Factually! with Adam Conover - The Fight for the Right to Vote with Daryl Atkinson

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

Daryl Atkinson joins Adam to break down a recent partial-victory in voter rights in North Carolina, the historic disenfranchisement of black voters, why it is unconstitutional to connect someone’s right to vote with their ability to pay off fines, the set precedents for allowing felons the right to vote, and the work Atkinson’s group Forward Justice is currently doing in voter rights advocacy. To learn more about Forward Justice and support the work they do, visit forwardjustice.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know, I got to confess, I have always been a sucker for Japanese treats. I love going down a little Tokyo, heading to a convenience store, and grabbing all those brightly colored, fun-packaged boxes off of the shelf. But you know what? I don't get the chance to go down there as often as I would like to. And that is why I am so thrilled that Bokksu, a Japanese snack subscription box, chose to sponsor this episode. What's gotten me so excited about Bokksu is that these aren't just your run-of-the-mill grocery store finds. Each box comes packed with 20 unique snacks that you can only find in Japan itself.

Plus, they throw in a handy guide filled with info about each snack and about Japanese culture. And let me tell you something, you are going to need that guide because this box comes with a lot of snacks. I just got this one today, direct from Bokksu, and look at all of these things. We got some sort of seaweed snack here. We've got a buttercream cookie. We've got a dolce. I don't, I'm going to have to read the guide to figure out what this one is. It looks like some sort of sponge cake. Oh my gosh. This one is, I think it's some kind of maybe fried banana chip. Let's try it out and see. Is that what it is? Nope, it's not banana. Maybe it's a cassava potato chip. I should have read the guide. Ah, here they are. Iburigako smoky chips. Potato

chips made with rice flour, providing a lighter texture and satisfying crunch. Oh my gosh, this is so much fun. You got to get one of these for themselves and get this for the month of March. Bokksu has a limited edition cherry blossom box and 12 month subscribers get a free kimono style robe and get this while you're wearing your new duds, learning fascinating things about your tasty snacks. You can also rest assured that you have helped to support small family run businesses in Japan because Bokksu works with 200 plus small makers to get their snacks delivered straight to your door.

So if all of that sounds good, if you want a big box of delicious snacks like this for yourself, use the code factually for $15 off your first order at Bokksu.com. That's code factually for $15 off your first order on Bokksu.com. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's alright. Yeah, that's okay. I don't know anything. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Factually. And, you know, it's election season. Let's talk about voting. You know, we think of voting as a fundamental right in America. Voting is part of what constitutes our Americanness, right? I mean, what else is citizenship besides being able to have a voice in the affairs of your state and country? It seems like a basic right that we have as American citizens, right? Well, guess what? It actually isn't because the right to vote, I'm going to blow your mind, is not actually in the Constitution. I dare you, I dare you, grab your pocket Constitution,

the one that you keep in your back pocket all day and night so that you can refer to it whenever you need to. Pull it out, look at it, you will not see a right to vote on it. You have the right to free speech. You have the right to free exercise of religion. You have the right to not have soldiers quartered in your house. But you are not guaranteed in the Constitution a right to vote. Why is that? Well, it's because the founding fathers, the people who wrote the Constitution and its amendments, actually didn't want every American to have the right to vote. They actually worried this is in their writing. You can look it up if you want. They worried that mass participation in elections would erode other rights in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They left it up to the states who largely limited the right to vote to white men who owned land in accordance with the principles of the folks who founded this country.

And that meant no voting for women, enslaved people or pretty much anyone else. And that was on purpose. They didn't just leave them out on accident. And that means that Americans throughout history, instead of having the right guaranteed to us, have had to fight to get the vote. We had the suffrage movement and the civil rights movement, movements that we have talked about on this show. And today, our perspective is often that, hey, we did it, right? Ah, those founding fathers, they may have limited the right at the beginning, but we expanded it, and now everyone in America can vote a job done, right? Wrong. Because today, a lot of Americans still do not have the right to vote. U.S. citizens of territories like Puerto Rico and Guam don't get to vote for president unless they move to the mainland. And this is absurd, since again,

these are United States citizens who pay taxes. And there are a lot of them. There are almost five times as many Puerto Ricans as there are Wyoming-ites. Wyomingans? Is that, well, if you're from Wyoming, write in and tell me what you like to be called, okay? There's not very many of you, so I'm sorry that I don't know. The people of Washington, D.C., now, they do get three electoral votes for president,

but they can't vote for anyone to represent them in the Senate. And they do have one congressperson in the House, but that person can't vote. So again, imagine being taxed but not getting a vote. That's called, what is that called? Taxation without representation. Isn't that one of the things that our founding fathers were literally rebelling against? Wow. It's still alive today in America. Unbelievable. And that is not all. A new report says that there are 5.2 million American citizens who can't vote today because they were convicted of a felony, served their time and were released. Now, that might sound like an edge case, but that's actually 2.27% of the entire voting age population. More than one in 50 people is disenfranchised for this reason. And let's be clear. These are people who have served their sentences. They were convicted

