Video Transcript
Um you'll know that you're live when you see me disappear. so that's when you guys can get started um and I do shave off the first like 30 seconds that are kinda awkward. so know that that makes anybody feel a little bit better. Alright and you are live so. Hello everyone and welcome to turn up Tuesday brought to you by and powered by the leadership conference on civil and human rights and all good is local. I am your host for today's journey of Vanessa Gonzalez with the leadership conference. Thank you so so much for joining if you haven't been to a turn up before uh Turn Up Tuesday is brought to you by again the Leadership Conference, which is an organization of over 200 organizations. Together in coalition to center those most impacted, particularly people of color we focus on boat we focus on voters depression and we focus on better education, particularly in this series and so today I am thrilled to have my guest because we are gonna be talking Florida um I'm sure many of us had for vacations books. Unfortunately, including myself, had to reschedule those but we can't wait to get back down to Florida. So Florida is always in play congressional everybody always watches those elections. Presidential Florida, Florida, Florida um and 2020 is no different. I'm sure you have all heard about in the news whether it's co nineteen news whether it's election whether it's what's happening with Bodhi machines. what's gonna happen with the election? It's All About Florida and so today we're gonna talk specifically about voting a pandemic and what the state of Florida is and is not. What's some of the advocates I hear working on the front lines are gonna be helping to do to make sure that people are able to exercise their constitutional right to vote so first and foremost we have Brad Ashwell, who is our all voting is local partner. Hey there Jasmine Gallego with boat writers. We have Ricardo Negro with Latino Justice. hey, and then we have Ryan with black votes matter. Hey there Ryan. So, let's just jump into it, I wanna make sure that I also if you have any questions about Florida about voting if you have concerns particularly if you're from Florida, please feel free to log on jump on into the chat and send us questions um and then through the miracle of technology, I'll be able to get those questions and ask our amazing guests. so let's just jump into it. So first Brad if you can just give us a lay of the land about what's going on in Florida and how it has Colin nineteen already started to. Sure, so um what is an impacting um covid-nineteen is impacting on elections in almost every way imaginable. I mean the solutions to the problems that are gonna require additional resources uh the many counties don't have because they're facing revenue shortfalls. Many of them are tourist driven and they they're hitting the revenue shortfalls to it. So uh that's why many of our groups, including the leadership conference, especially Leadership Conference has been asking Congress for additional funding for elections um thankfully back. Congress passed the Corona virus, Aid Relief and Economic Security Act, often referred to care Act um that included $400000000 in emergency election funding to the States, which sounds like a lot. but it's actually not nearly enough. but still it's it's good that it happened uh for about $20000000 of this money which we had to match with 4000000 um and uh despite supervisors of elections and we have sixty-seven supervisors of elections, one elected for each county. Despite them desperately need this money to pay for you know PE and modifications to ensure that polling places are safe, the coworkers and voters are safe as well as new technology to meet demands uh the state's really been slow walking um this process every step of the way um they waited longer than most other states even request the money then took a long time to announce when it would be available to SOEs and they created a new request process for the funds. they announced that in July so supervisors. The funding are just now like literally today just now getting the funds um today and tomorrow um so we're glad that you know, we're glad to see that they're finally getting the funds, but it really suggests that the governor of the Secretary of State and the Division of Elections are realizing the gravity of what supervisors are up against um that they're looking at this, possibly like just another election um and they really need to look at Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio and and really any state that had a primary in the last couple of months to see the the long lines ill prepared. Officials and all the problems from people who thought they had it. They thought they had it covered, but they really didn't um and it doesn't have to be that way. We really need to state and local officials to do everything they can to make sure voters have a safe accessible. voting experience. voters shouldn't have to choose between their health and and their rights to vote participate in democracy and the fact that it took them 5 months to request in Gethsemane of money. just they're just not in reality and um you know you know one of the things we've been talking a lot about uh and I'll shut up this is that you know that the funding is really. Safe Boating options and then just another thing we're the problem. We're starting to see is that unfortunately a lot of supervisors of elections are offering the bare minimum in terms of early voting days and hours and not offering um evening hours for people who work long days. So you know we'll be asking supervisors of elections for the maximum We've been asking that we're gonna more aggressively step up in the next week or so asking them to offer the maximum level or early voting in terms of days and hours. And then uh we're also gonna ask that the governor revisit supervisor supervisors back in April requested that he give them an additional week of early voting and he totally ignored them so we're gonna be you know really calling on the governor to give the supervisors what they need to make sure so thank you for that. That's super helpful. There's three particular points. I