the numbers even more, and by the
time you hear this, it's gonna be even higher. One
(01:55):
key insight Maria dropped on me in this interview. She said,
November three is not election day, it's election deadline. People
are already voting. So let's go now for the interview. Hi,
my name is mamar and I'm the founding president of
(02:17):
Vote Latino, the largest voter registration outfit in the Latino community,
because we believe that a strong, robust democracy depends on
all of us. Maria, can you describe what's the typical
method of registering people to vote and what is the
Vote to Latino method and why is it different and better? Yeah, So,
the typical method is waiting for someone in front of
(02:40):
a Walmart and trying to convince them to register and
you can imagine how that could be hard if you
have a couple of kids in tow right or or
knocking on doors right in covid Era, that becomes really hard.
And in the Latino community in particular, since there's so
much anxiety among anybody knocking on your door, even if
you're a U. S. A Wison, that creates another friction
(03:02):
of participation. And so fifteen years ago I set out
with my partner in crime Rosario, and she's like, what
do you think if we do as a campaign? And
that I love that she could drop in the first
name though She's so she had done a whole bunch
of P S A s. And she's like, do you
think we could do anything more than this? And that's
(03:22):
around the same time I met her, and I was like, well,
how how hard can this be? Oh my gosh. Fifteen
years later, the experiment is finally coming to fruition. So
the idea was to register voters online and to register
and let the at scale. And this is what during
a time when someone was telling us that let the
knows didn't speak English, that what was social media with,
you know? And how do why would you use celebrity voices,
(03:45):
and so this was back again sixteen years ago, and
now I can tell you that in that year we
registered two thousand, four hundred people. As of this morning,
January one, we have registered over three hundred and sixty
seven thousand individuals since January one, and we are talking
to roughly fifteen million people a month across our social
media channels. Wow, and what's your goal for? Ideally would
(04:07):
be endless, but there's an upper limit on the population, right.
So the biggest challenge of the Latino community is closing
the voter registration gap, because we have thirty two million
Latinos who are eligible to vote, but only half of
us are registered. And of the fifteen million that are unregistered,
ten million of US are under the age of thirty
three and four million of US are brand new voters
(04:32):
since elections. So you have four million young voters who
heard the President called their family loved ones, rapists, and
criminals who are eligible to cast a ballot this year.
And so our voter registration is concentrated in six states
where we believe they could make the most impact, meaning
that they could flip at Texas, they could flip Florida,
they could flip Arizona. They could flip Georgia and North
(04:53):
Carolina and Pennsylvania. And our goal is to register at
least five thousand folks, but to be honest, we're actually
closer on track to registering over six That's an incredible number.
And I want to understand, you've been at this fifteen
sixteen years. What have you learned about what what actually works?
(05:15):
Because you described as Walmart parking lot scene and I
can imagine that does not work. And some celebrity voices
probably don't work if they're not really connecting to folks.
So over these years of experimentation, what have you learned
about what actually works to get people to register and
to actually vote. The number one thing is you have
to talk to them, and you actually kept to create
a space. Right. So, when we started Vote Latino, if
(05:36):
you ask someone to register to vote, but the moment
that they walk out, everything that government does for them
is broken. Their schools are broken, they don't have access
to healthcare, they don't have way E equity. It's hard
to convince someone that voting will make a difference. Right,
And so at Vote Latino, when I say we talked
to fifteen million people a month, we're educating people about
what happens when you have a good government, what happens
(05:59):
when you vote, what happens with how do you actually
transform the health care system, the educational system, address the environment,
get background checks on people, making sure that you have
good d as for police, reform that and then people
start to making the connections. And I can tell you
that the difference is that when we started doing this work,
getting people to make the contection, for example, between protesting
(06:20):
and voting was almost impossible. It's really really hard because
no one was used to the protesting and they were
starting to learn a habit of protesting, and then they
would still vote and wouldn't see any difference. This past June,
when Vote Latino, we were planning on registering roughly twenty
folks in June. When we connected the tragic death of
(06:40):
George Floyd and the protesting happening in the importance of
going to the ballot box to change your leadership, we
saw increase in our voter registration numbers from the previous month.
We registered twenty one folks in three days, and we
registered over a hundred thousand in the month of June.
