“Seven hours, 45 minutes,
and 13 seconds it took for me to vote in
Fulton County, Ga. As soon as I saw the
line, I hit the stopwatch on my phone. I spent the first couple
hours listening to a new Run the Jewels album. And then I ended up listening
to the entire discography. And then I started watching
season eight of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ And that’s five hours. It was one o’clock
in the morning, and somebody was like,
‘Hey, y’all remember we came to vote yesterday, right?’” “Look at it.” When it comes time to
vote in November, would you rather stand in
a line like this … “Somebody please help us. We are at our polling place in Atlanta,
Fickett Elementary School. The systems are down.” … or like this? “Oh look, there’s no line. There’s no line
at all out here in suburban white country.” Seven years ago, a
controversial Supreme Court ruling struck down a key part
of the Voting Rights Act. “If you hear me, the voting
machines were not working.” And after that,
many states passed laws that ended up making it
harder for people of color to vote. “We have all these
barriers that aren’t in place for other people. It’s 2020. Why is it this difficult for
someone to go to and vote?” To understand why,
we go to Georgia. “I think Georgia has become
a kind of hotbed for voting rights questions.” “How voting takes
place has become one of the most explosive
issues in Georgia. Georgia is the largest
state by landmass east of the Mississippi River. It’s dominated by the
reality of Atlanta. It’s multicultural. It’s growing. It's dynamic, this sort
of throbbing megalopolis where you’re seeing
Democrats in large numbers. And then beyond
these urban centers, you have a much more
traditional, rural Georgia, where you have seen a
massive shift of white voting behavior from
conservative Democrat to full-on Republican.” Georgia has historically been
a pretty conservative state, but as it becomes more culturally
and racially diverse … “In this presidential election, there is some thought that
Democrats have a shot here.” … but one fact still remains. “Republicans control
the State House. Republicans control
the Legislature, and they are free, frankly,
to implement the voting laws they see fit.” As Republicans fight to remain
in control of the state, some say it’s no
longer a fight over who people vote for, but
who is allowed to vote. The U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights, an independent
federal agency, says these are the five most common
voter suppression tactics. They happen across
the country, but the only state that has
ticked every box is Georgia. “The term voter suppression —” “Voter suppression.” “Voter suppression.” “Voter suppression.” ”— embedded in that word is
the very question of what the motivation is for
these kinds of laws and procedures.” “The Republican
argument, that they say, is that they are worried
about voter security. They are worried
about voter fraud.” “Voter fraud is
all too common.” “We don’t have
evidence of that.” “And then they criticize
us for saying that.” “Federal law actually
requires us to make sure that we keep our voter
rolls updated, clean, fresh and accurate.” Secretary of State
Brad Raffensperger is Georgia’s lead
elections official. It’s his job to maintain
the state’s voter lists. “Many people don’t realize that,
nationwide, about 11 percent of all people move every year. And that’s why you want to
update your voter rolls. We just send notices out to
people that haven’t voted for a long period of time.” “There’s an argument to be
made that purging voter rolls serves a legitimate purpose. And that is to make sure
that people are alive. The counter-argument, of course, is that these voter
rolls in some states are being aggressively purged
by Republicans in an effort to keep them from
coming to the polls.” In 2017, 560,000 voters were
purged from Georgia’s voter rolls. A report later found
that Black voters were purged at a higher
rate in more than half of Georgia’s counties. “This is happening in the
context of the American South, where there is a long
and well-documented history of using trickery.” “The kind of Jim Crow-era —
things like poll taxes —” “— voting tests, literacy
tests to keep people of color away from the polls.” “You know, it’s
important to recognize that, until the 1960s,
African-Americans were pretty much
shut out of voting in the state of Georgia. That began to change
when the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.” “Voting Rights Act of 1965
basically says that states cannot make laws that infringe
on people’s rights to vote.” A key part of the
law with something called Section 5
preclearance, which said — “States with a history of
racist legislation cannot make laws that infringe
on people of color without the federal
government’s permission.” After the Voting Rights Act
passed in 1965, the number of
African-Americans who registered to vote
in Georgia doubled. “It changed
Southern politics.” “At the most basic level,
bigger participation from Black Americans.” And for a while,
that’s how things went. But … “It’s not as if the South
loved the preclearance.” Many of the states felt it was
an unfair burden, especially when voter
participation increased. “What was true is
that they, frankly, couldn’t do much about it.” Well, until a
challenge to the law brought the issue all the
way to the Supreme Court. Announcer: “— the 1965
Voting Rights Act.” [crosstalk] “Shelby v. Holder.” Shelby v. Holder. “I just get wound up when you
ask me about voting rights.” Here to help explain
is Debo Adegbile, the lawyer who argued that
preclearance was still necessary. But the other side
argued that the standards used to measure discriminatory
voting practices were outdated. In a 5 to 4 decision,
the justices ruled to strike down
the preclearance, which effectively meant that states
could pass new voting laws without federal oversight. “So it was a resounding
loss, and perhaps one of the most
significant civil rights decisions of the
United States Supreme Court in recent memory.” “The decision of
Shelby took away the federal government’s
most effective tool in regulating state
voting rights.” “After the Shelby
decision, there were almost immediate attempts
to change the way voting works.” Some states passed voting
legislation just hours after the ruling. Alabama implemented
new voter ID laws. North Carolina eliminated
seven days of early voting. And the list goes on. “Without the
preclearance provision, there were many,
many elections where those discriminatory
laws affected our politics.” Voting rights
advocates say this was a key ruling that
had the power to impact the outcome of an election. And that’s what many believe
happened in Georgia in 2018. “The governor’s race in
Georgia in 2018 was …” “Bitter.” “On one side, you had …” “I’m Stacey Abrams, and