of a crime, served their time, and then we released them in order for them to reenter society and once again make a contribution. So those folks, they pay taxes, they're expected to work just like you and me, but they can't vote like you and me. And if it's, it might not be a surprise to you, but felony disenfranchisement is also, you may be shocked to learn, very, very racist. Black people face felony disenfranchisement at a rate nearly four times that of the non-black population. And the reason for that is even more stark, because felony disenfranchisement was created as an overt tool of white supremacy. Its explicit purpose was to deny black Americans the right to vote. Felony voting bans started in the 1860s and 70s, following black Americans getting the vote for the first time. And the larger a

state's black population was, the more stringent a ban it instituted. The situation only worsened under Jim Crow. In 1901, Alabama amended its constitution to allow disenfranchisement for, quote, moral turpitude, which could apply to just about anything. It's a pretty general term, turpitude, illegal or otherwise. So this was, let's be very clear about it. This was a scheme under which states made it illegal for felons to vote. Then they would round up black Americans for any number of trumped up reasons explicitly in order to make them ineligible. This is on record. This is why they did it. And those laws are still with us today.

There are literally millions of Americans today who are disenfranchised because of racist laws that were designed to suppress the black vote. The truth is that voting is not a right in America, vote. The truth is that voting is not a right in America, not yet. Instead, it's a struggle. There has been a constant push and pull throughout our history between those who have fought to restrict and limit the right to vote in order to help them win elections and those who want to enlarge it in order to make sure that every person in our democracy is able to participate in accordance with our highest values. And look, we have an incredible guest on today. We have one of those very people who is working every day to enlarge those rights. You might remember Daryl Atkinson from a few episodes of Adam Ruins

Everything appeared on Adam Ruins Voting and Adam Ruins Prisons. He also previously appeared a number of years back on the earlier incarnation of this podcast. And look, let me tell you, Daryl is an incredible person. He's a civil rights attorney who works in North Carolina, representing the unrepresented and fighting to extend voting rights to people who are disenfranchised. And he very recently won a huge case on felony disenfranchisement in that state. I'm so excited for him to tell you about it. And he happens to have lived experience with this topic. So he is the perfect person to tell us about it. Without further ado, please welcome Daryl Atkinson.

Daryl, thank you so much for being here. I know it's a busy time for you. Yeah, yeah. Busy, busy time, you know, last quarter sprint to the finish line before the election. So I last had you on our old podcast a couple of years ago. You're on a few episodes of Adam Ruins, everything talking about criminal justice reform. But you just won a big case around felony disenfranchisement in North Carolina. Would you tell me a little bit, give me a little bit of context about that disenfranchisement in your state and tell me about the case. released supervision, could not vote until they received an unconditional discharge, which means they completed all aspects and terms of their sentence, including the payment of legal financial obligations, fees, and fines. And so we sued under different constitutional theories under the North

Carolina Constitution. And we made five different claims. One, we said it violated the Constitution because it inhibited free elections. North Carolina has a constitutional provision that says elections have to be free to ascertain the will of the people. And they're not free if you're paying fines. They're certainly not free if you're paying fines, right? That's antithetical to free, right? It's kind of a poll tax, isn't it not? It is, but we did not go under the North Carolina poll tax provision because the case law defines

that in a particular way. We went under another constitutional provision that's similar, under another constitutional provision that's similar, the ban on property qualifications. North Carolina in the reconstruction era, 1868, implemented a constitutional provision that says we prohibit the requirement that you have to own a certain amount of property to be able to vote, right? Because they've never wanted poor people, people who were, Article 1, Section 19, because it was enacted with intentional race discrimination, with racial animus. Particularly, North Carolina did not have a disenfranchisement constitutional amendment until 1877. That's right on the heels of radical reconstruction. And it was specifically enacted to dilute the political power of Black folks and them

engaging in fusion politics with poor whites that really implemented some changes during radical reconstruction during that particular period. And so prior to 1877, there was no disenfranchisement amendment in the Constitution. It was not in the Constitution. And then it was enacted after that period to dilute the political power of Black folks. And so we made that claim. And then lastly, under the Equal Protection Clause, we made a wealth based discrimination claim, meaning that the statute's requirement that you pay off all of your fees and fines before you can get your voting rights restored creates an impermissible wealth based classification. Meaning Adam, if Adam had me and Adam have been convicted of the same crime, given the same probationary sentence, Adam has money in the bank, I don't, right? So you're able to pay to get your fees and fines removed, get your unconditional discharge. I can't pay. creates an impermissible wealth-based classification where people with means, where similarly situated people are being treated differently only on the basis of them having money. And so we made those claims. We went through hundreds, thousands of pages of briefing

and depositions, and we made our arguments on August 19th. And here are just some of the unrebutted facts, Adam, that we were able to put into the record. Please. And like I said, in 1867, disenfranchisement did not exist. But we had three different expert witnesses. We had a historian. We had two different political scientists, one an empiricist and one that has done significant research on voter participation rates for people who had been convicted of felonies. And here's just some of the evidence that we put into the record that in 1867, prior to the