And that was because in the Latino community. And this
(07:02):
is where again it's generation, but people don't get it,
like what is happening in the African American community resonates
and hurts so much in the Latino community because we
are experiencing so many unfortunate levels of policing as well.
Under this administration, you have eleven million undocument immigrants that
are constantly getting profiled, but in reality, it's sixty million
(07:26):
of us, right because no one knows who's documented who's not.
And so when you talk to a mother and talks
about having that conversation that talk with their with their kids,
it's the same talk, but no one talks about it
out loud because people are ashamed and they're they're scared,
right well, it's a real anxiety about being targeted and
(07:48):
hurt by the people that you may call to your
front door because you might have instances of domestic violence
or being shot. There's a horrible incident in Los Angeles
where this young man, eighteen years old, undocumented kid, he
was moonlighting as a security guard at an auto shop
and shortly after George Floyd he was shot close to
(08:10):
seventeen times in the back by on duty police officers
and he was moonlighting because his parents had lost their
jobs to COVID. He was just trying to make ends meet,
and there's no accountability sadly in some parts of the
police force. Latinos really get it. And so when we
started talking about the issues specifically around health under COVID,
(08:31):
when we start talking specifically about jobs under COVID and
racial inequities among blacks and Latinos, that was through the
roof because even though we don't discuss it, we know
that it is something that is an epidemic as well,
sadly in the Latino community. And Trump hasn't made it easier. Obviously,
he is very much of your either. It doesn't matter
(08:51):
if you're here as a fifth generation American citizen, if
you're brown, you might as well have never shown up.
I mean, that is that type of strife. And sadly,
you have hate crimes really skyrocketing, because it's not just
the government, it's all of a sudden the agency that
other folks have that say, okay, well, you know, I
just have to point out, sadly, what happened with El Paso. Right,
(09:11):
are there stories that you have of making this connection
from voting back to the quality of people's lives that
sort of keeps you motivated that you can kind of
show people who ask you why should I vote, and
you have this result that you can point to and say, look,
this made a difference. What are those examples for you?
So until it was very much small pockets of it,
(09:34):
but we saw something remarkable. For the very first time,
we saw Generation X, Y and Z out vote their
older generation. And it was also the most diverse group
of Americans that ushered in the most diverse Congress. So
in twenty nineteen, we brought in the most women, the
most Muslims, the most l g pt Q, the youngest generation,
(09:56):
the most Latina, the most veterans, you name it. It
was the most that reflected our country, the most American
and the most Americans that actually you know, and it
only took us four year almost right, that was really easy.
But but what was really exciting about that pieces that
and people will say, and this is where we have
to make sure that there's a case for why we
need diversity and entertainment, why we need diversity in Silicon Valley,
(10:18):
why we need diversity in our schools, That new legislative
body that reflected our values most came up with four
hundred pieces of legislation that is a blueprint to our
America that we deeply believe in. It talked about modernizing
our elections. It talked about background checks, It talked about
policing and reforming policing. It talked about making sure that
(10:40):
there was a path to citizenship for immigrants. It talked
about the environment that, oh, my gosh, climate change is real.
Let's address that thing. So there's four hundred pieces of
legislation that this diverse body was able to discuss and
actually pass that now is basically rotting away at the
Senate because Mr McConnell and the rest of the Senate
does not look like America. So when people say my
(11:02):
vote doesn't matter, like no, no, no, tell me your issues,
I bet you they've passed it. I was never able
to say that before. You know what, when I hear
about the black community or read about the Latin X community,
(11:23):
I know enough to know that there's multiple communities within
that um and so within the vote of Latino universe.
I'd love to ask you about what that Latino or
Latino community is, and in particular those who actually support
this president, which you know are headlines that I'm coming across,
and you're closer to these voters and the issues. Can
(11:43):
you break down some of the segments within the Latino
community and that segment that is pro this president. Yeah, So,
first of all, we're talking about over thirty countries in
Latin America, right and trying to bring everybody here. So
I always remind people that Italy didn't become Italy until
they landed right there. Just so that's kind of what
(12:06):
we're seeing here, right. But this is the thing in
Latin America. What you have is that people still hold
onto their roots and then they come to this country
and they're reminded that they're anything but an individual, right,
they're often times put together and in the Latino community though,
this is where I think there's great opportunity. And when
I say that our job at Bote Latino is to
market democracy, we're talking to a vast majority of Latinos
(12:29):
who are under the age of thirty three. Sixty of
all latin X are under the age of thirty three.