heard that I wanna call out and I please ask any of our guests jumping on this um so one yes, Congress has passed the Cares Act. We have the Heroes Act, which actually. Quest 3.6000000000 $3.6000000000 to go to states um Senate hasn't taken it up. We haven't moved so call your congressperson specifically call your senator to make sure that they move this money to the States when the States get the money we need the governor the governing body to give that money to election officials. Why are you holding? It's specifically for safe elections so that people can exercise their constitutional right and as you said Brad not have to choose between their health and voting shouldn't be a choice in. Today, you should be able to do both right and then thirdly um which we define as a voter suppression effort and not allowing enough time for people to vote and in particular when you're not allowing be in time frames, whether it's the number of days and weeks or hours during the the day, really disenfranchising people who are working shift schedules who we know are predominantly black and brown folks and so call those elections. If you call this election officials if you live in Florida and demand that everybody have the right to vote so three actions. Folks can take if they're listening um as we move into the actions that I wanna talk about what the what it looks like now if I wanted to vote today So Jasmine can you tell me how I as a Florida voter would be able to vote today? Yes. Thank you. Vanessa. um Hi, my name is Jasmine Kori. I'm the coordinator of riders. We're a national 501 C three organization that focuses on voter ID. Um I hope to provide some good information on voting rights and also share some good useful tools. Uh so there are three ways for us to vote on the first is vote by mail um it'. Personal favorites because um it allows you to be able to sit at home with your ballot and be able to research all of the candidates audits and not really feel rushed in a polling place. and then I always um you can always pop it in the mail, but my personal favorite thing to do is to go drop it off at early voting um to be able to take a selfie and say I was there and then also be able to get a sticker afterwards or an extra sticker now that they mailed the stickers um so that's a really good way to. Sure that your ballot arrives if you choose to vote by mail um so the time period for that um you had to request a vote by mail ballot by August 8, so that deadline has passed um but there's still other options so if you did receive your vote by mail ballot by now, um please make sure to get it in super soon um in the state of Florida, your vote will be counted as long as the ballot was received by the election Day if it was made before the election. That arrives after it will not be counted um that is an important note to make sure to keep in mind as you are thinking about the timeline of when you're going to go to the post office or to your mailbox to ensure that your vote counts um the second form of voting options that we have um it is early voting The timeline for early voting is going on right now we can go vote um until August 15th and like Brad said, We would love to have some additional. Allotted to be able to provide um some more options for our communities like you said there are people that aren't able to go to the polls on Election Day can't risk whether or not they're going to be late for work um if they are in line at a polling sites, so early voting allows some of that flexibility for you to be able to plan around your day and decide how it is that you are going to cast your ballot and what time you're gonna go to the polls if you like to go in person as opposed to mailing in. And like I said, you can also drop off your ballots at the early voting sites and then you can also vote on Election Day on August 18th from 7 AM to 7 PM as long as you are in line by seven, you are able to cast your ballots um so make sure that uh you know you are making a plan to vote um first and foremost that is the most important thing that you can do is just you know, plan and and decide which of those. You're going to go with and take care of any issues or try to take care of any issues any questions that might come up prior um before it gets you know closer to election time, so you can take care of those quickly. reach out and call your county supervisor of Elections office. Um you can also call a voting helpline vote. writers has one and it's 84388743 um I can go ahead and drop that in the chats if anyone is interested in getting. Questions answered We can definitely assist you that is a wealth of fantastic information. Thank you so much please check out um all of the great information that this wonderful work has and again I wanna lift that up. you can get your vote by mail ballot and if there's concerns that it will not be safe and secure and we're gonna talk to Ryan in a bit about some of those concerns and particularly of color, you can still go drop it off and as Jain said, you can get an extra sticker uh which we know everybody loves to get their stickers so go get your stickers um talking about. Again, Ryan wanted to open this up to you. We know from studies that Latinos and the black community are very concerned about what it means when they put their ballot in the mail and they send it off. They wanna know that it's still gonna be safe and secure. So what are you telling people to make them feel at ease to vote by mail? um primarily since we're a week out from the primary um I'm telling people to drop their vote by mail in person at their um in a secure mailbox. Um, Bill cows and Orange County has a secure mailbox in front of the office. May have lost but I think what she was saying really leads onto a dazzling was saying, is that you can take it to a secured drop off if you take it to an election voting early election site and make sure that you drop that off uh Justine can you just tell us where folks can find their early voting sites? Um yes, definitely. so if you have your voter registration card um that is a reminder for where your polling place is um you can also go online to your supervisor of elections website