Constitution having felony disenfranchisement, a way that you can disenfranchise people was convicting them of infamous crimes or punishing them in an infamous way. And one of the infamous ways of punishment was whipping. And what our historian found that they went on a whipping rampage of free blacks. that they went on a whipping rampage of free blacks. In fact, we submitted an article from Harper's Weekly where in the capital city, they were convicting and whipping free black men as quickly as they could because once they were whipped into infamy,

they could no longer vote. So this was used as a way to, you know, reconstruction. We had black men having the ability to vote for the first time ever and this is a loophole they use to disenfranchise them even that far back say okay if you're if you've been whipped you can't vote now let's whip all the black men exactly jesus christ and then once it was put into the constitution in 1877, the main protagonist, the main engine was this man by the name of Henderson. And he was a noted conservative Dixiecrat at that time, because you got to

remember the Republican Party was the party of progressivity, right? That at that particular time, when it came to civil rights, he was a noted conservative Dixie crack, John Henderson. And he was the one after the constitutional amendment was put in place. A statute was immediately followed after. And he was the senator who put forth that statute. And he's noted for being administering the hanging and the lynching of three black men literally right across the street from his home. We put that into the record. And the legislation that Henderson put forth in 1877, three main areas of that statutory scheme still remain with us today. The legislation that Henderson got passed in 1877 applied to all felonies, not just infamous crimes, right? So now it applied to all felonies. So they didn't have to whip them into infamy anymore. All we have to do now is institute Black codes and disproportionately

convict Black people of felonies. Now all felonies applied and they could not vote. Number two, they made it a crime punishable for up to two years in prison to vote if you were convicted of a felony, right? That still applies today. In 2016, 12 people were convicted known as the Alamance 12 were pursued for prosecution for voting while they were still on probation. And they did it mistakenly, Adam. And unfortunately, the statute does not require what we call in the legal realm mens rea, meaning that you have to have the requisite state of mind to intend to do something. It doesn't require that. It's a strict liability statute, meaning that if you do it, even if you do it mistakenly, you can be convicted for it. And 12 people were prosecuted in 2016, known as the Alamance 12. And that's a provision that still remains for us today.

And then lastly, in 1877, they put a time requirement before you could get your voting rights back if you were convicted of a felony roughly somewhere around four years. Today, the average term of probation is over 30 months for someone to be able to get their voting rights back. That's if they can afford to pay all of the fees and fines and things associated with that. And so that that that straight line we see significant racial disparities at every point on the criminal justice continuum, which puts Black folks and people of color in more of a position to be convicted of felonies. So, for example, our expert witness, Dr. Frank Baumgartner, had analyzed over 20 million different traffic stops and found that blacks in North Carolina are two times more likely than whites to be stopped for a traffic violation. They are three times more likely to be convicted of possession or arrested and convicted of possession of marijuana.

We found that black jurors, prosecutors struck black jurors at twice the rate as they did of white jurors. North Carolina imprisons Blacks four times the rate as whites. And in sum, this cumulative disadvantage, the cumulative impact of these racial disparities accruing at various stages of the criminal legal system leads to Black people being disproportionately impacted by felon disenfranchisement. So, for example, African-Americans represent 21 percent of the voting age population. They represent 42 percent of the people who are disenfranchised. Wow. North Carolina has 100 counties, Adam. 100 counties, Adam. For the counties that we were able to get significant census data, because some counties, if your population is under 1,000, the county may not report that census data in an accurate way. And we have some counties that small. But for every county,

we had relevant data. 84 of North Carolina's 100 counties, the disenfranchisement rate for Blacks is higher than whites. And in fact, in 25 percent of our counties, the disenfranchisement rate for Blacks is four times the rate it is for whites. In some of our most so-called progressive metro areas, Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is, for example, the disenfranchisement rate for Blacks is seven times the rate it is for whites. Buncombe County, where Asheville is, the Biltmore, where you go in the mountains, the disenfranchisement rate for Blacks is seven times the rate for whites. In Wake County, the capital city, where laws are made, the disenfranchisement rate for Blacks is six times the rate that it is for whites. in Orange County, where our flagship university is, the University of North Carolina.