They're super young. So the mode like the majority of
of whites are fifty four, the majority you're sitting down,
the majority of Latinos are eleven years old. Like when
I say young, they're super young. Not the average, but
it's like the most like were they cluster. So if
you were to see like a map and you see
(12:50):
all these like little bumps, fifty eight over here, eleven
years old over here. Right, So we're very young communities,
which is not surprising why they are trying to pass
the voter suppression before we could even because they're preparing.
They're trying to prepare a disenfranchised group of Americans for
the future. Right. And so the other thing I also
remind folks is that of Latin X, we identify as black.
(13:13):
We're from my family's Caribbean, right. I was born on
Gotta Hannah, right, So that so we identifies black. You
also have a whole group of people that also don't
identify black right or as of color right, and that
gets more complicated. Specifically in Florida is you see a
lot of first wave of Cubans that came that were
(13:33):
brought over by Ronald Reagan, who very much espoused this
idea that free markets are the answer to everything. And
it's an older generation that really much believe in what
Donald Trump has to sell. He has scared them to
believe that the Democrats are into socialism and communism. And
I like to remind them is that if they believe
(13:55):
in social Security and if they believe in Medicare, that
is government doing good by its people, and that's technically
a government program. And this is where I think that
the BIND campaign can improve is that for most Latinos
and for a lot of communities of color, we don't
have supplemental income that for most social Security and Medicare represents.
(14:16):
Medicare is our health plan when we retire, and social
Security is basically our retirement plan when we retire, like
nothing else is coming in the door, right, And so
when the president says that he's going to take away
payroll taxes, that sounds nice as a small business unless
your health plan and your retirement plan happened to be
social Security and Medicare, right, So so it's kind of
(14:37):
it's opening that up. But but then you also have
a very group of folks that are just very older
for the most part, that are just conservative and are
very much aligned with UH, with anti choice. That's not
the case for young Latino's. Young Latinos, the people that
we mobilize our disproportionately. If you ask them what they
care about in order of preference, it is right now,
(14:58):
it's racial inequities, it's healthcare, it's jobs in that order,
and then the environment, and then you talk about immigration.
And the sixth one now is talking about gun reform.
Those are young people in Texas. You mentioned voter suppression,
and we've seen a lot of attempts to discredit parts
of the voting process, whether it's the count or the
(15:20):
delivery of mail. Um. I'm curious about the other side.
You know, because you work across all the states. What
states are doing a good job of encouraging voters, are
protecting the vote? Are there any models that we should
try to replicate and hold up as a positive example
of this is how you support the voting franchise. I
love that question. I would say that California, where you are,
(15:41):
is one of the best. It's such a large system
that is still getting new kinks because it's trying to
modernize quickly. But I'll give you an example. If you're
sixteen in California, you're preregistered to vote. That's huge. We
actually had to pull out of California because you guys
were doing such a great job you guys. Secretary Videas
(16:03):
and one of my close friends. And when he told
me his plans, I said, well, you're gonna put me
out of business. That's fantastic. But that should be your goal,
Like you want to register all the voters. I mean, look,
this idea that a third party organization has to do
a government function of registering voters is actually absurd. My
job should be about encouraging people to vote for an
issue and for a candidate, like that's that's what my
(16:24):
job should be. Persuading you you know who you should
vote for. But a government function, like you don't depend
the government. Doesn't depend on a government function to collect
your taxes, you know, not yet. So you cited the
great California Republic as one example of, you know, the
opposite of voter suppression voter encouragement by pre registering sixteen
year olds. What are a few other examples of people
(16:46):
doing it right? Yeah, I'd say Colorado and Colorado. You
don't have a voter registration deadline. You can just show
up with your idea and you can register and you
can vote the same day. That's fantastic, right, And you
have pre voting, meaning that can actually vote before the
actual November three, because so many people are going to
be interested in the election this year, we should think
(17:06):
of November thirty as our deadline. That's the last date
of vote, and the more we can bank our vote
that is going to make a difference. Because one of
the things that I'm concerned with is that there's gonna
be so much participation that everybody's gonna wait until the
last minute. Now, as a Latina, we wait for the
last minute for everything, not this time, guys, I never
need to bank their vote. If if I'm talking to
(17:28):
my fellow black folk, I'm like, no, CP time, no, no, no,
I have one more at least follow up. I think
it's about how votilit you operate. You said social media,
you use the word technology. You're engaging people who are
under thirty three by and large, What do you actually do?