through your county and put in your name and birth dates in your polling site will. That way um and then another way that you can find out is to call your supervisor of elections office, so there are three different ways you can go online. um check out your voter registration card and then call your supervisor of elections Office. Great. Thank you so much Ryan we're just picking up from where you left off and making sure that folks knew where to go to drop off their ballots. So thank you so much for that Um I'm gonna get to Ricardo quickly and ask so. 67 counties in Florida correct. Early voting is happening in every single county correct Yes. Okay. great Just wanna get that out different start dates and different end dates, but right now they're all happening in all 67 colors. Okay, in this moment in time, it's all happening um so can you talk a little bit about what do voters need to know before they actually had to the polls? We talked about making a plan to vote and we know psychologically that works so what should. About bringing with them and what they need to know to the polls, particularly in the time of. So um for folks who either prefer the person right, so there's the early bird option or the election day option um or who just kinda like God that they needed to request their their vote by mail ballot um or for some reason they don't feel uh think that it's secured to defend that there's the option to you know to buy now and this the first thing that. Border has to know is what are the uh did I say I mean early voting uh the first thing that folks have to know is what is the early voting locations available in the in their counties which now when you get your voter registration card, it gives you the address on which you have to for your polling location on the day of the elections uh uh both on early voting during the early voting period, We have the advantage of not having to just go in that one location, but rather we can both in any of the. Voting locations available throughout the county, so it's very important for both to find out what this location are uh which are typically you know the libraries uh community centers uh here it's uh the University of Florida. I want them here in Orange County so find out what the locations are and also find out the schedule because unfortunately, it's not a uniform schedule throughout the state so you have to find out where is that you can do uh you can go early vote and what time. Dislocate Got it? Thank you. That's super helpful. I think we also wanna make sure that people have masks that if they need to take um food because some of these lines have been uh in other states have been really long make sure you have some snacks some water uh a mask. you have some wipes. you have whatever you need to make you feel comfortable if you're not able to drop off your ballot or you're not able to have already um apply for your a your vote by mail. uh so your vote-by-mail application and received your ballot apologies. So Ryan why? Take it back to you if people show up and they're they're told they're either not on the rolls or they're told uh you have to fill out a provisional ballot for whatever reason can you tell us what that means and how people should go about that process? Here's here she is. Hey there did you hear that? Did you hear the question you want me to do? Yes? no worries everybody understands zoom right now um so if I for some reason go to the polls, I've been told either my name doesn't match or um they don't have me on the on the roads. anything like that and I'm told I have to do a provisional ballot. Can you tell me what does that mean? and what are some of that process? Um if you don't have the appropriate identification that is normally when you vote provisionally, it's not an ideal situation, but sometimes it happens um usually they'll give you a notice of rights. I believe that's what it's called that way because they have to tell you whether your provisional ballot was counted, I believe after 30 days days um so there is some safeguards and again ideally we want we don't want people to have to vote provisionally, which is why we say bring. Your identity the appropriate identification make sure your signature matches do all of that ahead of time, so you won't have to ever be in that position, but it does happen. That's great so 30 day notice so that folks will know that their ballot did in fact count. So I wanna add two or two things that are particularly unique. I think to Florida and I think what a Kylo if you can speak a little bit to the language access issues are voters allow to receive assistance for language access issues if it doesn't if whatever they need is not readily available. Yeah. So there's a few different provisions of steaming from the Voting Rights Act that guarantees folks uh a language actors during voting uh one of those is section two three of. Right and that will come from it's based on population right, so it's a 5% of a minority language population of eligible voters are in that specific county and the county has to make sure that all the materials from the registry from the voter registration form to the information of the polling location, the ballot and all of this is in the language. uh isn't that minority language um. And there are thirteen counties here for that fall under the operation or Viola included, which is very central for um and then there's also a section to which guarantees the right to bring your whatever you wanna bring for assistance. so this may be because of um as a disability or this could also be because the borders does not understand English and wants to bring someone to help them with translation. They could also it doesn't even have to be someone that they know they can literally grab someone of the line and the publication of the systems with something and they cannot be denied that assistance um with a couple of exceptions with uh which is that you should not bring your employer or you're not bring your union representative. Yeah all so that is nine interpreted uh so for people for for that um but you. Um and we'll see this with um family of bringing their bilingual phones daughters uh for