I feel like I'm in the courtroom right now. I'm the judge and you're laying it all out for me, man. I'm laying it out for you. The disenfranchisement rate in Orange County, where our flagship university is, eight times the rate. University is eight times the rate. African-American men represent nine percent of the voting age population. They represent 36 percent of the people who are disenfranchisement, disenfranchised, largely frustrating the gains of the 15th Amendment and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I mean, we put all of this evidence into the record. Damn, you rest your case. I mean, OK, so you you brought let's be clear about this. You brought like historical evidence about how these laws are rooted in overtly racist history and they're still with us today. Like literally, we got

laws that were historical fact were designed to disenfranchise black people post-Reconstruction and they're still with us today. The you brought the broad base of like, here's the disenfranchisement and discrimination that's happening today. You brought that into the courtroom and you won the case. Well, we won on, I didn't even get to the wealth-based discrimination evidence, Adam, that we put into the record, because that was all the race-based discrimination evidence, Adam, that we put into the record, because that was all the race-based discrimination. And what the judge said, it is compelling, it is significant, but we want you all to go to trial on those two claims. So we have to go to trial in early February. We were trying to get the voting rights for the whole 56,000 prior to the November election. The judge is making us go to

trial on two of the claims. So we got voting rights for about 7,000 to 10,000. We got to go back and get the other 40,000 or 50,000 in the 1st of February. We got 7,000 to 10,000 prior to the November election. And that was based on the wealth based discrimination evidence that I put into the record. And it was significant because in North Carolina, people must pay for probation fees, court fees, you know, lab fees. If you ask for DNA, is this my DNA? It's a DNA fee. It's all types of fees and fines. And if you do not pay those fees and fines as part of your probation, you can prior to our lawsuit, you would not receive that unconditional discharge. And what we've shown is that the last over the last two decades and we might want to have a show about this, Adam. Over the last two decades, what we have seen is that and we put evidence, one of our amica, the Cato Institute, not some raging progressive, right? legislatures all across the country in the mid-1980s shifted from using general fund taxpayer dollars to fund the courts to putting it on the backs of defendants who have the least

ability to pay, right? We saw that trend in North Carolina. As a result, our legal financial obligations, our fees and fines in the last two decades have gone up 400 percent. They've gone up every single legislative session. Right. So you can just be Adam, you know, have let's say you do littering. You know, you throw a can, a soda can out of the window. You're pulled over. You're given that littering ticket just from that innocuous contact. You're given that littering ticket just from that innocuous contact. You can leave our court system owing anywhere from 250 to 300 dollars just by going through the administration of the courts. That's what you're charged for these various fees and fines and people's inability to pay can inhibit them from getting their voting rights back. getting their voting rights back. And what our expert witness, Frank Baumgardner, found is that the median cost for someone on probation who's been convicted of a felony, the median cost,

they owe $2,441. That's the average person, right? And what do you think their prospects are, Adam? We've done these shows before talking about the employability, the housing ability, shows before talking about the employability, the housing ability, the, you know, how you progress with your life after you've been convicted of a felony and the challenges that you have in doing that now overlay that now you owe 25 or $2,400 in debt. Imagine trying to get your life back together and what you're going to prioritize paying off, right? And trying to just meet your most basic needs. Well, so look, I have so many questions about this, but before we go further, I do want to say, I know this is a personal issue for you, felony disenfranchisement. We've talked about on the show why that is. Just for the folks who are listening to you for the first time,

can you fill them in? For me, this is what I do for a profession is a it's a calling for me. It's not something that, you know, kind of just cavalierly just opted into. Right. My life circumstances kind of propelled me in that direction. And in 1996, I was convicted of a first time violent drug crime and sentenced to 10 years in prison. I served a mandatory minimum of 40 months on that 10-year sentence. I was given a $50,000 fine because of my drug trafficking conviction. I went into prison with a high school diploma. I came out with a high school diploma. Fortunate enough for me, I had a loving family that could provide me food, clothing, and shelter. And as a result, I didn't have those immediate kind of Maslonian pressures of just trying to meet my most basic needs pressing down upon me.

And I could think. And I went back to school and got my associate's degree, bachelor's degree, law degree. I've been practicing law in North Carolina since 2008. I've never had a client who didn't have a criminal record. Those are the only people who I represent. I've built a practice area that is focused on the restoration of the civil and human rights of people who've been to prison and jail, worked in the Obama administration as the first formally incarcerated person hired by the U.S. Department of Justice. Despite all of those accolades and accomplishments, Adam, if I moved back to the

place of my birth, Alabama, where I have heir property, my grandmother recently passed and left me, I would not be able to vote because I still owe $32,000 related to that $50,000 fine. I pay monthly to pay that fine off. I've been paying for 193 months. And when I argued that case, I wasn't just arguing for my individual and organizational plaintiffs. I was arguing for myself. And I think that's consistent with, you know, some of the luminaries who I hope to follow in their footsteps. You know, I can't carry their briefcase. But when you think about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when you think about Thurgood Marshall but when you think about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when you think about Thurgood Marshall, when you think about John Lewis, people who were trailblazers for civil and human rights, whether it was race or gender,

