The NPR Politics Podcast - Pandemic, Polarization, Prosecution: New Ballot Box Politics

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Veterans' groups, students and attorneys are mobilizing to work at polling sites as health and political concerns have strained staffing in localities across the country. And a voter fraud crackdown in Florida has exposed the complicated state of voting rights in the state.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, voting correspondent Hansi Lo Wang, and politics reporter Ashley Lopez.Learn more about upcoming live shows of The NPR Politics Podcast at nprpresents.org.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Laura in Berkeley, California, and today is my first day of grad school at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. This podcast was recorded at 1.07 p.m. on Thursday, the 8th of September. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll still be relishing the fact that I get to be here and learn the craft of audio journalism. All right, here's the show. Oh my gosh, go Bears. That's where I went to school. Whoa. And that's so fun. I love the J school.

Another audio reporter. That's so great. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Hansi Luong. I cover voting. And today on the pod, we are talking about voting, a most fundamental element of American democracy. And we're doing it from two different angles, challenges staffing polling places and a crackdown in Florida on alleged voter fraud that is raising a lot of questions. So Hansi, I want to start with you. You have some new reporting that

could be summed up with the phrase, help wanted. And it seems like there's a couple of big drivers behind this, COVID, and then also the toxicity of politics at the moment that are just making it really hard to find poll workers. So give us a sense of the situation right now, trying to staff polling places as this fall election approaches? Well, in many parts of the country, this is a big challenge. You know, polling places need workers to help sign in voters, hand out ballots, process votes. And it's really easy to take these very basic tasks for granted. But what helps make U.S. democracy function are these poll workers.

Some are paid, others are volunteers, and many local election officials are sounding the alarm this year that they may be understaffed in some places because, like you said, we're still dealing with COVID and this unprecedented level of scrutiny and harassment of election workers that's driven by election deniers right now. Right. I mean, if you look back at the January 6 hearings over the summer, there was testimony from people talking about being singled out by election deniers and just like the fear and life changing effect of being targeted. And these are just like regular people who were working in polling places or working in county election headquarters. Yeah, this is just a major, major shift in the working conditions that these poll workers, some of them did not really sign up for this.

They did not sign up for this. And it's a major concern that I talked to the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Tahisha Way, who's New Jersey Secretary of State. And she said this increased level of threat is causing some people who may want to be poll workers this year to maybe rethink that. And that's just adding another layer of complication for local election officials who are dealing with a lot right now. And that's not to mention the fact that some states have passed laws that actually create penalties against people who work in election, like election workers, like people who are at polling stations. For example, in Texas, they passed a law that says that if any election worker, anyone who's at a polling location, obstructs a poll watcher from doing anything,

and I mean, it's a very broad language, they actually could face fines. And that's like something that is really tough to like tell someone who's working, you know, they're, you know, largely voluntarily for like a little bit of cash to like be potentially caught on the crosshairs of something like that. Wow. So let's talk about whether there are solutions. Hansi, you've reported on some creativity in trying to staff these. You know, these are temporary, low-paid jobs in many cases, almost like volunteering. Essentially, yeah. And, you know, what we're seeing right now is you have the American Bar Association with this, what they're calling the Poll Worker Esquire Initiative, trying to promote poll working among lawyers and law students. And there's this project called Vet the Vote that's trying to encourage U.S. military veterans to serve at the polls.

I talked to one of the people behind it. His name's Anil Nathan, a former Air Force captain and co-founder of the nonprofit group We the Veterans. And Nathan told me that they're basically trying to set a new norm among military families. Just a natural thing that as you leave the service or as you are engaging more deeply in your local communities when you move from place to place, that this is just a thing that you do, right? And that's part of us building that mindset, and that's going to take time. You know, I think that if you were to imagine a poll worker, and I'm thinking about poll workers who I've met in recent years, they're typically senior citizens or, you know, people who are retired or, you know, have the availability

to work on a Tuesday. But your reporting indicates that there's some different demographics coming into play. Yeah, we're seeing younger poll workers. And this is something that was happening in 2020, in large part in response to the pandemic. A lot of younger folks stepped up and filled those roles. And also I'm seeing right now this year, there are efforts to try to encourage young people to come out again. And I recently stopped by a back to school fair in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Maryland's Montgomery County Board of Elections had a recruiting table out at a mall parking garage. And they were trying to get people to sign up for this program called Future Vote, which allows students as young as sixth graders to volunteer as aides to poll workers. So the night before on Election day, which in Montgomery County,

public schools are not in session, so students are available. These election aids hand out I voted stickers, they post signs, they set up tables. And for folks who are 16 and up, which includes high schoolers, they can actually be official poll workers. They have more responsibilities, they can handle voting equipment, and it's an opportunity for them to maybe earn some money and for a lot of folks to get community service hours to meet a graduation requirement in Maryland. And they also get that hands-on experience of seeing democracy in action. And I talked to a lot of families who stopped by that table, including a mother, Adobe Onewende, and her 16-year-old son, who signed up together, and they were super excited. The beauty about the system here is

