October 20, 2020 • 34 mins
Baratunde speaks with Sherrilyn Ifill, the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund about the very long history of voter suppression, why it still exists (hint: white supremacy and racism), and the current tactics being deployed for the 2020 election.
Show Notes + Links
We are grateful to Sherrilyn Ifill for joining us.
Follow her at @Sifill_LDF and @NAACP_LDF on Twitter. You can learn more about the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund at https://www.naacpldf.org/.
We will post this episode, a transcript, show notes and more at howtocitizen.com.
Please show your support for the show in the form of a review and rating. It makes a huge difference with the algorithmic overlords!
HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW. ACTIONS FOR THIS EPISODE.
INTERNAL ACTIONS
Become educated on the systems of oppression so you know the roots and how to fight back.
Two good books to start with for a comprehensive take.
- Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X Kendi
- Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B Wells
You can buy these books and support local bookstores using our show’s bookshop.org link https://bookshop.org/shop/howtocitizen
Understand the Voting Rights Act and how the Shelby decision changed everything.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/how-shelby-county-broke-america/564707/
Make your voting plan.
Visit www.morethanavote.org to make your voting plan. This is the organization that LeBron James helped start, and they’ve partnered with a number of groups including Sherrilyn and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Also visit https://votesaveamerica.com/plan/ the newly released tool from Vote Save America to get ready with a sample ballot for your area to plan your voting so you can be EFFICIENT at the voting booth.
EXTERNAL ACTIONS
Find out the EXACT requirements of mail-in or absentee ballots in your state and share them so every vote is counted.
The requirements and directions for voting by mail differ by state. Some require signatures by a witness on the outside of the envelope along with the witness’s address and your signature. Some require using two envelopes when mailing them back. Get the details from a trusted source or from the ballot itself and remind people to triple check these details!
Be a democracy team captain.
Take the lead in making sure at least three people you know vote. Follow up with them often until they have voted. Ask each one to do the same!
Compile key information about voting and vote by mail for your state. Then simplify the directions for those you are taking responsibility for, and share resources with them. Here are two comprehensive and easy to understand sites summarizing the steps for each state:
Finally, offer to provide a witness signat
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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 barrattun Day, I show
where we reclaim the word citizen and use it as
a verb and learn how to wield our collective power.
I'm barrattun Day. In this episode, we are continuing our
focus on voting, that super expression of people power, and
(00:29):
we've been talking to folks who are on the front
lines of this issue in many different ways, and in
this episode we're talking to someone who's been a long
time warrior on behalf of people power. She has the
job that Third Good Marshall used to have. That's how
dope and committed. She is. Her name Sherlyn Eiffel. Her
(00:51):
job President and Director Counsel of the n double a
CP Legal Defense Fund. I had the opportunity to virtually
join and meet Carolyn Eiffel during a voting of it
a few weeks ago. And when I tell you I
would do anything, she says, I mean it. If Charyln
Eiffel says, double check your voter registration, I'm triple checking. Actually.
(01:12):
If Charyln Eiffel says be patient on election Day and
beyond to wait for these results, I'm gonna be the
most patient, most zen, most calm person you can even imagine.
And if Charyln Eiffel asked me to take out her garbage,
I will do that. I will be at your place, Carolyn.
I will do this because I assume it is for
(01:33):
the benefit of the many. It is for the people,
and I know I'm right because I'm right about you.
In this conversation, you know Charylyn who breaks it down.
She says, we need to operate at the highest levels
of citizenship during this election. I love that phrase. She
reminds us of the history of efforts to deny and
(01:54):
suppress black people's votes, but also the history of overcoming
those efforts. Here's Cheryl and if President and Director Council,
which I might add is a very very dope job title. Hello, Hey,
(02:15):
how you doing. I am fired up, I'm ready to go,
I am tired, I am eager, I am impatient all
those things. How are you also angry? Yeah, you know angry.
I have my moments of disappointment, but you know, mostly
it's just you just have to keep fighting. Sherylyn. You're
at the double A CP Legal Defense Fund. This historic
(02:37):
institution been around since fighting on behalf of human rights,
Black rights voting rights. How has the history the legacy
of black voter suppression in the US evolved to what
it looks like now, you know, how is now different
from them. It's a bit of a loop back. But yeah,
(02:58):
I mean it's in just sing because I think people
now are talking about voter suppression as though almost it's
a new thing, Like people get that there was the
Edmund Pettis Bridge, there was the Voting Rights Act, and
then there was voter suppression you know, in fourteen and
fifteen and sixteen, you know, but that's actually not how
it works. As a matter of fact, my first sint
(03:18):
at the Legal Defense Fund was when I was a
year out of law school, after I finished a fellowship
at the A. C. L U. I joined then double
a CP Legal Defense Fund and litigated voting rights cases
for five years. That was in So we've been at
this for a very, very long time, you know. Third
Good Marshal's first huge Supreme Court win was in nineteen
forty four. It was a case called Smith versus all Right,
(03:41):
in which the Supreme Court struck down the use of
the all white primary election in the South. That was
Third Good Marshall's case, and really his first big Supreme
Court wins. That's nineteen forty four. We were founded in
nineteen forties, so that's four years after the organization was created.
And I say all of that because I think people
have truncated the arc of voter suppression and don't fully
understand that the effort to keep black people from participating
(04:05):
fully in the political process has been around forever and
marked most of the twenty century, and now has come
back with intensity in the twenty one century. And the
intensity was created really by the Supreme Court's decision in
June Shelby County versus Holder, and that basically eliminated a
(04:26):
key portion of the Voting Rights Act of that had
been really effective in getting out ahead of voter suppression tactics,
and the elimination of that particular section kind of opened
up this new explosion of voter suppression and even worse,
allowed it to metastasize beyond kind of a regional problem
(04:48):
in the South into kind of every corner of the country.
And when you say voter suppression, you know, I have
images of a variety of tools and techniques in voting,
you know, removing polling sites to just drag out the line,
so people bail on the process, or to impose confusing instructions,
(05:09):
or to sue. Even there's this legal battles on the
other side of this. What is the map of voter
suppression techniques look like, Well, I think you've named some
of them. Voter persh is something that has really come
back into vogue as well, since you talked about moving
polling places, closing polling places, consolidating polling places, actions that
(05:34):
were taken even this week by the Texas governor restricting
the number of drop off boxes for absentee ballots to
one per county. This is a decision he made with
a stroke of a pen, just one person, deciding that
now there will only be one drop box for absentee
votes per county. That could never have happened under preclearance
prior to He would have had to submit his desire
(05:56):
to make that change to a federal authority, to the
Attorney General, or to the d C. District Court to
get approval. And when he submitted it, the Department of
Justice would have heard from organizations like the Legal Defense
Fund and other civil rights organizations, from local African American
and Latino groups describing the effect of the change on
them and most likely would have denied preclearance and prevented
(06:18):
the governor from imposing that new restriction without a lawsuit
ever having been filed. So the landscape is not only
the actual mechanisms of suppression, but the way in which
they are allowed to go forward. And we're running behind
them right filing cases, but they're already in place. And
so it's the full gamut that you talked about. Its
(06:40):
voter intimidation. You know, it is terrible voter id laws
that are targeted at African American and Latino voters. You know,
it's the full gamut. And it's an actual disgrace to
see the kind of active creativity that goes into trying
to keep sitizens of this country from voting. This will
(07:03):
sound naive, but I mean it sincerely on behalf of
myself and any listener. Why do you think people in
a democracy with these authorities would work so hard to
make it so hard to vote? Power power and white supremacy.