assistance so that this actually applies does not only particular for that. this applies to our or the United States uh in every election. Wow. Thank you so much for that. I don't think I even realize you could just ask somebody in line for help it can be they might ask you at the polling location. they might ask them to fill out a form uh just to say that they are assisting you but that they cannot deny. The uh it's a voter and then there's also uh another section, which it's of particular interest because it applies AA very much applies to the Puerto Rican community living in the United States, which is section four E and technically applies to boaters who are eligible voters who are now living in the United States, but who went to school uh either in a state or territory of the United States were English. The main language so in this case for the Puerto Rican community, we go to school in Puerto Rico in Spanish, but when we moved here uh we're eligible voters so it doesn't matter where you're at where you're at right there not just specifically for for you. There's to be all across the United States does and it's not subjected to um population like the only the earlier probation that we mentioned so unfortunately not inactive theory uh it should be where if there's one single person who qualifies on their days are requirements. For example, there's just one Puerto Rican who went to Puerto Rico and they need their materials in Spanish. they should be able to get them where they are in the United States if they want that's super helpful. Thank you so much for that and please remember that if you need someone to help you understand if it's not in language, you have a right that assistance so um sorry for cutting you off. I hope you out there that here in Florida uh besides uh aside from the assistance uh because of the order that came down from the governor everyone. Is uh has the right to request a Spanish all of it? Yeah. So that's something that we want our communities to be on the lookout for um and to actually not just be on the lookout for but actually request the materials in Spanish to see if the polling location are actually complying with this great. Thank you so much for that. Um I'm gonna ask some of my other guests to just join in here or something else that is uniquely Florida is returning citizens and where they stand in their abilities to vote after incarceration um can somebody give us an. Date on what's happening in Florida Are we still in limbo are folks who are returning citizens able to vote? I can really jump in um Brad. I can hear you, but you can't hear me there. you go there. you go wait. I'll get I'll get right in the camera. Yeah. um I mean so the supervisors are registering people so if folks register, they're going to get registered the courts are still I mean you know I you could really get into the weeds on what's going on with the courts right now. Um you know the biggest issue is around the fines and fees and the question whether that should be a barrier to former felons. Being able to vote, there's no process at the state level to determine whether someone's paid their fines and fees yet. so um you know, unfortunately, there's no clear guidance on what these voters can do to make sure they aren't violating the law. but um you know we know that supervisors are encouraging them to move forward. That's that's great. This is such a pivotal election. It's important to also make sure everybody understands that as well so appreciate that Brad um I'm gonna kick it back. Because a is set up a little bit different, all voting is local is set up to really make a change in the state in which you all are working. So can you tell us a little bit about what you're honing in on in Florida? Sure um you know lately, we've been really focused on Duval County. It's one county where we um you know we just had trouble working with the supervisor of elections there, you know we make the rounds and try to meet with all of them and talk to them and figure out what their processes are and we really we really try to be solutions-oriented and try to work with them to figure out how to you know make the system work for. This is one county where we've had trouble working with them and you know given how important vote by mail is this election cycle. There's just a minimal things. We're expecting out of Supervisors. One of those is that they send every eligible go to as requested vote by mail ballot an application to request of or an application for vote by mail ballot Um you know several of the big counties have done this to great, You know. Broward has a lot of success with this um Pinellas County had a lot of. Um you know some counties haven't done that, but they've done a lot of other things like Orange County has sent out multiple mailings and done a lot of advertising We haven't seen any of that in Duval County. um that's you know he just sent out a postcard recommending that people do it last week um like days before the deadline um and that's just unacceptable. So you know we've we've been weighing heavily with this office We've had uh friends weighing in we've had folks calling in we've um and we're gonna keep it up. Until he agrees to do um some basic things like sending out an application for Vote-by-mail agree to pay postage, so people know that they're by mail ballots gonna be received. You know we'd like to see him set it up from there and make sure to drop boxes or easily accessible. One thing the locals in the community of flag for a several reverends and pastors and other folks have said that you know one they didn't even know he had drop boxes at first. you see he doesn't have a posted anywhere on his website. So then they went looking for them and apparently all of them, except for one are indoors and either you know kinda hard to get to or difficult to find so you know, it's really put that on our radar as an issue um that's a new law in 2018 um we're actually 2019 the state required all the supervisor offer drop boxes in every early voting site in every branch office. as long as it's you know cover by secure they can actually put them in any place they could be in early voting site as long as