(17:50):
How does it work? What is your technique? So imagine
I've with selling you nikes online and you double click
on it, right, So you know, we basically market democracy
all the time, and we identify where you are, and
not to sound creepy, we try to use it for good.
Try to get you to registers. Once you register to
vote with vot Latino. Then we start actually providing you
(18:12):
with the information that you need. So where's your voting booth?
Have you made a plan to vote? Have you? And
we try to make it all inclusive. So if you
were to tell me that you really cared about the environment,
once you're part of our world, we will tell you
when it's time for you to call your member of
Congress on the environment. If you want to, volunteer will
pull you in and you can volunteer from the comfort
of your home. If you text the volunteer to seven
(18:33):
three one seven nine, you can just start texting fellow
voters to go out and vote about the issues they
care about. And then what we do is that for
those folks that are really into it, we basically we
do volunteer programs where they actually come and get trained. So,
for example, on October two, we're going to have our
Power Summit. It's going to be virtual this time. Normally
it's in person, but it's usually about five young people
(18:54):
that are really aggressive of trying to change to their neighborhoods,
and we trained them on everything they need to do,
including running for office. And the idea is that we
have to flip the script when people say that the
system is regularly saying, now, let's be clear, the system
works for those who occupy. We are part of the
largest most diverse generation of Americans as time that we
flex and that we occupy our institutions. Because they're still
(19:16):
using our taxes. They might as well put our taxes
to work for good, at least most of ours. They're
not using the presidents because he doesn't even doesn't that
that got me pretty fired up. And the idea of
of marketing democracy, it's almost voto Latino is like the
first step, you know, and it's it's you're following through
in terms of the volunteering and the contacting you representative.
(19:38):
Are there things that you have planned that you're excited
about in terms of how your model is going to
continue to evolve. So I'll share with you. We started
about four years ago, we started encouraging yan Latinos to
run for office. That was part of our you know,
an experiment. And since that time we've had six and
people run. Of the six, five of one and they're
all the youngest in their chamber, so the youngest and
(19:59):
there's Will Boarder, shut Younggester and city Council and currently
the youngest in Congress. And so what we would like
to do is basically built off of that and just
encourage more people to run for office. I think that
what folks don't realize is that young Latinos they've been
navigating America for their families long before they turn eighteen
years old, oftentimes because they know the language. I was
(20:21):
translating from my mom when I was six seven years old,
you know, always with this nervousness of when I was
with my grandmother in the doctor's office, Am I going
to get her medication? Right? I mean, like some stuff
that's kind of big and quite frankly translating less well
when I came to school just can conveniently. I don't
know how to translate this particular note from this. Yeah,
(20:41):
but you're saying that a lot of folks in the
Letics community have experienced navigating the system on behalf of
their families, right, for everything but democracy. Right. We know
how to buy the best cell phone plan because we're
getting marketed that, right, but when it comes to democracy,
we don't. And so like only eight out of fifty
states requires to education to graduate from high school when
(21:02):
you're in places like Texas where close to a good
six of our kids are of color. Where are they
learning democracy? So we try to feel invital to him.
We try to fill that gap, because again, our democracy
is only as strong as our participation. And when we
have such a lopside participation, we're only one side with
one viewpoint is participating. We get what we get right
(21:24):
now in the White House, right, And so our job
is to flex. And again we're gonna be the largest
generation coming out to the polls. You're gonna have twelve
million more young voters than baby boomers for the first time.
Two thirds of them are young people of color. We
(21:48):
have a belief in this show about the word citizen,
and we are interpreting it not as a legal status,
but as a verb. If you were to interpret the
word citizen as a verb, what does it mean to you?
I citizen for my neighbor. Right. Our job, my job,
I think everybody's job, is to recognize that COVID has
(22:10):
exposed over fifty years of what the civil rights movement
was about, that there were institutional inequities in our system,
that where the fought lines were around race and gender,
and if you look at disproportionately the people who are
at the front lines. Our communities always knew we were
essential workers right, and COVID is exposed what that means.