(07:25):
And I say that intentionally. I say those words very
intentionally because you know, in twenty four when I used
to talk about white supremacy in the context of voting.
In fact, at that point. We were challenging Texas voter
I D law that was the most restrictive voter i
D law in the country. It was passed right after
(07:47):
the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County versus Holder. The
state kind of resuscitated a voter I D law that
they hadn't been able to get pre cleared, and it
was this law. And this law was regarded as the
most restrictive because it really was pretty explicit in shutting
down the kinds of government issued I D that you
needed to use to be able to vote, and so
(08:07):
identification forms that blacks and Latinos white be more likely
to have, or Native Americans might be more likely to have,
were now disallowed. But you could use a concealed gun
carry permit as your I D to vote. So we
litigated the case along with a number of other groups,
and the Federal Court found that the law was passed
with the intention of discriminating against black and Latino voters.
(08:29):
The same thing was found in North Carolina Omnibus voter
Suppression Bill. Federal Court finds that the North Carolina legislature
with surgical precision, that's the words of the court, with
surgical precision identified the provisions that would be likely to
suppress the black vote. Voter ID law in Wisconsin, same
found to be intentionally discriminatory. So what I was saying
(08:52):
then was that this was white supremacy, right. You know,
when legislators meet and decide they want to key some
of their own citizens, black and brown citizens, from voting,
and that they create provisions intentionally designed to suppress those votes,
that in itself is white supremacy. And people would clutch
(09:12):
their pearls when I would say this. We didn't start
talking again about white supremacy until Charlotte's film because people
think of white supremacy as being Nazi flags, marching torches, um,
you know, terrible slogans and all of that is true.
That is a part of white supremacy. But there is
also a more genteel form of white supremacy, and that
(09:33):
is when elected legislatures dressed for work in their suits
and dresses and march into the state house, meet and
convene and pass laws designed to keep their fellow citizens
from voting based on race. So what is the reason
white supremacy? The desire to hold onto power? And it's ugly,
(09:53):
it's ugly. To say it. It's ugly for it to
be the truth, but it is the truth. And again,
it's the truth, not because Sheryl and Eifel says it's
the truth. It's the truth because a federal court in
Texas said it, because the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal
said it about North Carolina, because federal corton Wisconsin said it.
And so we have to confront that and be honest
about your organization operates in a number of states, and
(10:26):
I imagine you see things happening on the ground that
we might not get a view of if we're paying
attention to national media or in our particular state, depending
on where they are. What are you seeing, if anything,
with regards to misinformation and disinformation targeting the black community
right now? Well, I would say the biggest disinformation campaign sadly,
(10:47):
has been conducted by the President of the United States
around absentee voting. And we saw this in the beginning
of the summer. It became important this year because of
the COVID nineteen pandemic. We filed suits in a number
of states. We work mostly in the South. I think
people forget that the majority of black people still live
in the South. Black people live in the South, and
it's also the place, obviously where some of the most
(11:09):
intransigent suppression efforts and forms of white supremacy exist, although
certainly around the country and we do work outside the
South as well, But in any case, we began filing suit,
particularly in the South, because of the COVID nineteen pandemic
and because of our recognition that black and brown communities
were being hit incredibly hard and are hit incredibly hard
(11:29):
with COVID nineteen infection and death. And I was particularly
moved after the primary election in Wisconsin, which you may recall.
You know, there was a case that went to the
Supreme Court. Spreme Court decided not to to hear it
to not disturb the fact that the Circuit Court had
put a stay on a decision by the district court
that there would be more time to return absentee ballots.
(11:50):
It was a very modest district court decision, but the
Supreme Court basically just ignored the reality on the ground
that this was going to mean that people had to
come out and risk their lives and the very weak
that the Supreme Court decided not to disturb the decision
that stayed the district courts. Expansion of early voting was
the same week that we learned that although you know,
(12:11):
the black population of Milwaukee is black people constituted of
COVID deaths in Milwaukee. So it was a week when
it was very starkly clear the toll that COVID was
taking on our community. And as you may recall, they
were there are these amazing pictures of the lines of voters,
of people wearing masks, and I was torn between my
absolute outrage and fury that people had to risk their
(12:34):
lives to vote, and also my sense of just admiration
and respect and humility that black voters were determined to
participate in the political process and came out to vote
with their masks on, standing in line for hours. But
we set about then filing these cases trying to expand
absentee voter opportunities in the South. We were attacking in
particular really onerous requirements like an Alabama, to file an
(12:58):
absentee vote, you had to get the signature of two
third party witnesses, plus have a copy of your government
issued photo I D sent in with the ballot. So
you have to interact with three other people, two people
designed ballot and somebody to get this copy. The Secretary
of State of Alabama said, well, they should just go
to Kinko's. So here it is. We have elderly black people.
Have you seen their grandkids, right, because they're suffering from COVID.
(13:20):
So we filed suit and actually just two weeks ago
we won in the trial court. We'll see what happens
with the appeal, but we won in the trial court
relaxing those requirements. But almost immediately at the beginning of
the summer, the President the United States started tweeting this
crazy misinformation about absentee voting, that absentee voting is fraudulent,
that it's illegal, that it's a plot of the Democrats,
(13:41):
which is it's actually ironic because Republicans mostly in the
past with the voters who used absentee voting. Um in fact,
the black population for the most part, had issued absentee
voting because black people actually like to vote in person.
You know, we have souls to the polls for early
voting that churches take up. It's part of our kind
of civic co l Sure, it calls to mind our history.
(14:01):
I meant, even I really like to stand in line
and and vote, and so Black people had not actually
been big absentee vote casters, but with COVID nineteen, we
thought it was important that we ensured that this avenue
was open, particularly for our elderly voters. And suddenly we
got this crazy misinformation coming from the President, which and
and NonStop he hasn't stopped filing suit in Pennsylvania against
(14:24):
the use of drop boxes and regularly giving people a
lack of confidence in absentee voting. And this was all
happening at the same time that quite suddenly the United
States Postal Service was under attack from the new Postmaster General,
and we were seeing all these delays in mail, and
we also have a suit, by the way against United
States Postal Service, So all of this was happening at
the same time. I think the effect has been what
(14:47):
you see actually this week, because we're already in the
general election, there are it's early voting happening all over
the place. You may have seen the incredible lines in
Ohio of people just standing in line to participate, we
saw in Illinois, are in Minnesota, we saw it in
Virginia the first day of early voting. People want to vote,
and they want to vote in person. People are also
(15:07):
sending in their absentee ballots. There's a record number of
absentee ballots that have been cast already for this general election.
But fighting through that misinformation about you know, absentee voting
as a legitimate, legal, safe form of voting has been
really a challenge this summer. Yeah, I don't know how
to keep up the energy. I'm exhausted just hearing that.
(15:30):
And I pay attention to this stuff. On the flip side,
you know, what is restoring or bolstering your confidence that
people will exercise their constitutional rights? And what are you
most excited about in terms of your own organizations work
to boost that confidence. You know, it's a crazy thing.
You end up in the most difficult time periods, and
(15:53):
if you're a civil rights lawyer, you know you're so
often talking about issues that people are ignoring or pretending
are not there. And then suddenly everybody is talking about
the very and they see it. Right. But you know,
the scales have fallen from America's eyes and people can
see it. So there is an excitement about that that people.
I don't have to explain to people what voter suppression is.
