Video Transcript
Since hi everybody thanks for joining my name is Diana and I'm free and I am the digital director at the leadership conference on civil and human rights and the leadership conference. Education fund. I'm really excited for our conversation today with our two voting rights experts um here's. How this facebook live is gonna go uh. I will introduce our two esteemed guest um a lot of you have also sent questions to um our facebook Wall and says messages so thank you so much um we're gonna go ahead and uh while we're getting started in a taped phone because that's technology for you um and if you have additional During the chat we're gonna try to get to them we're gonna make this as short as possible, but um and because we have a number of questions and a lot of content to get through uh so post your questions. If we don't get to them in the live, then I will go ahead and make sure that we followup with you afterwards, so thanks so much for joining and we're gonna go ahead and get started I'd like to introduce Lee chapman. She is a boating direct rights director at the leadership conference and then also introduce uh terry min who is the director of census and voting programs at Asian Americans, advancing Justice, a jc I'm gonna turn over to Terry this is the first question. This week is the 50 fourth anniversary of bloody Sunday and representative sewell from Alabama introduced hr for the voting rights. Amendment act last week can you talk about the significance of the blue ridge back yeah sure so actually, tomorrow is the 50 fourth anniversary of bloody Sunday where civil rights activist and organizers like John Lewis, who marched across the edmund pettus bridge um to actually gain the right to vote for people of color and unfortunately, you know they were met by a tax uh many of them worked Um and people really sacrifice um their lives for voting rights. Um so one thing I just wanted to back up before we go into the details of the voting rights, advancement act. Um. We just wanted to kind of set the stage as far as voting rights in our country and in our country and our voting rights weren't something that we're giving to everybody right so at first only White male property owners could vote on the franchise has been expanded throughout the um. Our history and it's also been contracted as well um and African Americans were given the right to vote um the uh the fifteenth amendment of Situation and pretty much immediately after that happened, we saw the literacy tests and poll taxes and um grandfather clauses. You know African Americans are met with um intimidation tactics at the polling place and that's why the voting rights act is so critical and do it stop those racial discriminatory practices um that really made it harder for people of color to vote all around our country and particularly in the South, where they were the most pervasive um and it put a lot of States on Clearance so States with a history of discrimination and voting had to get their voting rights. Um their voting changes cleared by the federal government before they could go into effect so that's why the voting rights act is really one of the most influential pieces of civil rights. Legislation that we have that's great and terry. You mentioned it a little bit, but what are some of the barriers that are faced at the ballot box by emerging workers late so I think one of the really interesting things about emerging communities that tend to think of them in sort of two buckets, one bucket is Will be those that are new citizens. Naturalized citizens with these are emerging community and for this community some of the barriers that exist include the language barrier right for many of them English as a second language and so um that's something that they have to grapple with in the voting context because you know, voting is very complicated the language that's used on ballads are often at a very high levels that could even be confusing and difficult for a Speaker to be able to understand so that's something that is really critical um to address In order to um assist this, uh particular situations here uh so the voting rights act was very important for that section to three of the voting right back require certain jurisdictions to provide language assistance throughout the election process. Um in jurisdictions that meet a coverage formula or um a brush hold um and in those cases it's not just a translator ballot, but it's also having a bilingual poll worker at the um uh the uh polling location as well as making sure the uh the jurisdiction, public sizes That this is available until that's one piece of it, but another piece on around emerging community would be groups that are um kind of moving and migrating throughout the country and starving and then uh you know, starting to become a larger numbers and in some cases, numbers that are large enough to actually have an influence in the political process so, for example, the South has been um where the Mass of Asian American uh community has grown over the last decade from the That you got the 20 10 cents. We also know that there are a lot of uh new latino. Um. You know how populations popping up throughout the South and will be fine and a lot of these situations is an increase of racial tension. When um you know folks who have been there for many decades feel their power potentially being threatened by this um by this new influx of people from other communities and so is this where the voting rights act, including section five would have been so Helpful um you know to