(22:32):
It means sacrificing, sometimes your family time and sometimes sacrificing
your bodies to ensure that our families can be fed.
But so can the country can be nurtured. And so
for us to citizen right is to address the neediest,
the most vulnerable around us. I do think that COVID, well,
as painful as it's been, is giving us an opportunity
(22:55):
of a generation f DR right after the Great Depression,
had the opportunity to reimagine and think what America meant,
and that meant providing public schooling, meant providing social security,
it meant providing fair wages because you actually were able
to organize under a union, you had, like this, a
(23:15):
whole list of what our priorities were as Americans. COVID
is going to allow us to think as audaciously and
as big, and what we need to do is that
we need to citizen right so that everything is possible
to re calibrate where we are. I don't think that
there's now an American who can't say that where you
grow up in your zip coat, in the color of
(23:36):
your skin or your gender don't matter. If anything, COVID
has demonstrated those faultlines are very real. But as you know,
I mentioned I have two little ones that are six
and eight years old. There technically the beginning of what
is called the majority minority country where no one is
a majority. I would say, you know, the future has
been born and we're not ready. So just like you know,
(23:57):
World War One defined America in the world for the
twentieth century, one can claim that the twentieth century started February.
And how we actually legislate coming out of that, out
of the pandemic is where we are for our citizens,
but also for the world at large. Are we going
to step up to that leadership that is so so needed? Yeah,
(24:20):
watch out America, Maria Terressa Kumar, thank you for your time.
I think there's one. I'm already registered and I double
check every week. But if I weren't, I would register
through Vote to Latino just so you could market democracy
to me and I'd love to experience that. There's also
something you made me think of when when you described
very young Latin X folks having to navigate on behalf
(24:41):
of their families. That's representative democracy right there. Like there's
a constituency and you're in a service position and you
have to understand and sort of provide in this way.
So it's not surprising that five of your six one
if that's the group that you're pulling from with that
depth of experience. Is there anything you want to add
on this top pick of voting or how to be
a citizen? I think more than anything, we just want
(25:03):
to make sure that you have a voting plan. Make
sure like just like you make a plan to go
to the doctors or you know, go go on a date,
like make a plan for voting, and try to do
it early the fastest you can do it, because I
will tell you this, usually on November three, on election day,
everybody's calling the shots. Everybody's gonna say this person is
gonna win this year. We're not going to have that,
and we have to be prepared. But a lot of people,
(25:25):
millions of us, are gonna be voting by mail, and
as a result, some of them, it's going to take
us sometimes weeks to count them, Like in Georgia took
us two weeks after the Georgia Primary to count those
all those ballots. So one be a savvy voter. So
if someone tells you on November three that we know
who won, they're following you. We don't know, okay, So
just give every let it, let it work through the system,
(25:46):
because you know, every vote does count. And number two,
the more that the folks on the progressive side, the
more that people vote, it inspires other people to come
along and they feel like they're part of the winning team.
And media being the media will start creating narratives of
who's winning, right, and so don't wait until the last minute.
(26:07):
Start banking early. And the more that we start banking
those votes, the more we can actually control the cycle
and inspiring people to come out and saying, oh my gosh,
my vote. I do see a difference. I keep telling
people that there's only thirty six days un till dawn,
but I need everybody to participate. Thank you, thirty six
days till dawn. We are looking forward to that sunrise.
Thank you, Thank you so much. We want to thank
(26:34):
Maria to Race the Kumar again for taking time out
of a very very busy schedule in the middle of
election season to talk with us. Please follow Voto Latino
on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, visit their website at Voto Latino
dot org. There are some amazing resources there. Even if
(26:54):
you're not Latin X. You can find this entire episode,
the transcript the call to action always at how to
citizen dot com. And if you've enjoyed this episode and others,
please leave a review and tell someone you know put
it up on social media. Word of mouth is the
best way to grow a podcast, and we think this
(27:15):
thing we're doing with you here is something worth growing.
So we'll see you out there on the socials. Now
let's get into the set of actions we're offering up
for this episode. There's a lot, and I'm not asking
you to do everything, but I want to give you
options because everything feels like it's on the line on
the internal front. Here are some of the things you
(27:37):
can do. The first thing I want you to do
is just prepare yourself emotionally. We have this historic expectation
that we know an election result the morning after quote
unquote election day, and as I've repeated many times in
this episode, we are an election season. These are election weeks.