When I say that, people know exactly what I'm talking
about right, so that wasn't always true. So that's exciting
(16:14):
seeing people really do what we We have a campaign,
and we've had this campaign for years called Prepared to Vote.
So every year, because of course elections happen not every
four years, but every year, we launch a campaign called
Prepared to Vote. We do on the ground election protection work,
but we're always providing information before the elections so people
can be prepared because we really believe that, you know,
(16:35):
voting is not something you just wake up, you know,
the morning of election day and say, okay, I'm gonna
vote today, but you actually have to get yourself ready,
and this year more than any other because if you're
gonna vote in a person, you need ppe, if you're
gonna vote absentutey to apply for the ballot and so forth.
So seeing people do that, seeing people prepared to vote
has been amazing. We partnered with Lebron James on his
More Than a Vote initiative to try to get new
(16:57):
poll workers because once again COVID teen has meant that
poll workers who are mostly elderly. Most of our poll
workers are senior citizens, a quarter of them are over age.
Seventy poll workers are the nice people we see sitting
at the table when we come in, they check us in,
they make a sign, they give us, you know, polling
machine to go to, they give us the sticker that
says I voted. And but they're mostly elderly, and because
(17:17):
of the pandemic, we wanted to make sure that we
were protecting our seniors, and so we really have been
putting out a call to encourage young people to become
poll workers, and so we joined with Lebron James is
more than a Vote campaign to do that. We started
it three weeks ago and we've already signed up twenty
five thousand new poll workers. Thoud so to see people
(17:40):
responding to the call, especially for young people, responding to
the call to work the polls. You know, I've been
saying this is a time where we need to be
at our highest level of citizenship, and I feel like
that's what I'm seeing. The other thing is one of
the you know, things I've been talking about for a
very long time, is the failure to pay attention to
local elections. So most of us go into voting booth,
we vote for the president or the senator, or the governor,
(18:03):
the mayor, you know, whatever other high salient selections. And
then if we look at ballots when we get information
back after the election, what we find is what we
call drop off, which means people vote for those top races.
Then they get to the d A race, they don't vote.
Then it says pick three judges, no votes cast. Then
it's the shriff election. People don't vote, So we have
(18:24):
that or we have people who vote in those elections,
but they actually don't know anything about those candidates, right,
so they know a lot about who they want to
vote for president, maybe who they want to vote for
governor or senator, but they actually don't know about the
person who's running for sheriff, when in fact, the sheriff
is the person who's gonna make a decision about whether
they form a relationship with ICE and engage in immigration activities.
(18:45):
Is the person who evicts people, and we're looking at
potentially millions of evictions over the next few months if
we don't get some serious COVID relief happening. So people
forget about those elections. People want criminal justice reform, but
they're not informed about who their district attorney candidates are
and what they stay and for, and so We've been
really pushing this issue of local elections, and I would
say this year it feels like the breakthrough year when
(19:07):
I hear people talking about local elections in ways that
I have never heard it before. I still say people
should pay attention to the Railroad Commissioners in Texas. I
haven't heard people talking about that yet, but they should.
That is that is a very important regulatory agency and
they run every six years. But I have heard people
talking about school boards, and I have heard people talking about,
you know, the city council, and I have heard people
(19:28):
talking about the d A races and that's very encouraging
as well. What are your calls to action to someone
listening to this right now, how can they help ensure
we have an actual, free and fair election. Well, the
(19:51):
first thing is to be informed when we are in
this like sea of misinformation. So we have the misinformation
coming from the President about absentee voting, there's misinformation on
faith book. We don't know what the Russians are doing,
but we know that they are a huge threat, and
we know that they targeted African American voters on Facebook
more than any other group in the election, and so
we have to presume that that is happening right now.
(20:12):
So the first thing is to get good information and
rely on good sources of information. We have a terrific
micro site voting dot n a A c p LDF
dot org, voting dot ana A c p l d
F dot org, which is a kind of a one
stop shop and you can get all your information there.
So please stop passing bad information. Something you just heard
(20:32):
that somebody just sent you that you haven't actually ensured
is accurate, because our community really really needs to be informed.
So that's number one. Number two. Prepared to vote is real.
You have to make a plan to vote. So if
you are going to vote absentee, you need to request
that ballot. You need to look to figure out what
the rules are in your jurisdiction for returning the ballot.
What do you need to do, what do you need
(20:53):
to have in it? Who can bring it back if
you decide you want to bring it back personally to
the Board of Elections. How does that. I've heard people
saying things like, oh, I'm gonna go around and help
people get their absentee ballots that please don't help. Please
please check the law in your state because it may
be illegal right. States have different rules. In Louisiana can
only be a family member. In some places, the voter
(21:14):
has to actually by writing designate who can return the ballot.
So we don't want people making mistakes because we don't
want ballots not counted, and we don't want people prosecuted
for voter fraud on the other end of this election,
So that's important. Also, the prepared to vote also means
like preparing, like actually looking at the sample ballot for
your jurisdiction. One of the things that contributes to long
(21:34):
lines is when you go into the voting booth and
that's the first time you're reading the ballot initiative that's
on the ballot, or you're reading the bond issue where
they want to raise money for the library, or the
constitutional amendment, and so you're in there for fifteen minutes
slow reading this constitutional amendment for the first time. No, sir,
no ma'am, I need you to download that ballot, that
(21:56):
sample ballot a week before, two weeks before, and educ
hate yourself about what it is. So do you know
when you're going into the voting booth, who you're going
to vote for, what issues you're gonna go vote for
and against, and you're not learning while you know people
are standing behind you hundreds deep waiting to get into
the voting booth. And also because of the pandemic, do
you really want to spend a whole lot of time
(22:17):
in the polling place? Do you want to spend a
lot of time in the in the voting booth? No,
you don't make sure you have PPE. We put out
a challenge to black churches to make sure that there
should be no black voter standing in line. Who's saying,
I don't have a mask, I don't have gloves. We
have black churches on every block. I guess it's virtual
at this point, but that doesn't mean that they can't
help with PPE, and we've been happy to see churches
taking up the charge. So preparing to vote having PPE.
(22:39):
If you're gonna vote in person, either early or on
election day, bring your bottle of water with you. If
you feel like you need to bring a chair, bring
a chair, but be prepared to stand in line because
we're gonna see turnout levels like I think we've never
seen before. There is so much interest in this election
across the board, So you should be prepared to wait
and if you're voting absentee, you should be on it
already to make sure that your ballot can get in
(23:01):
in time. The last thing I want to say is
we have real concerns about voter intimidation, and they are real.
Under normal circumstances, the recourse would be the Department of Justice.
This particular Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Bill Barr,
I do not believe will be responsive. What does voter
intimidation look like? What is your concern and how does
(23:23):
it manifest? Yeah, it can look like a lot of things.
It can look like people who are challenging voters. And
you may have seen that this is the first time
in thirty years that the Republicans have been released from
a consent decree that they were bound by because of
voter intimidation activities they engaged in in some elections in
New Jersey in the nineteen eighties where they had people
(23:44):
come out who look like they were law enforcement, walking
around the polls and frightening people. Frankly, so they were
under court order to cease and desist, and that consent
decree was just lifted this year. So it's the first
time in thirty years that that consent decree does not
cover that conduct, and imediately the the RNC announced that
they were trying to recruit fifty thousand people to be
(24:05):
outside the polls to question people about their status, about
whether in fact they are eligible voters. It's a way
of intimidating the immigrant community. So there's that they're the
people who approach people and ask them about their status.