these people were trailblazers because they were directly impacted by the things that they were trying to combat against. And here I am, someone directly impacted by those very things and so that's what animates me to do the work that i do hell yeah well thank you for that uh i want to i want to broaden out a little bit to like just how we think about people once they're released from prison right um in this because i you know there might be people listening who think well hold on a second paying a five paying a fine paying a fee uh you know doesn't that make some sort of sense in some way there's like uh there there are people who who have that idea and what always occurs to me though is that like after someone has served their time that's we're supposed to as a society

say well they're done they did it right and now they get a second chance that's we're supposed to as a society say, well, they're done. They did it right. And now they get a second chance. That's the fucking point, I believe. I don't think you're supposed to be, you know, paying that off until the day that you die. I think it's like you get a sentence and then the sentence is over. And now we want you ideally to rejoin society in every way that you can. And voting is one of those ways. And I don't know that that's how I look at it from the outside. I'm curious how you look at it, how you respond to, you know, that sort of like gut reaction that some people may have. Yeah, I think you're you're spot on that when you pay with your body, I paid with my body, right? As far as incarceration, I shouldn't have to continue to pay. When does it end? When does the punishment end? And tying the payment of money to your voting rights, the Supreme Court has said that that is patently unconstitutional. So for example, it was the Supreme Court case in Harper versus Virginia that talked about a poll tax. And Virginia had instituted a poll tax of $1.50, right, to apply to all of its people. And the Supreme Court said, you know, it doesn't

matter if someone has $1.50 in their pocket or if they don't. Attaching money to someone getting their voting rights is unconstitutional, right? And so that's the spirit that we are operating in. We aren't saying that if someone owes someone restitution to a victim, they need to be made whole. We aren't saying that they don't have to pay that restitution. We aren't even saying, or we weren't arguing in this lawsuit that the imposition of the fees and fines themselves are unconstitutional. That's's what I want our listeners to be clear on. We aren't saying that people shouldn't have to make victims whole. We aren't saying that people shouldn't have to pay court costs if that is indeed constitutional. That ain't what we're saying. What we're saying is when you attach the ability to pay money to the right to vote, that's what's unconstitutional.

When you attach, you know, overt racial animus to the right to vote, that's what's unconstitutional. When you attach, you know, overt racial animus to the right to vote, that's what's unconstitutional. And that's what I think I want your listeners to focus on. The other thing I would say to Adam is that our biggest quarrels in this country and, you know, our litigation was really attached to a larger unlock the vote campaign where we're trying to enlarge, expand the we and we the people. When we think about who that we is and we the people, right, our biggest quarrels in this country have been about who's part of that we, right? At one point, African-Americans weren't a part. At one point, women weren't a part. Even today, our current biggest debates around immigration and things of that nature is who's part of the we and we the people. And so, you know, you are very well read on these issues, you know, issues of until most recently with our with our person in the Oval Office, but issues of overt racial animus had come into disfavor

in this country. And, you know, in 2010, Michelle Alexander wrote a book talking about the new Jim Crow, where racial caste had almost been replaced with a new kind of caste system based on criminal record status, right? But because of the disproportionality of African-Americans and Latinos in the criminal justice system, you were largely capturing the same groups of folks, but it was a new mark of Cain, not just race, but the mark of a criminal record. And so what we wanted to do with our Unlock the Vote campaign is enlarge the we to include people with criminal records into the civic space, right? Through our litigation, by enlarging access to voting rights with who could vote. But also, what we've also been reaching out to people who may have been

convicted of a misdemeanor, may have already had their voting rights restored because there's a lot of misinformation out there in our communities about when and how and how you got to go about getting your voting rights back. impacted voters since the middle of the year in 2019 to try to agitate these folks to become more civically engaged in registering to vote. And so we want to expand the we because we believe our democracy is more vibrant. It produces better outcomes when more people participate. And the target group that we're trying to get to participate are low propensity voters, them and their family members who've had contact with the criminal legal system. Amen. Man, I have so many more questions for you about this, but we got to take a really quick break. We'll be right back with more Daryl Atkinson. I don't know anything. Look, I'm pitching.