the fact that you really can get involved at any level. People are going out with their kids. People are, you know, I love the way the system here allows everybody to be involved. It's striking sort of the contrast between that excitement about the potential of getting involved in a little corner of democracy and the fear that some election workers have experienced after sort of just accidentally winding up in the crosshairs. And I think it also speaks to just it is a bit of a patchwork moment, if you will. We have a decentralized voting system. And so the experiences people will have at the polls is really what's happening in their local communities. more and more election workers and election officials are experiencing just this really unprecedented level of scrutiny. And it's going to potentially have an effect on how certain elections are run. I mean, I think people underestimate how much of just the function

of our elections relies on people doing things from like mostly the goodness of their heart and just like a little bit of cash. Like there are so many things that are kind of invisible to us that you would think would be a little bit more like, I don't know, like administrative level. But a lot of it is just like everyday people who make sure that we have the basic functions of a polling station work. And so like when that is something that is harder to staff, I mean, that it just, it has like a broader ramifications for like how our democracy functions. Right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, what's happening with Florida's new elections crime unit? And we're back. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has launched an election crimes unit to enforce voting laws in the state. And he did so with a lot of fanfare.

Ashley, I want to just start with the basics here, though. There really has been no widespread election fraud in the United States, certainly not enough to change election outcomes. But this is a key part of Republican messaging and has been going on years now. Yeah, that's right. And even these Republican lawmakers in Florida who have been passing laws aimed at curbing alleged voter fraud admit that there has been no widespread problem in the state's elections either. I mean, obviously, they won't say that like elections that got them in office are totally fraudulent. So I mean, I guess that's not so surprising, Right. But the claims I've heard so far are that they don't want to see any I think we have to explain, though, that voting rules in Florida have changed a lot recently, including a ballot measure that said

that people who had been convicted of crimes could have their voting rights restored, but there were limits on it. And these are the people that fell into the limits. Is that am I explaining it right? Yeah, yeah, you got it. I mean, it's a little complicated, but what we know is that state officials announced they were charging 20 people with voting illegally in 2020. And all these individuals had been convicted of either murder or a felony sex offense, which means that under Florida law, they are exempt from ever getting their voting rights back. And what you were talking about is back in 2018, Florida voters approved this ballot measure that required the state to automatically restore voting rights to

people who did their time in prison, but they exempted some of these more serious crimes from all that. However, before that ballot measure went into effect, this is why it gets confusing. The state's Republican-led legislature passed this law requiring that these returning citizens fulfill every part of their sentence. That means things like paying any fees or fines in order to get those voting rights back. But the state never created a way for these folks to figure out how much they owe or if they owe anything at all, which is how a lot of these folks ended up in this situation. There was just like really no place to check to see if they were even eligible to get their voting rights back. So, Ashley, what happens to those 20 people?

Well, now they're looking at getting a third degree felony offense so they could get up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. And we're talking about folks who, you know, got out of prison. You know, it could be either a decade or more. People, a lot of these folks in court documents have said they have been actively trying to avoid getting caught up in the criminal justice system again. So this could have a potentially very big impact on these people's lives for them doing something that, you know, they thought they were eligible to do. So how did they think they were eligible? You know, like, how did they end up voting? Yeah, you know, that's the big question, right?

So a lot of these individuals and I'm talking about mostly what's in court documents because the state actually released like some of these interviews that they had with these folks. And according to these documents, all these folks thought that they were eligible because election officials sent them a voter registration card. You know, they assumed officials were checking to see if they were eligible. And some folks even told police that they registered to vote as a way of checking to see if they had their voting rights restored. And what local officials are saying is that they usually rely on the state to check if someone is eligible to vote when they submit someone's voter registration. But as we know, there's not really a system in place place like any sort of data management system for anyone to check the voter. Local election officials are seemingly the state to fully vet whether someone can get their voting rights restored.

I mean, it's super convoluted and confusing, which is why a lot of advocates say that it shouldn't be on these individual voters to figure this out and suss out whether they can vote. How are state officials in Florida dealing with this situation right now, then? Well, I mean, state officials, for the most part, and I'm talking mostly here about Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, are blaming local election officials for registering people who were ineligible under state law. Ron DeSantis has also pointed the finger at these voters who he says should have known that they would never be able to vote again due to the severity of their crimes. And of course, in response to that, local election officials have been telling the press that they rely on the state to check for them, as I mentioned. And these individuals being charged have maintained that they really didn't know that

they couldn't vote and in fact had every reason to believe that they could. So the state right now is pointing the finger at everyone except themselves for not creating a data management system. Voting has become such an important issue as we head into this election season that I know for a fact we are going to be back with both of you talking about these issues and others. Thank you so much for being on the pod today. Yeah, thank you. You're very welcome. And before we go, there's news out of the UK. Queen Elizabeth II has died. She was 96 years old. She served for 70 years. Our colleagues at NPR are covering this story on the radio and on the web at npr.org.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Hansi LeWong. I cover voting. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.