Then there are people who are dressed as law enforcement
or dressed as malicious in open carry states, who are
(24:26):
carrying weapons and who are outside polling places. Now there's
a rule that you've got to be a hundred feet away,
but think about the long lines that we're gonna see right,
They're gonna be lines extending past a hundred feet. So
the possibility of those kinds of individuals being close up
on people waiting in line to vote is very real.
Trucks of people caring Confederate flags is another one that
(24:47):
we see fairly often. So we expect all these forms
of voter intimidation to be an effect. And as I said,
normally what we would do is we would patch right
into the Department of Justice to the U. S. Attorney
and that jurisdiction and expect some action to be taken
this year. We really need voters to get in touch
with us, and there's a civil Rights Election Protection hotline.
It's one eight six six hour vote one eight six
(25:11):
six hour vote. Oh you are vote um. And we
need people in real time. When you see something, say something,
we need you to call in. We need you to
reach out to the Legal Defense Fund tell us what
you're seeing so that we can get activated and get
local attorney generals and others activated to deal with the
issue of voter intimidation. That's gonna be really, really important.
(25:34):
And I will tell you that I'm also concerned about
intimidation after the election of people counting ballots, and so
we're gonna be just vigilant through this entire process, and
we need everyone to be patient. We've asked a lot
of people to vote absentee. That means their votes should
be counted. Those votes are not counted on election day,
they're not counted on election night. They will be counted
(25:55):
on that subsequent week, and we want those votes to
be counted, and that means we have to be patient.
You know, I said the other night that you know
decision is not in the constitution that's a television show
that was created, you know, to gin up excitement about
election night. We don't have to know that night. We
need the votes to be counted. So I want to
(26:15):
make sure that our community is patient. There will be
a lot of noise of people trying to suggest that
something is wrong because we don't know who the winner
is on election night, or because all the votes haven't
been counted on election night. They're never all counted on
election night. We count military ballots the week following the election.
We count provisional ballots the week following the election. So
I need everybody to just be very calm, be very
(26:37):
very patient, and really operated their highest level of citizenship.
That's the closing question citizenship. This show believes that the
word citizen should be interpreted not as a legal status,
no offense to the lawyer in you, but as a verb,
as a set of actions. And if you are to
interpret the word citizen as a set of actions as
a verb, how do you define what it means to citizen?
(26:59):
To citizen means that you figure out some part of
your day every day that contributes to the democracy that
you want to see. And I think this is what
we have seen the last few years in this country.
I think people thought that democracy was some kind of
instant pop up thing that came into box and then
(27:20):
you're a democracy, and then it's over, and now you're
a democracy forever. Now we understand the fragility of democracy.
It requires active citizenship. It requires people who wake up
and believe that they should inform themselves with the best information.
It's people who have the number of their senator in
their phone, so that when you want the Senate to
(27:40):
act on something, when you want the Senate to act
on a coronavirus relief bill, when you want the Senate
not to push forward a Supreme Court nominee during the
presidential general election, you can call that office right away
and you're not looking around for that number. We want
people who are in constant contact with their elected officials.
If you ever showed up at a school board meeting,
(28:01):
ask yourself why, if you never showed up at a
city council meeting, why why didn't you ever look at
the people that you voted for. Why didn't you ever
make them see you so that they could feel accountable.
If you did vote for in the last judicial election
and it said pick three and you just pick three
people because you like their name, or because they had
a D or an R next to their name, or
because they were a woman or a man. That is
(28:22):
not responsible citizenship. You need to be educating yourselves about
who these people are, who are going to make decisions
about your child when they get arrested, who are going
to make decisions about the laws that govern you. And
so I'm really suggesting that this moment calls on us
to frame and see and define citizenship differently than I
think many people have. As you point out, it is
(28:44):
not just your legal status. It is not because you
have a blue passport. It is a responsibility and it's
what are you required to do as a citizen in
a democracy. It is work. It is not that you
sit back on your laurels and enjoy your status. It
is that you were work every day for this democracy,
for bringing greater equality, greater justice, and a vision of
(29:05):
a democracy that looks like what I think we want
our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren to
be a part of. Chrylen Eiffel, Rylyn, Director, Counselor, Matt
and President, thank you so much for this time. Thank you,
thank you for your voice, thank you for this show,
and um, let's just keep fighting. Let's keep fighting. We
(29:30):
are so grateful to Chryln Eiffel for spending time with
us and reminding us that citizenship is a responsibility and
we gotta put in work. Follow the in double a
CP Legal Defense Fund on all the social media's there
at in double a CP Underscore l DF on Twitter
and on Instagram, search for them on Facebook, or visit
their website in double a c P l d F
(29:54):
dot org. Find this episode, a transcript, show notes and
more goodies at how do citizen dot com. And speaking
of goodies, why don't you give us that good old
thumbs up with a positive rating or review wherever you
see this show and tell somebody else about it. If
you're enjoying what we're doing here, here's what we're asking
you to do to align with this episode in terms
(30:16):
of actions. Internally, we want you to become a bit
more educated on the systems of oppression that we live
in in the United States, so that you know the
roots better and how to fight them better. We went
so far as to set up a whole online bookshop
that actually supports local booksellers in the process, You can
(30:37):
find it at bookshop dot Org, slash Shop, slash how
the Citizen. Here are two titles on the shelf that
we're setting up for you, stamped from the beginning by
Abram X. Kendy, A Powerful History of Race, Racism, White
Supremacy in the United States and Crusade for Justice, the
autobiography of Ida B. Wells. She is someone we all
(31:00):
need to know so much more about, so I am
proud to recommend her to you, because I'm pretty sure
you didn't get that on your how to be Woke
in the Summer of reading lists. Since we spend so
much time talking about the Voting Rights Act, I suggest
you actually read the Voting Rights Act, the original one,
and once you do that, read an analysis from was
written in The Atlantic by Van Newkirk. V A double
(31:23):
in will drop the link in the show notes. But
if you one of those people that likes to independently
discover stuff, find it and understand why that Shelby versus
Holder decision that Cheryl and Eiffel reference was so important
and so devastating, and why we need to restore something
like or better than the Voting Rights Act. Finally, visit
this website more than a vote dot Org. This is
(31:46):
the organization that Lebron set up to help people claim
they're voting rights. And he's a three time champion, so
do with the champs that he's done it well as
organization has done it well, and they've partnered with many
groups like the end up a l a CP Legal
Defense Fund, and they have a really beautiful tool where
you plug in your address and they show you all
(32:06):
the different ways you can vote. Now, externally, this involves
stuff more public out in the world, interacting with other people.
Here's where we've got first find out the exact requirements
of mail land or absentee ballots in your state and
share them so that every vote is counted. There are
a lot of different rules and I want you to
figure that out for where you are and tell somebody.
(32:29):
And speaking of telling somebody, I want to make you
a team Captain Lebron, if you will, I want to
make you a Lebron for democracy. Why don't you become
a democracy team captain and take the lead in making
sure that at least three people you know vote. Whether
you can vote or not, you probably know three people
(32:49):
who can, so take responsibility for them, hound them harass them,
support them lovingly often until they vote. In a couple
of ways you can do that. You can share resources
so that they understand what all their voting options are.