We should think about the legal financial obligation stuff, this stuff around debt and money. We're seeing it more and more and you're using the funds, some essential state and governmental services that all of us that we deem important should be putting the kitty into. Man, we were taking a break. You just kept going. So let's just keep let's keep rolling with it. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

And I agree with that. I mean, that's a form of, you know, you also have civil asset forfeiture and, you know, the way people are basically put into debt peonage in this country, the way there are cities around the country that are trying to make their living just off of putting fines on poor people saying, OK, let's go around and give tickets to everybody who's got their car parked slightly wrong or has a leaky engine or, you know, has got their lawns too big or whatever, whatever the thing is, and then let's get them ensnared in the legal system and put fees and fines on them. And that's just the you know, that's just the tip of the iceberg when you get into,

you know, deeper into the criminal justice system. It's like we're trying to fund our cities and states off of the backs of the people who already have leased. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And it is not even effective, right? Because what we found in North Carolina, particularly in the driving context with failure to complies, meaning that you don't pay off your fee or your fine, fine is that after 18 months of a failure to comply, the compliance rate, the actual payment of those fees and fines is really, really low. You know what I mean? So if you haven't gotten the money by 18 months, you aren't going to get it basically. I guess that's the point that

I'm trying to make. And to still have a revenue model, thinking that you're going to get blood from a turnip is just inefficient. Many states will even use private collection agencies. Georgia, for example, use private collection agencies to collect their fees. They spend more money trying to get the money with the private collection agency than they actually take in. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just inefficient. It's ineffective. Well, that goes to tell you. And it's wrong. And it goes to tell you what their real goal is. Right. If they're actually not in some places even receiving a profit off of it, then that means that what they're really into it for is harassment of target populations. What they're really into it for is harassment of target populations.

But let's let's come back to voting rights for a second. And I would just, you know, North Carolina is a state that gets a lot of talk in terms of voting rights. Have been some big gerrymandering cases in North Carolina, too. This is going to come out right before the election. Election is just right over the horizon. What are what is the situation with voting and enfranchisement, voting rights in North Carolina? And what do you anticipate for the election? Are things moving in the right direction? No. Let me just let me just answer real direct and then expound. No, we are in addition to our trying to expand the what call it defense, offense, and dreaming, our offense is trying to expand the we. Our defense is trying to protect the rights that currently are already in place. getting a preliminary injunction, stopping the state from implementing voter ID, because we know that disproportionately impacts Blacks and poor people who are less and college students and other kind of transient populations who are less apt to have those IDs. protection and intimidation infrastructure, hotlines and infrastructure with volunteer

attorneys and law students to possibly be poll watchers and poll observers to hopefully be able to document any instances of voter intimidation. Adam, unfortunately, we had someone from the White House make overt pleas to white supremacists to stand back and stand by. Folks in my neck of the woods take that real, real seriously. When you look at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the rise of hate based groups since 2008 and President Obama's election, you see North Carolina as one of those hot spots. election, you see North Carolina as one of those hotspots. And so we know that, you know, certain folks are going to take those pleas very, very seriously. And we've already been getting reports of, you know, graffiti on state, racist graffiti on state board of election sites and things of that nature. And so we have the expectation that there will be overt hostile forces at the polls. And we're going to have to document that.

We've already put the State Board of Elections on alert with the voter intimidation letter and documenting some of the instances that we're hearing from NAACP branches all across the state. Because for our State Board of Elections to allow over symbols of racism, intimidation and racism to occur near polling places, that's in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Right. So we put them on notice that, hey, these things are happening. those things, to shine media on those things, and really try to provide safe sites for our people to be able to come and vote because we know our people need various mechanisms to vote. Some people are going to mail in ballots.

Some people are going to vote during our early voting period. And some people are going to come on election day. And we have to have mechanisms set up to protect those voters to make sure that they can participate in the election in a safe way. This really shines a light for me that, you know, growing up, I was taught that, hey, voting is it's a it's a solid fact of American life. One person, one vote. It's it's what we do. It's what we've done since our founding. It's real simple, you know, and straightforward. And what Taghi really illuminates for me is that, like, it's always been a battle. It's always been there have always been people trying to say less people should vote.

We want to scare people away from voting. We want to make it harder for them to vote. And then there's always been countervailing forces like yours who have to wage the battle to increase the right to vote. And that's something that it's so strange to me because I was raised with that being a bedrock American value voting. That's what we do. That's like freedom of the press. It's up there. Right. But I guess there's no there actually is no amendment saying that every person in America has a right to vote. We've got we've got amendments about free speech, but we don't have amendments about that guarantees the right to vote. And so as a result, it ends up being this this daily yearly battle that that we have to wage just to protect it and make sure we don't lose it.

Yeah, I can understand your feelings of of confusion because I often have them as well. I'm like, man, who wakes up and says, well, I can't wait to go disenfranchise some people today. You know what? Who's that person, right? You know what I mean? So, but you're exactly right. This country, our biggest quarrels have been about who can vote and who can't, because that is supposedly one of our sacrosanct kind of hallmarks of citizenship and being a part of the social fabric of this country. And we know that America has, you know, somewhat, you know, hypocritical kind of history with aspirational values in the way that we really operate as a country. You know, we've we've also said people had certain inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we came in chains. So that obviously didn't apply to me. Right. You know, that was never written with me in mind.