really help make sure that the physician and the games more on that's great this question feels a good one for you need in 20 13 the us Supreme court, gutted the ira, uh in the shelby versus holder case and you referenced it a bit so I'd love for you. I think it's really important for folks that are watching can you talk briefly about that case so in 20 13 the Supreme court really issued a devastating blow to voting rights when it got in the clearance um provisions of the voting rights act so as I mentioned earlier, not alluded to. I mean the States with a history of voter discrimination, had to have their Changes approved by the federal government so either um, a federal court or the Department of Justice itself and that's the definition of appropriate clearance. Yes, so before anything it was basically a measure of that before a law or even a little like a procedure went to place it would be stopped before it could go into a place in my heart yeah people um so that could be either a voter id law um moving a polling place um into another location. You know purging voters from the rolls, all of these policies and procedures would need to be free cleared um so we lost that in And since shelby it's really been open season for States to implement laws and policies to make it harder for people to vote so within 24 hours of the shelby County versus holder decision Texas for instance, um implemented their voter id law. Um other States. I know, like Alabama Mississippi as well and did something similar and within a few months, North Carolina had a monster bill of voters, depression um so unfortunately, in that case, the court basically said we got the clearance Was based on data from the 19 sixties and we need to modernize the formula and that's actually what the voting rights advancement act does it modernize is the pri clearance formula. It also does a lot of other good things that we can talk about later on. Um during this facebook live, but that's where we are having a situation, we are now great um so uh terry to talk um leave mention a little bit about shelby Victoria really wanna kinda dig in on what we've lost and shelby so I think one of the really um big things that we lost so The decision we're technically section five, the precludes provision lives on, but it applies no where, for the most part of because of lisa the formula has been a strong, what we lost is the ability to know what's going on so as we mention because each change or proposed change had to be pretty cleared, they had to submit that either Department of Justice or the federal board um and that that information with them be a loaded and was on you know website. It was something that I put on my advocates across the country couldn't monitor and keep an eye on and it covered everything from things that the state level which is you know, we would like to Able to find out but all the way down to the local levels, to municipalities, these types of changes that can be very devastating for the local community. But very difficult to root out when you don't have that system of monitoring so that was one uh major law. Another loss was just be prophylactic effect of section five, so because jurisdictions knew that they would have to submit this and they knew that it was going to be scrutinized to make sure that it did not harm communities of color. They say Had to act in a certain player. You know they wanted to avoid the headache of litigation. I would not be new or um. You know with having their changes, not be cleared right. Um or objected to so then they would make sure that what they did. You know they did that check that was a check for themselves to make sure that what they were doing was problem and we lost that once um the shelby decision came down as we mentioned and some of the instantaneous, like what we've been told, we can't do this, but look at that now So really you know yeah um and this question is for both of you. What are some of the most egregious examples of voting discrimination since shelly um, as I mention, you notice in shelby we've seen so many, but we really only have to look at some recent elections, like the 20 eighteen election to see what the impact has been um so just take Georgia for instance, you know a lot of um issues happening. Georgia um and just in the 20 eighteen election um Secretary of state, Brian kemp, who is now governor of Georgia um who's over Overseeing the election at the same time, he was running the election. Um. He actually feel the process voter registrations for over 53000 voters in Georgia and 70 percent of them were African, American and he did that because um there was a basically their name did not exactly match what was on their voter registration, like your driver's license, might have a Middle initial, but they maybe didn't put that on their voter registration form so we can see how a lot of these policies and procedures can negatively impact people of color um also polling place closures and leadership con Wrote a report in 20 16 called the great pool closure and that's available on our website. Um and we have a report. We looked at all the jurisdictions that were formally covered. Um by free clearance who had to submit their polling place changes to federal government and we found that there are over 200 I'm sorry every hundred um pulling police closures um since shelby and that was between 20 13 and 20 16. We were at the reporter actually looking at updating and now um to have a better picture of what has happened, but ima just goes to show you These little changes can happen