Send them to more than a vote of Votes of
America are a number of sources that we have outlined
in the show notes and on the website. If they
(33:11):
need a witness to sign their ballot envelope, offer to
be that person. Offer to be the person to take
the ballot and drop it off of them if they
can't easily or safely leave their home. Be a team
captain for democracy. Finally, support the polls themselves. We have
asked previously to become a poll worker by signing up
(33:31):
at Power to the Polls dot org. But this time
we know election day is likely to have some very
long lines election days, i should say, and so you
can support the people in those lines. Bring them water,
bring them masks, gloves, umbrellas. If you're an entertainer, do
some entertaining. We know that there are people who are
(33:51):
going to show up to these polls trying to intimidate
and frighten people show up to do the opposite, Show
up to support people living into their highest levels of citizenship,
show up with love and in a pro democracy small
d act of citizenship. If you take any of these actions,
share them with us. Email us action at how to
(34:14):
citizen dot com mentioned voting in the subject line. Brag
about your citizen ing with the hashtag how to citizen
on your social media platform of choice, and send us
any comments you have or suggestions to comment at how
to citizen dot com. How do citizen with Barrattune Days
production of I Heart Radio podcast executive produced by Miles Gray,
(34:35):
Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart, and Barrattune Day Thurston. Produced by
Joel Smith, Edited by Justin Smith. Powered by you
Welcome to How to Citizen with barrattun Day, I show
where we reclaim the word citizen and use it as
a verb and learn how to wield our collective power.
I'm barrattun Day. In this episode, we are continuing our
focus on voting, that super expression of people power, and
(00:29):
we've been talking to folks who are on the front
lines of this issue in many different ways, and in
this episode we're talking to someone who's been a long
time warrior on behalf of people power. She has the
job that Third Good Marshall used to have. That's how
dope and committed. She is. Her name Sherlyn Eiffel. Her
(00:51):
job President and Director Counsel of the n double a
CP Legal Defense Fund. I had the opportunity to virtually
join and meet Carolyn Eiffel during a voting of it
a few weeks ago. And when I tell you I
would do anything, she says, I mean it. If Charyln
Eiffel says, double check your voter registration, I'm triple checking. Actually.
(01:12):
If Charyln Eiffel says be patient on election Day and
beyond to wait for these results, I'm gonna be the
most patient, most zen, most calm person you can even imagine.
And if Charyln Eiffel asked me to take out her garbage,
I will do that. I will be at your place, Carolyn.
I will do this because I assume it is for
(01:33):
the benefit of the many. It is for the people,
and I know I'm right because I'm right about you.
In this conversation, you know Charylyn who breaks it down.
She says, we need to operate at the highest levels
of citizenship during this election. I love that phrase. She
reminds us of the history of efforts to deny and
(01:54):
suppress black people's votes, but also the history of overcoming
those efforts. Here's Cheryl and if President and Director Council,
which I might add is a very very dope job title. Hello, Hey,
(02:15):
how you doing. I am fired up, I'm ready to go,
I am tired, I am eager, I am impatient all
those things. How are you also angry? Yeah, you know angry.
I have my moments of disappointment, but you know, mostly
it's just you just have to keep fighting. Sherylyn. You're
at the double A CP Legal Defense Fund. This historic
(02:37):
institution been around since fighting on behalf of human rights,
Black rights voting rights. How has the history the legacy
of black voter suppression in the US evolved to what
it looks like now, you know, how is now different
from them. It's a bit of a loop back. But yeah,
(02:58):
I mean it's in just sing because I think people
now are talking about voter suppression as though almost it's
a new thing, Like people get that there was the
Edmund Pettis Bridge, there was the Voting Rights Act, and
then there was voter suppression you know, in fourteen and
fifteen and sixteen, you know, but that's actually not how
it works. As a matter of fact, my first sint
(03:18):
at the Legal Defense Fund was when I was a
year out of law school, after I finished a fellowship
at the A. C. L U. I joined then double
a CP Legal Defense Fund and litigated voting rights cases
for five years. That was in So we've been at
this for a very, very long time, you know. Third
Good Marshal's first huge Supreme Court win was in nineteen
forty four. It was a case called Smith versus all Right,
(03:41):
in which the Supreme Court struck down the use of
the all white primary election in the South. That was
Third Good Marshall's case, and really his first big Supreme
Court wins. That's nineteen forty four. We were founded in
nineteen forties, so that's four years after the organization was created.
And I say all of that because I think people
have truncated the arc of voter suppression and don't fully
understand that the effort to keep black people from participating
(04:05):
fully in the political process has been around forever and
marked most of the twenty century, and now has come
back with intensity in the twenty one century. And the
intensity was created really by the Supreme Court's decision in
June Shelby County versus Holder, and that basically eliminated a
(04:26):
key portion of the Voting Rights Act of that had
been really effective in getting out ahead of voter suppression tactics,
and the elimination of that particular section kind of opened
up this new explosion of voter suppression and even worse,
allowed it to metastasize beyond kind of a regional problem
(04:48):
in the South into kind of every corner of the country.
And when you say voter suppression, you know, I have
images of a variety of tools and techniques in voting,
you know, removing polling sites to just drag out the line,
so people bail on the process, or to impose confusing instructions,
(05:09):
or to sue. Even there's this legal battles on the
other side of this. What is the map of voter
suppression techniques look like, Well, I think you've named some
of them. Voter persh is something that has really come
back into vogue as well, since you talked about moving
polling places, closing polling places, consolidating polling places, actions that
(05:34):
were taken even this week by the Texas governor restricting
the number of drop off boxes for absentee ballots to
one per county. This is a decision he made with
a stroke of a pen, just one person, deciding that
now there will only be one drop box for absentee
votes per county. That could never have happened under preclearance
prior to He would have had to submit his desire
(05:56):
to make that change to a federal authority, to the
Attorney General, or to the d C. District Court to
get approval. And when he submitted it, the Department of
Justice would have heard from organizations like the Legal Defense
Fund and other civil rights organizations, from local African American
and Latino groups describing the effect of the change on
them and most likely would have denied preclearance and prevented
(06:18):
the governor from imposing that new restriction without a lawsuit
ever having been filed. So the landscape is not only
the actual mechanisms of suppression, but the way in which
they are allowed to go forward. And we're running behind
them right filing cases, but they're already in place. And
so it's the full gamut that you talked about. Its
(06:40):
voter intimidation. You know, it is terrible voter id laws
that are targeted at African American and Latino voters. You know,
it's the full gamut. And it's an actual disgrace to
see the kind of active creativity that goes into trying
to keep sitizens of this country from voting. This will
(07:03):
sound naive, but I mean it sincerely on behalf of
myself and any listener. Why do you think people in
a democracy with these authorities would work so hard to
make it so hard to vote? Power power and white supremacy.
(07:25):
And I say that intentionally. I say those words very
intentionally because you know, in twenty four when I used
to talk about white supremacy in the context of voting.
In fact, at that point. We were challenging Texas voter
I D law that was the most restrictive voter i
D law in the country. It was passed right after
(07:47):
the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County versus Holder. The
state kind of resuscitated a voter I D law that
they hadn't been able to get pre cleared, and it
was this law. And this law was regarded as the
most restrictive because it really was pretty explicit in shutting
down the kinds of government issued I D that you
needed to use to be able to vote, and so
(08:07):
identification forms that blacks and Latinos white be more likely
to have, or Native Americans might be more likely to have,
were now disallowed. But you could use a concealed gun
carry permit as your I D to vote. So we
litigated the case along with a number of other groups,
and the Federal Court found that the law was passed
with the intention of discriminating against black and Latino voters.