In November three is just the deadline. But because so
(27:59):
many people are voting by mail, because this race could
be very close and come down to a few states.
Assume we won't know, and brace yourself emotionally for that,
plus all the nonsense that you know is going to
happen between now and then and possibly after. Make a
plan to vote and act on it now. If you
(28:20):
haven't voted yet, make your plan. Figure out how you're
going to vote, who you're voting for. Plan this like
it's the biggest day of your life. I'm talking about.
Get the lent out of your shirt, brush your teeth,
get that mouth wash going. You don't just run out
into an amazing first date that could be the potential
for the rest of your life. So don't just run
(28:41):
out and mark up your ballot without informing yourself. Don't
just make up the rules. Take the time to figure
out how you want to get this done and start.
I would even say pause me right now and just
figure out of this stuff out right now. If you
can vote early and in person, it's still the most
ideal way to vote in this election. If you're unable
(29:03):
to do that, if you don't feel safe doing that, obviously,
don't do that. But if you do when you have
a choice, take that route. There's a great resource with
state by state information when we all vote dot org.
Look up your state there, see what your options are,
and then confirm them with your county elections website yourself,
(29:24):
and if you plan to vote by mail sometimes called
absentee balloting and states like Wisconsin, make sure you're registered
and fill it out and submit it very very carefully.
You gotta follow those directions to a t. I'm holding
my California mail in ballot in my hand right now,
(29:45):
and this is confusing and I read a lot, you know,
So just take your time with it, do some breathing exercises,
double check everything. Don't give anyone any excuse to not
count your vote or to challenge it. There's a bone
this round here for those who are feeling a little
more partisan. But I don't even think in the season
(30:06):
we're in now that supporting Joe Biden for president is partisan.
I think he is a pro small D Democrat right now,
and the other candidate has shown his colors as not
being down for people power. So phone bank or text
and adopt a swing state. I'm gonna send you to
vote Save America dot com. They have a whole battleground
(30:27):
states adoption program. Uh, you don't actually adopt all the
people in the state, but you take them on from
an electoral perspective to try to make sure people are
voting there because it counts a little more because of
the electoral college at the federal level. But you pay
attention to your whole ballot. All right, Now, there's more,
Like I said, many options. On the more external facing
(30:49):
stuff that involves other people, make the phrase have you voted?
The new how are you? In your conversations. I want
you to check in with the people you care about
and be like, oh, that was a crazy week. Have
you voted? I want you to log into your zoom
and just flood the chat with have you voted? Make
that a social norm. It is healthy peer pressure to
(31:13):
encourage people to flex their power. And once you voted,
you let everybody know. I want you posting that I
voted sticker on your body so they show up in
all your web things and your grocery store visits. And
I want you posting on social media use the hashtag
I voted, with the hashtag how to citizens. Lastly, on
(31:37):
the action front, this is a bigger lift, but if
you're feeling particularly young and healthy and energetic, volunteer to
be a poll worker. Because of COVID nineteen and the
generally older age of our poll workers, we have a
severe shortage of poll workers in many parts of the US.
Visit Power to the Polls dot org and consider becoming
(31:59):
a poll work to yourself. Encourage people you know to volunteer.
Bring a friend with you. More poll workers means faster
voting means more people get to exercise their power, means
a happier Baritune day. Host of how to Citizen a
Baritune day. If you take any of these actions, let
us know. Email us actions at how to citizen dot
(32:21):
com mentioned voting in the subject line, Brag online about
your citizen in using the hashtag how to citizen, and
we're always open to general feedback, guest recommendations, actions you
have in mind comments at how to citizen dot com.
You can also text me I'm at two O two
eight nine four eight eight four four. Put citizen in
(32:42):
there so I know how you found me and share
your ideas that way too. If you prefer texting, I'm
reading them all myself. This has been an extraordinary pleasure
We have more voting episodes coming, so stay tuned and
more importantly, make your plan or work with someone you
know who end vote to make their plan, and let's
(33:02):
have record flexing of power. How the Citizen with Barrett
Sunday is a production of I Heart Radio. Podcast executive
produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart, and barrettun
Day Thurston. Produced by Joel Smith, Edited by Justin Smith.
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