The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Carol Anderson - "One Person, No Vote" & The Impact of Voter Suppression

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

"One Person, No Vote" author Carol Anderson dispels the myth of voter fraud and describes how voter suppression strategically targets people of color. Originally aired October 1, 2018. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. My guest tonight is the chair of African American Studies at Emory University and a New York Times best-selling author whose latest book is called One Person No Vote. How Voter Suppression is destroying our democracy. Please welcome, Carol Anderson. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's so wonderful having you here. You wrote a book called White Rage, which was a New York Times bestseller, where you spoke in the show. Thank you so much.

Thank you. It's so wonderful having you here. You wrote a book called White Rage, which was a New York Times, the threat. bestseller, where you spoke in depth about how America is dealing with an issue that it really hasn't dealt with completely, which is the rage that many white people feel at what appears to be America changing. This book is, I guess, based in some way off of that, and yet is a completely different topic. One person, no votes.

Voter suppression destroying our democracy. How bad and how big do you believe voter suppression actually is? I think it is massive. We have had millions of people blocked from voting. We have had millions purged from the roles who had been on the voter roles. The purging and the voter suppression has been so intense that we have Donald Trump in the White House right now. That's the power of voter suppression. The numbers in the 2016 election, especially in and around the black vote, were really interesting. You saw in key states, in swing states where voters turnout dropped from,

it may have been like 78,000 people turning out and dropped to below 50,000 or you know, you saw, you saw drastic drops. Now, some people have argued that that was because Hillary Clinton didn't motivate black voters to come out. But you've looked at the data. You've analyzed a lot of the information. And it seems like there's been a systematic effort to remove people of color from the voting rolls.

But why people of color though? And I believe why people of color, besides being just snide and saying, duh, it's been that way for a long time, it's because that after the 2008 election, with Barack Obama, Barack Obama brought 15 million new voters to the polls with that incredible ground game. They were overwhelmingly black, Latino, young, poor. And, and poor. And poor. And poor. And poor. And poor. And, and poor. And, and poor. And, and poor. And, and poor. And, and poor. And, and th. And, and th. And, and th. And, and their. And, and their, and a. And, and it, and it, and it, and it, and it, and it, and it, and, and it's, and it, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and. And, and. And, and. And, and. And, and. And, and. And, and. And, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, the the the the they, they, they, they, they, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, the the the the the new voters to the polls with that incredible ground game. They were overwhelmingly black, Latino, young, poor, and with that, then the Republican

Party that has moved further and further to the right and has become more and more white. And their policies have become more right wing, they don't have policies that resonate with the growing diversity of America. And so instead of thinking about how do we reform this party so that it resonates with America, that our policies are really strong and talk about benefiting more Americans, instead what they decided to do was to suppress the vote. There are some really scary parts of the book where I read about things I never knew before. I knew about the larger picture of voter suppression in certain states in certain places. But you read about how so many people have been stripped of their rights.

Now the argument the other way from people like Chris Kobak, you know, from Donald Trump and his team has been, we are protecting democracy. That's why we scrub people of voter rolls. If they've died, if they no longer respond to mail, then why are we keeping them on the voter rolls? How do you respond to that? And I respond to that because one of the ways that this works and why it's so effective

is that they're scrubbing, they're not scrubbing people who have moved or who have died overwhelmingly. Overwhelmingly, who they're scrubbing are people who are African Americans, people who are young, people who are poor, and they're doing it by the characteristics. So they can't say, oh, we don't want black people to vote, because there's still this thing called the 15th Amendment. Although the Voting Rights Act got gutted by the Supreme Court, there's still this thing called the 15th Amendment. So what they do is they go after the characteristics of a people, so societally imposed characteristics.

They go after those people move a lot, particularly if you're poor, you don't stay in the same house forever. That moving then becomes a reason to knock people off the rolls. They say, and one of the things that we also know characteristics is that young people, minorities, they don't, and students, they don't vote regularly. So they start knocking people off the rolls for not voting regularly. And so they use those characteristics

and those are the characteristics of people who don't overwhelmingly vote for Republicans. Right. Yeah. When you look at the numbers and you look at how impactful this could actually be. The argument is always met with yes, but look at how much voter fraud there is. Now we talk

briefly about this but overwhelmingly most Americans believe that voter fraud is a very definite threat. Absolutely and that has been a well-cultivated myth. It has born it was born up out of the 2000 election, that horrible election with hanging chads. Right. And that myth of massive rampant voter fraud coming out of the cities, stealing our elections. Except when they really went hunting for it,

they couldn't find it. Justin Leavitt, a law professor out of California, he looked. And he went from 2000 to 2014. Out of one billion votes, he was able to identify 31 cases. 31 out of 1 billion votes of voter impersonation fraud. When Chris Kobach, the Secretary of State that you mentioned, who helped head up Trump's election integrity commission, in their report, which was all about when Trump said five million voters have come in and I would have won the popular vote.