(08:29):
The same thing was found in North Carolina Omnibus voter
Suppression Bill. Federal Court finds that the North Carolina legislature
with surgical precision, that's the words of the court, with
surgical precision identified the provisions that would be likely to
suppress the black vote. Voter ID law in Wisconsin, same
found to be intentionally discriminatory. So what I was saying
(08:52):
then was that this was white supremacy, right. You know,
when legislators meet and decide they want to key some
of their own citizens, black and brown citizens, from voting,
and that they create provisions intentionally designed to suppress those votes,
that in itself is white supremacy. And people would clutch
(09:12):
their pearls when I would say this. We didn't start
talking again about white supremacy until Charlotte's film because people
think of white supremacy as being Nazi flags, marching torches, um,
you know, terrible slogans and all of that is true.
That is a part of white supremacy. But there is
also a more genteel form of white supremacy, and that
(09:33):
is when elected legislatures dressed for work in their suits
and dresses and march into the state house, meet and
convene and pass laws designed to keep their fellow citizens
from voting based on race. So what is the reason
white supremacy? The desire to hold onto power? And it's ugly,
(09:53):
it's ugly. To say it. It's ugly for it to
be the truth, but it is the truth. And again,
it's the truth, not because Sheryl and Eifel says it's
the truth. It's the truth because a federal court in
Texas said it, because the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal
said it about North Carolina, because federal corton Wisconsin said it.
And so we have to confront that and be honest
about your organization operates in a number of states, and
(10:26):
I imagine you see things happening on the ground that
we might not get a view of if we're paying
attention to national media or in our particular state, depending
on where they are. What are you seeing, if anything,
with regards to misinformation and disinformation targeting the black community
right now? Well, I would say the biggest disinformation campaign sadly,
(10:47):
has been conducted by the President of the United States
around absentee voting. And we saw this in the beginning
of the summer. It became important this year because of
the COVID nineteen pandemic. We filed suits in a number
of states. We work mostly in the South. I think
people forget that the majority of black people still live
in the South. Black people live in the South, and
it's also the place, obviously where some of the most
(11:09):
intransigent suppression efforts and forms of white supremacy exist, although
certainly around the country and we do work outside the
South as well, But in any case, we began filing suit,
particularly in the South, because of the COVID nineteen pandemic
and because of our recognition that black and brown communities
were being hit incredibly hard and are hit incredibly hard
(11:29):
with COVID nineteen infection and death. And I was particularly
moved after the primary election in Wisconsin, which you may recall.
You know, there was a case that went to the
Supreme Court. Spreme Court decided not to to hear it
to not disturb the fact that the Circuit Court had
put a stay on a decision by the district court
that there would be more time to return absentee ballots.
(11:50):
It was a very modest district court decision, but the
Supreme Court basically just ignored the reality on the ground
that this was going to mean that people had to
come out and risk their lives and the very weak
that the Supreme Court decided not to disturb the decision
that stayed the district courts. Expansion of early voting was
the same week that we learned that although you know,
(12:11):
the black population of Milwaukee is black people constituted of
COVID deaths in Milwaukee. So it was a week when
it was very starkly clear the toll that COVID was
taking on our community. And as you may recall, they
were there are these amazing pictures of the lines of voters,
of people wearing masks, and I was torn between my
absolute outrage and fury that people had to risk their
(12:34):
lives to vote, and also my sense of just admiration
and respect and humility that black voters were determined to
participate in the political process and came out to vote
with their masks on, standing in line for hours. But
we set about then filing these cases trying to expand
absentee voter opportunities in the South. We were attacking in
particular really onerous requirements like an Alabama, to file an
(12:58):
absentee vote, you had to get the signature of two
third party witnesses, plus have a copy of your government
issued photo I D sent in with the ballot. So
you have to interact with three other people, two people
designed ballot and somebody to get this copy. The Secretary
of State of Alabama said, well, they should just go
to Kinko's. So here it is. We have elderly black people.
Have you seen their grandkids, right, because they're suffering from COVID.
(13:20):
So we filed suit and actually just two weeks ago
we won in the trial court. We'll see what happens
with the appeal, but we won in the trial court
relaxing those requirements. But almost immediately at the beginning of
the summer, the President the United States started tweeting this
crazy misinformation about absentee voting, that absentee voting is fraudulent,
that it's illegal, that it's a plot of the Democrats,
(13:41):
which is it's actually ironic because Republicans mostly in the
past with the voters who used absentee voting. Um in fact,
the black population for the most part, had issued absentee
voting because black people actually like to vote in person.
You know, we have souls to the polls for early
voting that churches take up. It's part of our kind
of civic co l Sure, it calls to mind our history.
(14:01):
I meant, even I really like to stand in line
and and vote, and so Black people had not actually
been big absentee vote casters, but with COVID nineteen, we
thought it was important that we ensured that this avenue
was open, particularly for our elderly voters. And suddenly we
got this crazy misinformation coming from the President, which and
and NonStop he hasn't stopped filing suit in Pennsylvania against
(14:24):
the use of drop boxes and regularly giving people a
lack of confidence in absentee voting. And this was all
happening at the same time that quite suddenly the United
States Postal Service was under attack from the new Postmaster General,
and we were seeing all these delays in mail, and
we also have a suit, by the way against United
States Postal Service, So all of this was happening at
the same time. I think the effect has been what
(14:47):
you see actually this week, because we're already in the
general election, there are it's early voting happening all over
the place. You may have seen the incredible lines in
Ohio of people just standing in line to participate, we
saw in Illinois, are in Minnesota, we saw it in
Virginia the first day of early voting. People want to vote,
and they want to vote in person. People are also
(15:07):
sending in their absentee ballots. There's a record number of
absentee ballots that have been cast already for this general election.
But fighting through that misinformation about you know, absentee voting
as a legitimate, legal, safe form of voting has been
really a challenge this summer. Yeah, I don't know how
to keep up the energy. I'm exhausted just hearing that.
(15:30):
And I pay attention to this stuff. On the flip side,
you know, what is restoring or bolstering your confidence that
people will exercise their constitutional rights? And what are you
most excited about in terms of your own organizations work
to boost that confidence. You know, it's a crazy thing.
You end up in the most difficult time periods, and
(15:53):
if you're a civil rights lawyer, you know you're so
often talking about issues that people are ignoring or pretending
are not there. And then suddenly everybody is talking about
the very and they see it. Right. But you know,
the scales have fallen from America's eyes and people can
see it. So there is an excitement about that that people.
I don't have to explain to people what voter suppression is.
When I say that, people know exactly what I'm talking
about right, so that wasn't always true. So that's exciting
(16:14):
seeing people really do what we We have a campaign,
and we've had this campaign for years called Prepared to Vote.
So every year, because of course elections happen not every
four years, but every year, we launch a campaign called
Prepared to Vote. We do on the ground election protection work,
but we're always providing information before the elections so people
can be prepared because we really believe that, you know,
(16:35):
voting is not something you just wake up, you know,
the morning of election day and say, okay, I'm gonna
vote today, but you actually have to get yourself ready,
and this year more than any other because if you're
gonna vote in a person, you need ppe, if you're
gonna vote absentutey to apply for the ballot and so forth.
So seeing people do that, seeing people prepared to vote
has been amazing. We partnered with Lebron James on his
More Than a Vote initiative to try to get new
(16:57):
poll workers because once again COVID teen has meant that
poll workers who are mostly elderly. Most of our poll
workers are senior citizens, a quarter of them are over age.
