Voting in America is not always straightforward, nor is its impact always clear. In this episode, we give you the basic tools to vote on election day, including tips for avoiding the roadblocks. And for those of you on the fence about exercising that enfranchisement, a word to the wise: your vote matters. We’ll tell you why, with help from Kim Wehle and Andrea Hailey.
Episode Resources
Looking for a voting leg up? Check out the resources below! And don’t forget, your secretary of state’s office is a baseline go-to for info on registration, polling locations and other voting musts!
Vote.org (check out their Election Protection page)
Transcript
NOTE: This transcript was generated using an automated transcription service, and may contain typographical errors.
Civics 101
Civic Action: Voting, Pt. 2
CPB: [00:00:00] Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:06] Before I started interviewing people for this voting thing, Nick, the question came up that often comes up at the show. We're talking about voting.
[00:00:15] Voting can be a political act, but is voting a political subject?
[00:00:23] And if we try to give people the tools to vote through this show, is that a political act?
Nick Capodice: [00:00:30] We've had this discussion in meetings dozens of times. And to me, it feels like it shouldn't be. But maybe that's just my gut.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:37] Yeah, it's my gut, too. We've talked about this a lot, but still, I had to ask.
Kim Wehle: [00:00:42] Well, I'm so glad you raised that point that asking or encouraging people to vote is somehow partisan. Because my last book last year was about the Constitution, how to read the Constitution and why. And sometimes talking about what's in the Constitution is perceived as partisan.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:57] This is Kim Wehle. After writing [00:01:00] How to read the Constitution and Why she wrote a book called What You Need to Know About Voting and Why. And he asked, she tells people how to vote and she doesn't think it's political.
Kim Wehle: [00:01:10] The reason that I say go ahead and vote is that we all are Americans. And ultimately, we are a government by the people. It's not a government by the Republicans or a government by the Democrats or government by independents. It's government by the people.
[00:01:26] Kim's thing is the framers set us up with this system that would allow us to self govern. No depending on some king's good graces, we would be self-determined here. Voting is the tool they gave us to ensure that.
Kim Wehle: [00:01:41] And if we don't exercise our right to vote, the alternative is that politicians have the power. So I think it. I don't think it's partisan, really, structurally and theoretically to to encourage people to be to self-govern, because that is the compact that we as Americans have by birth, essentially. [00:02:00] That is reflected in the Constitution. And I think it's really doing a disservice. And it is partisan to suggest that somehow voting is is not a good idea for any individual, because it's the only way that you can have your views heard, regardless of where you aren't a policy, whether you like believe in climate change, you don't. You support immigration reform. You don't. You want LGBTQ rights. You don't. The way you get that herd is at the ballot box. Otherwise, people in power make that decision for you.
Achival: [00:02:38] Now, here's a sign that says, hey, kids, tell everybody it's your duty to vote.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:48] Welcome to Civics 101. The podcast about the basics of how our democracy works. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:54] I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:55] And this is part two of our voting episode. We're going to cover, quite simply [00:03:00] how to do it.
Achival: [00:03:01] You have to be registered in order to vote.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:03] The ballot box is the place where your political and moral beliefs get amplified. That's where your ideas can become a reality.
Achival: [00:03:10] So kids make sure that your moms and dads checked the registration days in your community.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:16] And before we dig in, it must be said.
[00:03:19] Voting is not easy for everyone. There are a lot of laws, practices and policies in this country that end up disenfranchising people.
[00:03:28] And if you want to know more about that, you can check out part one of this episode on voting. But if you just want to know how to do the dang thing, well, here we go.
Achival: [00:03:38] Remember, boys and girls, it's their duty and privilege to vote. Make sure that mom and dad do.