So America, you know, has always had this kind of, you know, kind of bipolar, if you will, relationship with its aspirational values and the way that it's really conducted itself in practice. Well, when you talk about, you said offense, defense and dreaming, right, is your third category. I'd love to know if you could write the laws, right, or if you could go whisper something in the next president's ear and get it done in terms of voting rights, what would it be? No felony disenfranchisement. Yeah, fair enough.

And that's not unprecedented, Adam. We have no felony disenfranchisement in two states in this country, Maine and Vermont. And you know what's consistent with those two states? Yep. And you know what's consistent with those two states? Yep. And you know what's consistent with those states? White people. They have very little Black people. You put it differently. Your way is more accurate. No, seriously, though. Think about it, right? Yeah. go to Germany and Norway with this organization, the Vera Institute of Justice. They assembled

some civil rights, human rights kind of folks, some state legislators, some corrections folks. And we went to Germany and Norway to look at their criminal legal systems to see what we could learn. You know, Germany has about 178 per 100,000 people incarcerated, and they are a highly, you know, sophisticated, westernized democracy. America, by contrast, has about 707 people per 100,000 incarcerated. We have about 5% of the world's population, about 22 percent of his male prisoners, 33 percent of his women prisoners. So we went over there to say, wow, what can we learn from these particular westernized democracies? And one of the things that was both consistent in Germany and Norway, they never stripped people of their most basic human rights,

of their most basic civil and human rights. You never lose your voting rights in Germany or Norway. Never lose it. They administer the elections right in prisons because they want you to. Absolutely. Same thing with Maine and Vermont. Patrick Leahy, former senator of Vermont, I met him while I was at my time in D.C., Patrick Lacey said he would have he would stomp in canvas in the Vermont prisons because they can vote. So this is not unprecedented. We know how to do it. We've done it for white people. We need to do it in these states, because when you look at the intent, particularly in the South, of why these felon disenfranchisement laws were ever first came into existence. It was because of racist intent. We know what to do. We can, we've done it in other states,

Maine and Vermont. We have European examples. That's one thing that we could do in felon disenfranchisement. I was going to say, I was about to say, man, I would love to see a world where people are able to vote in prison in the United States because, you know, I mean, first of all, what is the downside? It's not like people are going to vote to make crime legal or something like that. You know, it's like there's not really there's there's no like actual other than a scare tactic. I can't see a downside to doing it. And the investment in people and saying, no, you're you're a citizen and we want you to take part in the country. I think that's such an incredible vote of confidence in people. I think that it shows respect and it causes people to respect themselves more.

Let's give everybody that heart-swelling pride that you feel when you cast your ballot. I think everybody feels that way and every person in America can benefit from it. I was going to say that's a dream. I didn't know that there are places where we do that in america already that's amazing yeah it's already happening in maine and vermont for white people um well tell me a little bit about uh your organization is forward justice uh through which you uh litig this this case, which restored voting rights to what, seven to ten thousand people in North Carolina with more on the way, God willing.

Yeah. Tell me about your your other programs and like the other change that you're trying to make in North Carolina. Yeah, so we, you know, in addition to our democracy work, we obviously, you know, trying to transform the criminal legal system. And, you know, we're doing that at a couple of different points on the continuum. So we're working on the ending of criminal justice debt. And that's the fee and the fine issue. We're working with our chief Supreme Court and legislators to try to get a rule that says judges have to assess your ability to pay a fee or a fine before that fee or fine is levied.

Right. Doesn't sound super controversial. Right. Let's find out if someone can even pay this before we assess this fear of the firm, we're also doing work on the front end of the continuum. We're going to be launching a new website in probably in the next month or so. NC Cop Watch. North Carolina passed Racial Profiling Act in 1999. You know, I gave you some of the the demographic data that we put into our lawsuit around stops and disproportionate results around traffic stops and searches incident to a traffic stop. This new Web site will be interactive where people all around the state can go look up their local police department, how many people they're stopping. What are the racial demographics related to that? Who are they searching? Who are they beating up and tasing and using use of forces to? Because our racial profiling act collects all of that information. And so we're going to, just like we're in a time now, Adam, with our law enforcement function, they're watching us, but we're watching them too. And what we're going to be arming

communities with is the data and the information to be able to go to their city council, to be able to go to their police chief, to be able to go to their sheriff and say, look, we're African American. We only represent 10% of the population in this county. Why are you stopping 40% of us? What's that about? Particularly when the contraband hit rate, your likelihood of finding the guns or the dope is about the same across all racial demographic groups. So why are you searching us at this rate? Right. So we'll be able to arm communities with that information. So we're doing work there. We've helped through our C3 and our C4 Forward Justice Action Network, we've helped elect two progressive-minded, you know, it sounds oxymoronic, but two progressive-minded prosecutors. I think of it as harm reduction, right?