Seventy poll workers are the nice people we see sitting
at the table when we come in, they check us in,
they make a sign, they give us, you know, polling
machine to go to, they give us the sticker that
says I voted. And but they're mostly elderly, and because
(17:17):
of the pandemic, we wanted to make sure that we
were protecting our seniors, and so we really have been
putting out a call to encourage young people to become
poll workers, and so we joined with Lebron James is
more than a Vote campaign to do that. We started
it three weeks ago and we've already signed up twenty
five thousand new poll workers. Thoud so to see people
(17:40):
responding to the call, especially for young people, responding to
the call to work the polls. You know, I've been
saying this is a time where we need to be
at our highest level of citizenship, and I feel like
that's what I'm seeing. The other thing is one of
the you know, things I've been talking about for a
very long time, is the failure to pay attention to
local elections. So most of us go into voting booth,
we vote for the president or the senator, or the governor,
(18:03):
the mayor, you know, whatever other high salient selections. And
then if we look at ballots when we get information
back after the election, what we find is what we
call drop off, which means people vote for those top races.
Then they get to the d A race, they don't vote.
Then it says pick three judges, no votes cast. Then
it's the shriff election. People don't vote, So we have
(18:24):
that or we have people who vote in those elections,
but they actually don't know anything about those candidates, right,
so they know a lot about who they want to
vote for president, maybe who they want to vote for
governor or senator, but they actually don't know about the
person who's running for sheriff, when in fact, the sheriff
is the person who's gonna make a decision about whether
they form a relationship with ICE and engage in immigration activities.
(18:45):
Is the person who evicts people, and we're looking at
potentially millions of evictions over the next few months if
we don't get some serious COVID relief happening. So people
forget about those elections. People want criminal justice reform, but
they're not informed about who their district attorney candidates are
and what they stay and for, and so We've been
really pushing this issue of local elections, and I would
say this year it feels like the breakthrough year when
(19:07):
I hear people talking about local elections in ways that
I have never heard it before. I still say people
should pay attention to the Railroad Commissioners in Texas. I
haven't heard people talking about that yet, but they should.
That is that is a very important regulatory agency and
they run every six years. But I have heard people
talking about school boards, and I have heard people talking about,
you know, the city council, and I have heard people
(19:28):
talking about the d A races and that's very encouraging
as well. What are your calls to action to someone
listening to this right now, how can they help ensure
we have an actual, free and fair election. Well, the
(19:51):
first thing is to be informed when we are in
this like sea of misinformation. So we have the misinformation
coming from the President about absentee voting, there's misinformation on
faith book. We don't know what the Russians are doing,
but we know that they are a huge threat, and
we know that they targeted African American voters on Facebook
more than any other group in the election, and so
we have to presume that that is happening right now.
(20:12):
So the first thing is to get good information and
rely on good sources of information. We have a terrific
micro site voting dot n a A c p LDF
dot org, voting dot ana A c p l d
F dot org, which is a kind of a one
stop shop and you can get all your information there.
So please stop passing bad information. Something you just heard
(20:32):
that somebody just sent you that you haven't actually ensured
is accurate, because our community really really needs to be informed.
So that's number one. Number two. Prepared to vote is real.
You have to make a plan to vote. So if
you are going to vote absentee, you need to request
that ballot. You need to look to figure out what
the rules are in your jurisdiction for returning the ballot.
What do you need to do, what do you need
(20:53):
to have in it? Who can bring it back if
you decide you want to bring it back personally to
the Board of Elections. How does that. I've heard people
saying things like, oh, I'm gonna go around and help
people get their absentee ballots that please don't help. Please
please check the law in your state because it may
be illegal right. States have different rules. In Louisiana can
only be a family member. In some places, the voter
(21:14):
has to actually by writing designate who can return the ballot.
So we don't want people making mistakes because we don't
want ballots not counted, and we don't want people prosecuted
for voter fraud on the other end of this election,
So that's important. Also, the prepared to vote also means
like preparing, like actually looking at the sample ballot for
your jurisdiction. One of the things that contributes to long
(21:34):
lines is when you go into the voting booth and
that's the first time you're reading the ballot initiative that's
on the ballot, or you're reading the bond issue where
they want to raise money for the library, or the
constitutional amendment, and so you're in there for fifteen minutes
slow reading this constitutional amendment for the first time. No, sir,
no ma'am, I need you to download that ballot, that
(21:56):
sample ballot a week before, two weeks before, and educ
hate yourself about what it is. So do you know
when you're going into the voting booth, who you're going
to vote for, what issues you're gonna go vote for
and against, and you're not learning while you know people
are standing behind you hundreds deep waiting to get into
the voting booth. And also because of the pandemic, do
you really want to spend a whole lot of time
(22:17):
in the polling place? Do you want to spend a
lot of time in the in the voting booth? No,
you don't make sure you have PPE. We put out
a challenge to black churches to make sure that there
should be no black voter standing in line. Who's saying,
I don't have a mask, I don't have gloves. We
have black churches on every block. I guess it's virtual
at this point, but that doesn't mean that they can't
help with PPE, and we've been happy to see churches
taking up the charge. So preparing to vote having PPE.
(22:39):
If you're gonna vote in person, either early or on
election day, bring your bottle of water with you. If
you feel like you need to bring a chair, bring
a chair, but be prepared to stand in line because
we're gonna see turnout levels like I think we've never
seen before. There is so much interest in this election
across the board, So you should be prepared to wait
and if you're voting absentee, you should be on it
already to make sure that your ballot can get in
(23:01):
in time. The last thing I want to say is
we have real concerns about voter intimidation, and they are real.
Under normal circumstances, the recourse would be the Department of Justice.
This particular Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Bill Barr,
I do not believe will be responsive. What does voter
intimidation look like? What is your concern and how does
(23:23):
it manifest? Yeah, it can look like a lot of things.
It can look like people who are challenging voters. And
you may have seen that this is the first time
in thirty years that the Republicans have been released from
a consent decree that they were bound by because of
voter intimidation activities they engaged in in some elections in
New Jersey in the nineteen eighties where they had people
(23:44):
come out who look like they were law enforcement, walking
around the polls and frightening people. Frankly, so they were
under court order to cease and desist, and that consent
decree was just lifted this year. So it's the first
time in thirty years that that consent decree does not
cover that conduct, and imediately the the RNC announced that
they were trying to recruit fifty thousand people to be
(24:05):
outside the polls to question people about their status, about
whether in fact they are eligible voters. It's a way
of intimidating the immigrant community. So there's that they're the
people who approach people and ask them about their status.
Then there are people who are dressed as law enforcement
or dressed as malicious in open carry states, who are
(24:26):
carrying weapons and who are outside polling places. Now there's
a rule that you've got to be a hundred feet away,
but think about the long lines that we're gonna see right,
They're gonna be lines extending past a hundred feet. So
the possibility of those kinds of individuals being close up
on people waiting in line to vote is very real.
Trucks of people caring Confederate flags is another one that
(24:47):
we see fairly often. So we expect all these forms
of voter intimidation to be an effect. And as I said,
normally what we would do is we would patch right
into the Department of Justice to the U. S. Attorney
and that jurisdiction and expect some action to be taken
this year. We really need voters to get in touch
with us, and there's a civil Rights Election Protection hotline.
It's one eight six six hour vote one eight six
(25:11):
six hour vote. Oh you are vote um. And we
need people in real time. When you see something, say something,
we need you to call in. We need you to
reach out to the Legal Defense Fund tell us what
you're seeing so that we can get activated and get
local attorney generals and others activated to deal with the
issue of voter intimidation. That's gonna be really, really important.