Kim Wehle: [00:03:44] Number one is to register. And now in the age of COVID, if you want to vote by mail, you have to usually apply to vote by mail in order to then vote by mail. So you have to make sure you're registered in the polls and then and request a mail in ballot.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:59] Now, I want [00:04:00] to point out that while all states have some form of mail in voting. About a third of them, at least the time this podcast dropped, summer 2020, require you to have some sort of excuse for needing that mail in ballot. Those excuses range from being out of the country on Election Day to being over a certain age, to having a religious reason for not being able to go to the polls.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:21] Also there are more and more cases of people challenging, needing to have an excuse, a reason, and even pushing for, you know, a worldwide pandemic to be a good excuse for needing a mail in ballot. All right. So registration is step one, step two.
Kim Wehle: [00:04:37] Step two is voting. Just because you've registered doesn't mean when you show up on that day that you are going to be able to vote. You have to make sure that your registrations up to date, if you've moved, you have to let your secretary of state know in your state that you've moved. If you've moved out of state, you have to re-register in the new state. Some states you can show up on voting day and register, and that's awesome. [00:05:00] But in most states, it's a two step process. And you have to do the registration early enough in time and you have to show up at the polls with the requirements that your state mandates.
[00:05:10] Certain states have higher ID requirements than others.
Nick Capodice: [00:05:14] Can we pause this for just one minute because I'm forever stuck on this issue of registration and whether I'll actually be on the voter roll when I get to the polling place.
[00:05:24] I know that when you register to vote, you get placed on a voter roll. That's the list that says who can vote at a certain polling place.
[00:05:31] How can it be if I'm a registered voter in my state, I might not be on the list?
[00:05:37] Yeah. All right. People who take issue with the way this particular practice plays out. Call it purging. But states call it list maintenance.
Nick Capodice: [00:05:47] And list maintenance.
[00:05:48] That is when people's names are taken off the voter roll.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:05:51] Yes. And to be clear, federal law mandates list maintenance. So this is something that states are required to do. If someone [00:06:00] has died or moved or for some reason become an eligible to vote, their name is supposed to be stricken from that list. The specific reasons for canceling a registration are largely up to the states, and they do vary. The idea there is that if lists contain a bunch of people who aren't actually there and or can't actually vote, then you've gotten an accurate representation of a voter pool and you're spending more money on mailing notices, on printing ballots and running elections than you actually need to spend.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:34] Correct me if I'm wrong here, but there are people who say that this is actually a form of voter suppression. Aren't there? Like people who haven't moved. Who are still very much eligible to vote, who show up at their polling places raring to go and discover their name is not on the list.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:50] This happens. And not just to a handful of people. It happens to many hundreds of thousands of eligible and rightfully registered voters, which [00:07:00] in a state where you can register day of that's annoying, but fine. But in a state where you have to preregistered that can pose a real problem.
Achival: [00:07:11] The staggering purge of some 200000 New York City voters from the 2016... Counties with a history of voter discrimination have been purging people at higher rates than the... The Texas secretary of state's office says
[00:07:23] it's questioning the citizenship status of thousands of registered voters... the county removes thousands of registered voters on a regular basis for inactivity... It's supposed to catch people who have moved. But we found it can happen to people who have lived at the same address for years.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:38] These are lists with millions of people on them, and it's human beings doing the list maintenance. And they make mistakes. A lot of them.
Nick Capodice: [00:07:48] So let's say I am a voter who is nervous about this possibility of a voter roll purge or maintenance or whatever. How do I make absolutely sure that my registration is going to count?
Kim Wehle: [00:07:59] So you have to get [00:08:00] your ducks in a row for both. That's why I call it like a recipe. You register. And I -- you could add step 1-B, make sure your registrations up to date, and then B, show up at the polls with whatever documentation that you need to show you, prove that you are who you are.
Nick Capodice: [00:08:14] Bear with me and I'm going to push this just a little bit more because, look, I American Voter X, am not perfect and maybe just getting to the polls was tricky enough right now in the pandemic. I'm worried about remembering my mask, making sure I have child care taken care of because I can't bring them into the polls and it's a whole megillah. So let's say I get there. I don't have my I.D., but I know I'm eligible. I know I'm registered.