their security. So we'd like to see you know this. Should be and if they're accessible, but we also wanna see them go a little further and get all the problems with USPS and all the concerns there. I mean drop boxes are gonna be very important. this election cycle absolutely on and on and we're we're we're looking a lot of counties around early voting and it's flagging earlier uh Broward Seminole and Volusia just aren't offering enough early voting um there's several counties Volusia again um and um Uh just give me a latch and several others that. You know they have large pockets of black and Hispanic voters with you know early voting site near them um so we're gonna be advocating for additional sites additional days and hours on early voting, there's a whole slew of things we wanna see supervisor your mail and then a lot of them just need to be doing more as far as offering P to they need to be providing masks for voters disposable pens the basic things great. Thank you so much and it's good to hear that you are advocating. Because they are structural changes um we're coming to the end of our time together, but I just want to remind anybody who's watching if you have a question feel free to drop it in the chat and I'll send that to me. The other thing is please be sure to visit all of the websites I joined the social media uh following of all of these wonderful organizations and in particular, be sure to check out at WWW dot Florida elections.com you'll be able to see some of the latest information you'll be able to find out some of the. About where you are registered, make sure all of that is up to date and what you need to think about and bring with you to the polls. This will also wanna remind folks that right now voters suppression is happening everywhere across this country. We really want to make sure that communities most impacted particularly communities of color, Our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community are also a fully aware of all of their rights and how voter suppression impacts them um whether it's. Cut off lines before you're supposed to not making polling places available because they're just out of touch, making sure that people aren't able to understand because of language issues um the ballot. These are all things that can be prevented um and we do have some folks who are really working hard to prevent these things. So please make sure that you visit all of our folks. um this wonderful or again they're websites for additional information on how you can also get involved locally. so as we wrap up. We always ask our guests one question because we all need a little bit more hope these days and so I'm gonna start off with Jain if you could just tell me what gives you hope these days um I've been working with uh I know this is the the most popular answer, but I've been working with student organizers a lot this week um with high schools and I've been so incredibly impressed with the amount of volunteers that they have quickly organized together um in order to be able to conduct a student voter registrations, especially during this time that they're going to school um some virtually some. Back to to the classrooms during a pandemic and it's just incredible to be able to see uh regardless of the amount of stress that they're under, they are still able to fight and organized to be able to have their voices heard and be able to lift up the other students around them and to be able to empower one another has been so incredibly um powerful and so inspiring to see if they can do it if they can lift up a hundreds of students and be able to organize so quickly I. To do it too, and we should all be able to play a larger role in our communities so that has been an absolute um just motivating force me recently great. Thank you. Yup. We should all follow the youth amazing and right uh Ryan gonna get you in this uh so what gives you hope these days um the focus on local elections um it's refreshing um sometimes we get obsessive over what's going on in DC um. After George Floyd's murder I really saw reengagement in um city City and County Commission um activity and budget. so that's fantastic. That's great, the biggest changes can be made at a local effort and you'll see them the quickest as well. Um Ricardo What gives you hope? Um I think all of the opportunity for connectivity and now that we are let me tell you um there's so many, I know we're being so many conference calls and so many meetings and this and that but at the same time, it's helped us reach out uh people who who would otherwise not be able to so this is helpful to get more people involved uh and kinda like make the best out of this very unfort. yeah that's it excellent point in a very positive way to look at it so thank you call of the day ah finally broad what gives you home I mean the sounds gonna dark but I mean it's really all the racial attentions coming to ahead exposed all the concerns people then ah speaking about talking about years validated ah on a large scale ah the so many people Animated motivated to address them that it's like kitchen table discussion matter um in every facet of our society, I think we're living in a pivotal moment where some really profound changes can happen, and I think people are getting organized or organizing themselves. I think the potential is there to make some profound systemic change a multiple levels. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think for communities that have always felt these gaps in services Covid-nineteen elections everything coming together at once, it's really amplified it and it's good to see some of our youth leading the way on how we can. That this generational systemic issues are brought to the front and change and crashed down uh so on behalf of the leadership conference on civil and human rights of voting is local and in vote. Thank you to everyone for joining us If you are in Florida, please be sure that you check out my Florida elections.com. make sure that you check out all of the amazing organizations in this wonderful advocates in your community and get out there and vote so thank you again. See you next week Bye. Thank you. Bye everyone.