(25:34):
And I will tell you that I'm also concerned about
intimidation after the election of people counting ballots, and so
we're gonna be just vigilant through this entire process, and
we need everyone to be patient. We've asked a lot
of people to vote absentee. That means their votes should
be counted. Those votes are not counted on election day,
they're not counted on election night. They will be counted
(25:55):
on that subsequent week, and we want those votes to
be counted, and that means we have to be patient.
You know, I said the other night that you know
decision is not in the constitution that's a television show
that was created, you know, to gin up excitement about
election night. We don't have to know that night. We
need the votes to be counted. So I want to
(26:15):
make sure that our community is patient. There will be
a lot of noise of people trying to suggest that
something is wrong because we don't know who the winner
is on election night, or because all the votes haven't
been counted on election night. They're never all counted on
election night. We count military ballots the week following the election.
We count provisional ballots the week following the election. So
I need everybody to just be very calm, be very
(26:37):
very patient, and really operated their highest level of citizenship.
That's the closing question citizenship. This show believes that the
word citizen should be interpreted not as a legal status,
no offense to the lawyer in you, but as a verb,
as a set of actions. And if you are to
interpret the word citizen as a set of actions as
a verb, how do you define what it means to citizen?
(26:59):
To citizen means that you figure out some part of
your day every day that contributes to the democracy that
you want to see. And I think this is what
we have seen the last few years in this country.
I think people thought that democracy was some kind of
instant pop up thing that came into box and then
(27:20):
you're a democracy, and then it's over, and now you're
a democracy forever. Now we understand the fragility of democracy.
It requires active citizenship. It requires people who wake up
and believe that they should inform themselves with the best information.
It's people who have the number of their senator in
their phone, so that when you want the Senate to
(27:40):
act on something, when you want the Senate to act
on a coronavirus relief bill, when you want the Senate
not to push forward a Supreme Court nominee during the
presidential general election, you can call that office right away
and you're not looking around for that number. We want
people who are in constant contact with their elected officials.
If you ever showed up at a school board meeting,
(28:01):
ask yourself why, if you never showed up at a
city council meeting, why why didn't you ever look at
the people that you voted for. Why didn't you ever
make them see you so that they could feel accountable.
If you did vote for in the last judicial election
and it said pick three and you just pick three
people because you like their name, or because they had
a D or an R next to their name, or
because they were a woman or a man. That is
(28:22):
not responsible citizenship. You need to be educating yourselves about
who these people are, who are going to make decisions
about your child when they get arrested, who are going
to make decisions about the laws that govern you. And
so I'm really suggesting that this moment calls on us
to frame and see and define citizenship differently than I
think many people have. As you point out, it is
(28:44):
not just your legal status. It is not because you
have a blue passport. It is a responsibility and it's
what are you required to do as a citizen in
a democracy. It is work. It is not that you
sit back on your laurels and enjoy your status. It
is that you were work every day for this democracy,
for bringing greater equality, greater justice, and a vision of
(29:05):
a democracy that looks like what I think we want
our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren to
be a part of. Chrylen Eiffel, Rylyn, Director, Counselor, Matt
and President, thank you so much for this time. Thank you,
thank you for your voice, thank you for this show,
and um, let's just keep fighting. Let's keep fighting. We
(29:30):
are so grateful to Chryln Eiffel for spending time with
us and reminding us that citizenship is a responsibility and
we gotta put in work. Follow the in double a
CP Legal Defense Fund on all the social media's there
at in double a CP Underscore l DF on Twitter
and on Instagram, search for them on Facebook, or visit
their website in double a c P l d F
(29:54):
dot org. Find this episode, a transcript, show notes and
more goodies at how do citizen dot com. And speaking
of goodies, why don't you give us that good old
thumbs up with a positive rating or review wherever you
see this show and tell somebody else about it. If
you're enjoying what we're doing here, here's what we're asking
you to do to align with this episode in terms
(30:16):
of actions. Internally, we want you to become a bit
more educated on the systems of oppression that we live
in in the United States, so that you know the
roots better and how to fight them better. We went
so far as to set up a whole online bookshop
that actually supports local booksellers in the process, You can
(30:37):
find it at bookshop dot Org, slash Shop, slash how
the Citizen. Here are two titles on the shelf that
we're setting up for you, stamped from the beginning by
Abram X. Kendy, A Powerful History of Race, Racism, White
Supremacy in the United States and Crusade for Justice, the
autobiography of Ida B. Wells. She is someone we all
(31:00):
need to know so much more about, so I am
proud to recommend her to you, because I'm pretty sure
you didn't get that on your how to be Woke
in the Summer of reading lists. Since we spend so
much time talking about the Voting Rights Act, I suggest
you actually read the Voting Rights Act, the original one,
and once you do that, read an analysis from was
written in The Atlantic by Van Newkirk. V A double
(31:23):
in will drop the link in the show notes. But
if you one of those people that likes to independently
discover stuff, find it and understand why that Shelby versus
Holder decision that Cheryl and Eiffel reference was so important
and so devastating, and why we need to restore something
like or better than the Voting Rights Act. Finally, visit
this website more than a vote dot Org. This is
(31:46):
the organization that Lebron set up to help people claim
they're voting rights. And he's a three time champion, so
do with the champs that he's done it well as
organization has done it well, and they've partnered with many
groups like the end up a l a CP Legal
Defense Fund, and they have a really beautiful tool where
you plug in your address and they show you all
(32:06):
the different ways you can vote. Now, externally, this involves
stuff more public out in the world, interacting with other people.
Here's where we've got first find out the exact requirements
of mail land or absentee ballots in your state and
share them so that every vote is counted. There are
a lot of different rules and I want you to
figure that out for where you are and tell somebody.
(32:29):
And speaking of telling somebody, I want to make you
a team Captain Lebron, if you will, I want to
make you a Lebron for democracy. Why don't you become
a democracy team captain and take the lead in making
sure that at least three people you know vote. Whether
you can vote or not, you probably know three people
(32:49):
who can, so take responsibility for them, hound them harass them,
support them lovingly often until they vote. In a couple
of ways you can do that. You can share resources
so that they understand what all their voting options are.
Send them to more than a vote of Votes of
America are a number of sources that we have outlined
in the show notes and on the website. If they
(33:11):
need a witness to sign their ballot envelope, offer to
be that person. Offer to be the person to take
the ballot and drop it off of them if they
can't easily or safely leave their home. Be a team
captain for democracy. Finally, support the polls themselves. We have
asked previously to become a poll worker by signing up
(33:31):
at Power to the Polls dot org. But this time
we know election day is likely to have some very
long lines election days, i should say, and so you
can support the people in those lines. Bring them water,
bring them masks, gloves, umbrellas. If you're an entertainer, do
some entertaining. We know that there are people who are
(33:51):
going to show up to these polls trying to intimidate
and frighten people show up to do the opposite, Show
up to support people living into their highest levels of citizenship,
show up with love and in a pro democracy small
d act of citizenship. If you take any of these actions,
share them with us. Email us action at how to
(34:14):
citizen dot com mentioned voting in the subject line. Brag
about your citizen ing with the hashtag how to citizen
on your social media platform of choice, and send us
any comments you have or suggestions to comment at how
to citizen dot com. How do citizen with Barrattune Days
production of I Heart Radio podcast executive produced by Miles Gray,
(34:35):
Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart, and Barrattune Day Thurston. Produced by
Joel Smith, Edited by Justin Smith. Powered by you
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