[00:08:38] What do I do?
Kim Wehle: [00:08:45] If they turn you away step three would be always ask for what's called a provisional ballot, which federal law requires them to just give you a backup ballot. Essentially that that may or may not get counted. Depends on the state. Some states make you then follow up with your documentation. [00:09:00] But at least it means that you had an opportunity to have your voice heard. In some measure, you didn't just go home empty handed.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:07] Also, by the way, some states only require that you sign a form confirming your identity. So the processes vary. The important thing is to ask. Actually, the important thing is to demand. If the polling person is still like, sorry to have cookies, no provisional ballot for you, then this is what you say. All right. Give me a provisional ballot with receipt, as is required by law when requested. Memorize that.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:40] Yeah. Very good. Very lawyerly. And I know we address this a bit in part one, but the issue of the polling place itself, like I show up armed with confirm registration and an I.D. and I know what to say. If all else fails and I show up at my polling place and it isn't a polling place at all, it's closed or [00:10:00] as we have seen in recent elections. The line is like six hours long and I have to go take care of my kids.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:07] This is the slightly mushier thing about accessing the polls. And a lot of voting rights advocates would say that stuff like this is pretty hard to defend. Pull closure or understaffed polls. They happen. They happen a lot. And yes, it means that some people end up basically prohibited from voting. States cite all sorts of reasons for closing polls, by the way, from tight budgets to needing to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act to a polling place, having had in recent years a low turnout. I brought the closings question to Andrea Hailey. She's the CEO of Vote.org. I also asked her if she thought voting was a partisan subject, by the way. And she also said no. And neither, in her estimation, is reasonable access [00:11:00] to the polls.
Andrea Hailey: [00:11:01] People should ask that of their county and state officials and say, what are the plans?
[00:11:07] Because, look, I had a vote that Oregon, when I went to vote on primary day in Indiana, I did not know that they were closing hundreds of polling locations. I didn't know that my heart was going to be standing in line for hours at a time. It would I think states are going to have to add you're going to have massive closures like that.
[00:11:26] You have to make that really well known to the public. But the public should demand that polling locations stay up. And we know that that polling locations tend to be closed or more difficult to reach, especially for lower income. Folks in this country, I do not think all these closures are a mistake.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:45] The suggestion there is that there is something political going on, isn't it? If these closures are mistaken, that means people are being actively, purposefully denied the vote.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:56] There are a lot of people who would say that is not [00:12:00] the case, that these measures are in place to protect the vote, to keep the vote secure, keep the process unsullied. And you can't discount the fact that even with the protective measures put in place by our Constitution and various laws, those laws don't always translate into action because they're being translated by fallible, corruptible, self-interested human beings. You know that James Madison quote from the Federalist Papers about man in government.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:29] Boy, how do you do, if men were angels no government would be necessary.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:33] Yeah, well, he rounds that off by saying if angels were to govern, men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. Which to me is a pretty way of saying, look behind the glossy operation. There are a bunch of fallible people and those people need to be checked and checked again because they aren't angels. They're capable of corruption. And in fact, power has [00:13:00] a tricky tendency to lead to corruption.
Nick Capodice: [00:13:02] What it sounds like you're suggesting, Hannah, is that we we the people are Madison's external control in this case. We are the ones who look at it from the outside and we notice when things aren't exactly going the way of the angels.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:15] Yeah, that's my take.
Nick Capodice: [00:13:17] So here's my thing. That's really nice in theory. And the idea that voting is how we implement that external control is great. But given all the difficulties, which again, I am now prepped for and given the things we discussed in part one, the Electoral College is a top of mind for me right now. For example, I need to know whether our vote actually works as that external control.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:38] I am going to firmly say yes, yes. And I am sure about that. Remember what we were saying about state and local government in the first part of this episode, that those are the people who we need to concentrate on. That is where the rubber meets the road.