What we're trying to get done with these prosecutors. criminal justice reform around the country that we're realizing how incredibly powerful prosecutors are in terms of their ability to decide what sentence to charge people with. And reform really needs to come from the prosecutor's office. And they're elected in so many jurisdictions. And once again, they're elected, right? So you can build that people power, that civic power. So, yeah, we helped elect two in Durham and in Greenville. And so we're pushing them and have gotten tangible policy results. And, you know, we filed another lawsuit around COVID decarceration, where we were saying that our, we sued the governor and our Department of Public Safety, saying that they were violating our state constitutional provision against cruel or

unusual punishment with their lack of response to decarcerating around COVID-19. What's decarceration? I don't know what that is. Well, letting people go, because the only way to effectively socially distance inside a packed institution, right, is to keep people six feet apart. It's impossible when you got bunks that are less than two feet away and we're all coughing and breathing the same air and transmitting this or potentially transmitting this lethal disease. The only way you can do that is to start letting some folks go. If you don't do that, it's a violation of cruel or unusual punishment. We got a judge to agree with us. We're steadily putting the pressure on the Department

of Public Safety to let people go, to do surveillance testing, to give folks PPE, all to not retaliate and put people in the hole because they say they're sick and use that as a punitive way, because we've had over 15 deaths in our state. We've had major outbreaks at our women's facility as well as our men's facility. So we're advocating and trying to make some change in that regard as well. firing man. Like, because just to know that there are people like you out there who are working so hard on these issues every day and you're winning cases or you're winning injunctions at the very least you're, you're making progress on these issues. Uh, it's, uh, you know, it's not, not something that gets a lot of press or as much press as it should, but, uh, I'm really, I'm really thankful that you're out there. How can folks take part in the change that you're trying to make and the movement you're trying to create towards rectifying these issues? And keep in mind, we have folks all across the country here,

so I know that's very wide. Yeah, and we have opportunities for those folks all across the country. So you can go and find out, you can go to forwardjustice.org, www.forwardjustice.org to our website. And there are opportunities to volunteer. That volunteering can include phone banking. We have a phone banking party, a virtual phone banking party every Saturday where we're reaching out to low propensity, directly impacted voters to get them civically engaged. Folks can participate in that. Folks can sign up to be virtual volunteers in other ways where we're text blasting folks and having a number of different virtual events. Look, we don't turn down checks, Adam. Folks can write a check, you know, if that's their advocacy lane, because sometimes, you know, it takes money

to grease the wheels to keep this work going, right? So folks can write a check. Yeah, so folks can write a check. Someone's got to pay you for your time while you're doing this shit. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there are a number of different ways for folks to be engaged. And, you know, what I would say, you know, I know we're coming up close to the end of our time. I mean, if there was ever a time, Adam, where we need as many people participating in the civic fabric of this country, now is that time. We're in the midst of a global pandemic, the likes of which we have not seen since 1918 and the Spanish flu. Over 200,000 Americans have lost their lives. Millions of people are out of work. We're in the midst of social and racial unrest, the likes of which

we have not seen since 1968 at the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King with people urging for racial reckoning in this country. And then we're having these huge economic upheavals. The COVID pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of malignant capitalism with essential workers, some folks who got to go put themselves in harm's way every day to go make a living and then people who can work from home and the racial demographics related to that. Right. So we have all of these things converging at the same time. If there was ever a time that we need to hear from all voices in this country, now is the time. Hell yeah, Daryl. Well, thank you so much for

coming on and giving us that message right before the election. I agree with you wholeheartedly. And I can't, I really can't thank you enough for the work that you're doing and for coming on to tell us about it. Yeah, it's good catching up, man. Hopefully when we get on the other side of this, you know, maybe we can maybe we can jaunt around downtown Durham like we did. Like we did a few years back when I came down and visited you a couple of years back. That was, you know, and helped you out.

That event, that was an incredible time. And it was incredible seeing your work up close. And Durham's a beautiful city. And I'd love to do it again. And even if we're not able to travel, let's have you back in a year or so and just catch us up on your work.

All right. Sounds good, man. Thank you so much, Daryl. Well, thank you once again to Daryl for coming on the show. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. If you did, please check out his organization, Forward Justice, on the Internet and give us a rating or comment wherever you subscribed. It really does help us out quite a lot if you want to send me an email about what else you'd like to see on the show or just give me your thoughts send it to factually at adam conover.net um and that is it for us this week on factually i want to thank our producers dana wickens and sam

roudman ryan connor our engineer andrew wk for our theme song i want to thank falcon northwest for building the incredible pc that i make this podcast on and that i use to stream video games at twitch.tv slash adam conover i am now streaming there on a schedule every monday tuesday and thursday so check it out twitch.tv slash adam conover you can find me on social media at adam conover wherever you get your social media and until next time we'll see you next week on factually stay curious that was a hate gum podcast