That's a great Trump, by the way. Thank you, thank you. It's not as good as yours. You know, when he said voter fraud, his commission's looking, blank pages. You know, when he said, you know, he's got five million. then the page hunting and they couldn't find it. I mean, the pages are blank when it says voter fraud. His commission's looking, blank pages. It's not there. When Greg Abbott out of Texas is arguing for voter ID and Judge Ramos is saying,

OK, you've got rampant. Where? And he's like, it's rampant. their, where? How many? And I'm like, is that rampant? The argument I've seen a lot of people parrot with a lot of confidence is it's not suppression. What we're doing is making sure that the integrity of our election is maintained. And so they say, we're not purging people or we're not restricting them from voting.

We're just saying that everyone needs a voter ID. Now I understand it but if you were explained to someone who is genuinely well-intentioned someone who says I don't understand why is it so hard or why is it so difficult for the government to say, why is it so bad for the government to say everyone should have a voter ID that is issued by the government or at the DMV? Why is that so much to ask? Okay, so let me just give you a couple of examples about how that really works. Because part of, again, the way that it sounds so reasonable,

because you need an ID, you know, what Trump said, you need an ID to go buy groceries. Right. But as we all know, it doesn't quite work that way. So for instance, in Alabama, Alabama said you've got to have a government issued photo ID. And then said, but your public housing ID does not count. Now, Alabama's a poor state. They've got lots of public housing. 71% of those in public housing in public housing in Alabama are African-American. For many, that's the only ID they have.

So you automatically wiped away that type of government-issued photo ID, because public housing is government-issued. Right. Okay. Then Alabama shut down the Department of Motor Vehicles in the Black Belt counties. And so now people were going to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have the the Department of Motor Vehicles in the Black Belt counties. And so now people are going to have to go 50 miles to get a driver's license. But if you don't drive, how are you going to go 50 miles? And you don't have public transportation.

So what you do is you create an obstacle. And then you create an obstacle to the obstacle. And you make it so difficult for people who are already working their hardest to make it. To now be able to just access their basic right to vote. We see this in state after state. North Carolina, the Fourth Circuit said, you have targeted African Americans with nearly surgical precision. So these states, they make it sound innocuous. Oh, you need an ID, but it's not any ID.

In Indiana, you need to have a driver's license to get a birth certificate. But to get a birth certificate, you need a driver's license. That's brilliance. It's brilliant. It's genuinely brilliant. Let's look to the future. Yes.

We have elections coming up. You have midterms happening in America. You also have the presidential election which will be on its way shortly after that. Is there anything people on the ground can do? What can people do to protect their votes? Yes, absolutely. So there are several things. One is you have to register to vote and there are organizations that are on the ground helping people like get the identification, get the documents they need in order to get the identification. Organizations like vote

writers that are doing that work. Also, when you're registered, check your, the Secretaries of States voter registration page to make sure you're registered to vote, because they are notorious for purging people off the list, even well, close to an election. So you think that you're registered to vote, you go in to vote and boom your name's nowhere there and then you're getting the run around. So that checking regularly, I check every week and then I print off a copy so that I've got documentation that I am actually registered to vote and that this is my polling place. I say, I think the other thing is really important is to to to to to to to to to to to to help to help to help to help to help to help to help to help the to help to help to help the to help to help the to help the to help the to help to help to help to help to help to to the their the their their to their. I' their. I' their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm their. I'm the. I'm the. I'm the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. I'm.e.e.e.e.e.e.e. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. the vote and that this is my polling place. I think the other thing is really important is to help others so that you're volunteering,

you know, you've got election poll workers and you're paying attention to what's happening at the polls when somebody's getting the runaround. I think that that is really important as well. And there are organizations like the lawyers committee that's doing that incredible work. So that's what we can do. And register. And th is th is th is th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. And th. thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi the the thi the the the tho their their their their their their their their thi their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their thi. thi. thi. the. the. theatea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. thea. the committee that's doing that incredible work so that's what we can do and register we the deadline is coming up in early October register to vote because we cannot be part of the solution if we're just sitting there on and not participating. We've got to blame. Thank you so much for doing the show. Thank you. One person, no vote is available now.

Scary and fascinating. Carolinas and everybody. The Daily Show with CoverNoa, Ears Edition. Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central and the comedy central app. Watch full episodes and videos at the Daily Show.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.