at the very last minute. People aren't giving no to giving notice and when they show up to vote, you know they're filling places is gone so um in 20 eighteen. There was actually a town in Georgia called randolph County or County and was a very small County, mostly African American and the world of elections garden closed seven out of nine of the polling places, so because of activism in the community and people are monitoring what was happening um organizations were able to stop that right, but it takes A lot of effort and advocates and even really need to know as terry mentioned you need to have notice of these things are happening and changing so that's just one tactic that has been happening Reserve. Your boots and I mean I was just what we put in with your airline and all of that and what happened um in the aftermath of fishing uh leave mention. You know they have the massive voter suppression bill um. You know North Carolina went from a place that you know was very kind of eccentric friendly. You know trying to find ways to make voting more accessible to the complete opposite right and in fact Federal judge uh that shut it all down. You know noted that the um that the bill was designed specifically with one of the surgical precision to impact African American vote right so they looked at data to see which of the policies that are utilized by African American voters to vote so whether it's early voting whether it's saying the registration and they shut all of that down and they only did that because they knew they could, because they knew They tried that with the um with the free clearance, um, you know mechanism in place that would not have flown and that would have been shut down before it even got started. Um um we've got another question and lots of folks tuning in so thank you to everybody who's joining us this is been a great conversation on this question is also for both of you. What are the solutions and black can our viewers do to support um voting rights. There are a number of bills and things like that are moving and then we have an opportunity that it love to hear from both of you about how folks can get involved. I would say, support voting rights, advancement act which is the bill that uh Of a terry sewell it's hr for um there's also, a Senate, companion bill, um and the number of that bill is as 561 and the lead sponsor and that is senator leahy um. I would call your members of Congress that you know it's time that we restore the full protections of the voting rights back um and I wanted to turn it to terry because I know she can explain a little bit of what is actually in the bill yeah um there's, some really creative um mechanisms you know um that would actually have some nationwide coverage as well um so terry you're still happy to The first thing the voting rights advancement act that the course is create a new formula for section five coverage and in fact that is what did you Justice on spring floor invited Congress to do in his opinion, um in shelby County uh so it is more uh one of the uh. I guess criticism laid by the chief Justice was that the data use at least it was a decades old and that it wasn't um keeping up with the times if you will um so be uh one of our demands and act as a 25 year Back and it has sort of metrics for uh for coverage for States and States can roll on and they can roll off and it's a it's an ongoing, a coverage formula to try to address this concern around um. You know, decades of data to come up with a formula uh in addition to that, there's something known as don't practices, coverage and the idea behind their own practices coverage is really to address the needs of emerging communities so one uh one opponent of section five, was that it was really looking at you know, harm not occurring to uh you know All of that that were already existing right that then you're not making them worth off through this proposed change. Um, but that doesn't help the emerging communities as I just discussed for because there is no benchmark upon which you determine whether they're being worse off. So known practice is covered is really an idea to try to address these emerging communities where there are new um new growth, new potential political power as a mention that when the shenanigans coming out that's when they start trying to implement different things like polling closures or closing the off People can register um you know uh maybe changing their methods of election. Uh from single member two at large uh. These are the types of games they start playing and so the idea of nonpartisan coverage is that in jurisdictions that have a growing and emerging community, those these very specific changes that we've seen throughout history being used to keep um you know the voice of the communities of color silent. Those specific changes have to be declared, regardless of where they are in the country Great, I think we have a real opportunity here to um take back what was taken from within the people and so I thank you both so much for joining us and thank you to everybody who joined in the community and shared your questions. We are out of time if you have questions that um you uh thought about it and uh as soon as we turn off you're gonna be like I wanna know post on our Wall and we'll be sure to get back to you um and thank you again both so much for joining us and thank you everybody um and you can visit us at celebrates dot org or you gonna go to We adopted and I think Justice that a jp dot org there, we go alright thanks. Everybody for joining. Thank you. bye