I’m running for governor. I have a boundless belief
in Georgia’s future.” “Her strategy was based on
signing up people of color. And then on the other side …” “I’m Brian Kemp.” “— because you’re a proud,
hardcore Trump conservative on spending,
immigration and guns.” “So you had a
secretary of state, who had come under criticism
for voter suppression, running the election
that he’s in.” “That puts them at odds.” “We’ve seen jurisdictions
consolidate and close precincts. We’ve seen voter ID
laws come into play. There was a system in Georgia
called Exact Match, where if your information doesn’t
100 percent match databases that the state uses, that you
can be purged from the voter rolls. That tends to target
people with ethnic names. A lot of these new suppression
schemes seem race-neutral, but they have
the same impact.” “Georgia has 159 counties.” “It’s a staggering
number of counties.” “And we are hearing reports
from all over the state.” [phones ringing] “There was a county in Georgia
called Randolph County.” “Randolph County tried to
close seven out of nine —” “Seven out of the nine.” “— polling places in a
county that’s 60 percent Black.” “Jeff Davis County polling
location consolidations. I mean, I should
say that, like, this could take a while.” “Chatham County
allowed the city of —” [crosstalk] “Fighting voter
suppression is very much like fighting a hydra. You chop off one head, and
three grows in its place.” Here’s one impact: The 2017
Exact Match law prevented 53,000 Georgians from having
their registrations accepted. Nearly 70 percent were Black. “The evidence is
very clear to us that the ones most
impacted by these new laws are Black Georgians,
are people in Democratic communities.” All of this results in
a contested election. And then … “But I’m here
tonight to tell you, votes remain to be counted.” “Make no mistake, the
math is on our side to win this election.” “So Brian Kemp squeaks
out a victory.” “And he is now the
governor of Georgia. It was two figures
who have represented the opposite sides of the
voting rights argument.” “The question that dogged
Georgia throughout 2018 was whether or
not these tactics were fundamentally fair.” “So what happened
in 2018 really is a preview, where democracy
is under a stress test.” One that may get even more
stressed in the lead-up to 2020, with the
added elements of coronavirus and
a country on edge after nationwide protests. “If you want
change in America, go and register to vote. Show up at the
polls on June 9.” In April, in response
to the pandemic, Georgia Secretary of
State Brad Raffensperger sent out absentee
ballot applications to nearly seven million
registered voters in an attempt to reduce
in-person voting. “And what that
really has done is it’s taken the
pressure off it today, so that instead
of having those, you know, million people
that were voted absentee show up today, we
now have something that is more manageable.” But many of those absentee
ballots were never delivered. In Atlanta, this contributed
to Election Day wait times that were reminiscent
of 2018 and 2016. “We got here before six
o’clock this morning.” “Since six this morning. It’s almost 9 a.m.,
and I have not moved.” In Fulton County, Georgia’s
largest, election director Rick Barron had to
contend with both a 9,000 percent increase
in absentee ballots, and the rollout of a new
voting machine system. “We became an
absentee-by-mail state. We still had to do our full
complement of Election Day infrastructure. We did our
early-voting infrastructure. And it stretched us.” With many usual polling sites,
like churches and schools, dropping out because of the
pandemic, an estimated 16,000 voters in Fulton County
were redirected here, to this restaurant,
Park Tavern. “Take a look behind me. This is the
Park Tavern precinct.” “This polling place is
serving multiple locations that are supposed to
be separate locations.” And these problems stretched
all across metro Atlanta. “The impact of having
problems at the voting booth in high-density
areas in Georgia means that people of
color are going to be disproportionately affected.” One study showed
that in communities where more than 90 percent
of registered voters were minorities, the
average minimum wait time at the polls was 51 minutes. When whites made up
more than 90 percent of voters, it was just six minutes. “So how are things
running now?” “Well, by and large, they’re
running very smoothly throughout the state, except,
obviously, Fulton County has had multiple failures.” Each county in Georgia
runs its own election, with Georgia’s secretary of
state as the top official. But after the massive
failures in the primary, a blame game commenced. “They should be embarrassed
with their performance.” “Whatever Secretary
Raffensperger’s opinion is, he’s the head election
official in the state, and he can’t wash his hands
of all the responsibility.” “In this
environment, incompetence does have the effect
of voter suppression.” Things would have
looked different before the Shelby decision. Even in an emergency
situation like the pandemic,
the implementation of all of these changes — new voting machines,
poll place closures and the absentee balloting —
still would have required federal oversight through
Section 5 preclearance, meaning voters of
color would have had … “A front-end protection
that stops discrimination before it can take root. What we’ve lost with the
Shelby County ruling is that, now when changes
are made to take account of the public health
crisis, they are not being made toward,
are those changes harming minority voters.” Which means … “Your only option, now,
is to go case by case, to try and find every bad
thing that’s happening and try and figure out if you
can bring a case to stop it. That’s costly. Litigation is slow. Can they happen quickly
enough in proximity to an election to
make a difference?” “Voting rights and questions
of voter suppression are not limited to the South. It’s happening in Texas,
in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other places. The political power
of 1776 to 1960 was one that excluded
huge communities of people in this country. And so history tells
us the same thing the current day tells us. If you are Black,
brown in this country, to exercise your
democratic rights is harder than
if you are white. It’s not just a
foregone conclusion that everyone who is an
American gets to vote.” “You know, this is America. We can put a Tesla in
space, but we can’t vote? I mean, what do we think is
going to happen in November?” “This is Alex.” “And I’m Kassie.” “We produced this episode
of Stressed Elections.” “There’s a lot going
on in this election, and we want to make
sure we take a deep dive into the major issues. So stick around for
the next episodes.” “We’re going to cover voting
technology, disinformation and voting by mail.”