Andrea Hailey: [00:13:57] I mean, state and local elections are the ones that affect your life [00:14:00] more than almost more than any other election. And right now, in this protest moment is a really good example of why local government matters. If you want a mayor that will hold a police chief accountable. You've got to participate in that mayoral election and make sure that that mayor shares your values. If you want a D.A. that is going to, you know, file charges and you elect your D.A., you've got to, you know, figure out who that is and what kind of value system they hold in some southern states. You have the Supreme Court is elected in a few of these southern states. That's really important. These are the judges who are going to set the precedent on how your state laws govern.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:48] We have to remember that state laws govern voting. You know, we might not concentrate too much on state and local, but that that is really where the power starts. And your vote can [00:15:00] actually govern state laws in a way that's external control.
Nick Capodice: [00:15:05] Even in a presidential election?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:15:06] Yes, there are almost certainly going to be what's called down ballot offices on the presidential election ticket, the so-called lower stakes, less important ones, the ones that people don't necessarily pay attention to. But those are the ones you've got to pay attention to. That's where the change starts. And one last thing that I want to bring up on the subject of does my vote matter? Does it make a difference? The why vote of at all, especially for the people to whom it really matters if they can sway the presidential election? Here's Kim Wehle again.
Kim Wehle: [00:15:45] The votes do matter. I mean, 537 votes in Florida put George Bush in office for eight years, and I don't think anyone can claim that. That didn't change the course of not just American history, but global history of totally reshape the Middle East and [00:16:00] all. Most of us could name five hundred and thirty seven people that we either know personally I've met in our lives or just know of. It's not a lot. So that's number one. Number two, is it less around 50 percent of eligible voters vote? You imagine if that were 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent. I mean, everyone said if we grab one person, get them voting, politicians are going to have a harder time ignoring individual Americans in favor of dark money and corporate and corporate money in politics. So it's going to make your vote matter more if there's a tsunami of civic participation. The third piece has to really do with honoring the privilege of our ancestors and the privilege of actually having free and fair elections. I mean, Americans don't understand. It's not every country where even in a democracy that seems like a democracy, where you really do have a government that is accountable to the people. That is not all in bed with power brokers and money gangsters. I mean, that [00:17:00] is it's a real privilege. I mean, you could be maybe you're a religious person that you believe in a higher power. I feel like I'm blessed. And it's a gift to have been born and have my children born in this country. And it's honoring that gift. It's honoring that privilege that not everyone in the planet has.
Nick Capodice: [00:17:20] I have to tell you, and and when I talk about voting, when I think about voting, I come to it lately, especially with a healthy dose of skepticism, sometimes cynicism. And Kim and You, frankly, are helping remind me that, yeah, we are a representative democracy and not everybody has that in this world. And it is a gift that's something that we have to do.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:42] Yeah. I think part of the idea is the only way to preserve it is to participate in it. Right. To go out and vote while you can. Thank [00:18:00] you for listening to civics one on one. This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy. And me, Nick Capodice. With help from Felix Poon and Jacqui Fulton. Erica Janik is building a voting booth in her backyard. But it's just so her dogs can experience the joy of enfranchisement.
Nick Capodice: [00:18:29] Maureen McMurray, she's pretty far down ballot. But she's got the most control over the number of pizza delivery flyers that show up in your mailbox.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:36] Music in this episode by Silicon Transmitter, The Tides, Spectacular Sound Productions, Shaolin Dub and Xylo Xico.
Nick Capodice: [00:18:43] In the past, I would be irritated when shows would ask this question. But now that I work on a show, I find it's necessary. So, dear listener, if you like civics one to one so much that you listen to the credits like you doing now. Please consider leaving us a review on Apple podcast or whatever [00:19:00] you listen to this on. It's tremendously helpful.
[00:19:03] We read them even if they make us cry. And we firmly believe that all feedback makes us better because it does.
[00:19:09] We take it to heart.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:10] Civics 101 is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.
