Stacey Abrams

Fighting for a Fair America

DAN PFEIFFER: In [her new] THE RIGHT TO VOTE book, Stacey chronicles how the is a central tenet of democracy, right to vote and the principle of democracy as we know it has been and continues to be under attack, even now in 2020— maybe especially now in 2020. This a very interesting time in but that right has been abridged in increasingly brazen ways. Georgia politician and activist Stacey Abrams explains her efforts to protect and expand American history. . . . I want to voting rights. From the June 22, start by reading to you an official 2020, online Inforum program statement from the president “Stacey Abrams: Our Time Is of the United States: “Because Now.” of mail-in ballots, 2020 will STACEY ABRAMS, Founder, Fair be the most rigged election in Fight Action and Fair Fight 2020; our nation’s history—unless Author, Our Time Is Now: Power, this stupidity is ended. We Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair voted during World War One America and World War Two with no problem, but now they are using In Conversation with DAN COVID in order to cheat by PFEIFFER, Co Host, “Pod Save using mail-ins!” America”

This is part of a larger effort by the president to cast doubt on the elections. I wanted to ask you why he’s wrong about mail-in ballots, and why you’re such a big supporter of making them part of our plan. ABRAMS: Okay. Number one, every state in the country has some form of mail-in balloting. There are five states that do universal mail-in balloting— universal vote by mail. There are 34 states that have no excuses [required to vote by mail], including that five. There 16 states that do mail-in balloting, but they require an excuse—usually age, infirmity, permanent disability, or you’re not going to be at home. It varies; there are four that are hyper-restrictive. But every state in the country does this. What is different is that we have a disease that is communicable through contact, through [short] distance. So unlike World War I, World War II, we’re much more in the Spanish flu epidemic stage, and vote by mail is one of the few ways that you can preclude the likelihood of contracting a disease while participating in democracy. So we want vote by mail because vote by mail allows as many people as possible to not be in line, to send in their ballots, to participate in democracy, democracy

that ran during World War I, World War II, during the Civil War. We’ve never had to stop it, but this allows as many people as possible to not communicate a disease to another person because they have no choice.

We have to do that because there are portions of our population that have no choice. There are those who are in the disabled community for whom going to the polls is the only way they can cast their ballot with any degree of privacy. There are machines that allow them to actually cast a private ballot. We have people who have language barriers. It is illegal in a number of states for them to get help, so they have to go to a polling place to get the assistance they need. We have people who are homeless, where vote by mail—or, more important, vote from home—does not work. And because we are in the early throws of an eviction crisis, we know by November a lot of folks will simply not be able to get access to their absentee ballots, because they’re going to be displaced. They’re going to likely need to show up at a polling place to cast a ballot.

The final group are people who either try to vote from home and couldn’t do it or folks who just don’t trust it, which is a legitimate concern, given that African American and Latino voters are twice as likely to have their absentee ballots rejected. Young people are five times more likely to have their absentee ballots rejected. So are communities like places in Georgia, where when a whole community came together to elect Black people to the school board, the 12 organizers found themselves arrested when charged with 120 felonies for following the law with absentee ballots. There’s a little bit of suspicion. So we allow for that suspicion by letting them go in person.

The whole point is vote by mail clears out the lines so that those who need to be in line can be socially distanced and can vote without having to wait in line for 8 to 12 hours. That’s why it works.

The second thing I’ll say is this: Donald Trump is a fraud. When it comes to this issue in particular, he votes by mail. His family votes by mail. His staff votes by mail. He does not like vote by mail because he has discovered that is easy, it’s safe, and that it’s convenient. One of the only true things I’ve ever heard him admit in public, he said that if vote by mail was used in America to the extent possible, he would not win. I would love to prove him to be a truth teller for once in American history.

So that is why vote by mail is so important. PFEIFFER: Donald Trump votes by mail, his family votes by mail, we found out today Mike Pence votes by mail. And they think that’s totally fine, but it’s not okay for other people. Talk about . . . this two-tier democracy that Republicans want us to live in. ABRAMS: I would even say there are three tiers. There’s the protected folks for whom voting has never been a question. They’ve never had their identities challenged, they’ve never had their access challenged, they’ve never had their legitimacy challenged, and they’ve never had their votes challenged.

You have the second tier, where I operate. I’ve been able to vote most of my life without impediment, but in the last two attempts I’ve made to cast a ballot, it’s been problematic.

Then you have this third group for whom voting requires encountering so many obstacles that either you become exhausted by the process or worse, you become convinced it’s not worth it.

I went to vote in 2018 and was told that I’d already cast a ballot, that I voted absentee, which I hadn’t. I had never voted absentee before in my life. Luckily I had a phalanx of cameras behind me and knowledge within me. So I could explain the situation and work with the poll manager to get the situation resolved. But if I were a new voter, I would never have understood how to navigate that labyrinth of rules, and I would have been afraid to do so, because that’s how most disadvantaged or marginalized communities encounter [these challenges]. They either become hostile or they become afraid. So one of those challenges is making sure that people feel that they have the authority to correct the problems. Typically most people are in that third category and they don’t think they can. This year, I tried to vote by mail. My absentee ballot arrived eventually, and the return envelope was sealed shut. So I had to become one of those people who went to vote in line on election day, because even though I could call the secretary of state, I

could not get a return envelope.

So the two-tiered system or three-tiered system is so dangerous because the tiers are based on whether or not you want progress, whether you believe that you should be included in this body politic and whether they think you’re the right kind of people, because most of the voter suppression tactics are targeted at communities of color, young people and poor communities. That is not by accident, because these are the communities that have been for so long kept out of our political process and who are clamoring to get in. They are terrified that their admission is going to change the power dynamic— because it would. PFEIFFER: When you hear stories like the example you just gave about your returned ballot being sealed, or the Democratic nominee for governor trailed by the press being misidentified on the voter rolls as someone who had already voted, it seems like our electoral system—I think first and foremost particularly in Georgia, but all across the country, because the most egregious examples we know about are from Georgia, but we hear about them all over the place, even in places with Democratic governors—it seems like incompetence, but it’s not just incompetence. You talk a lot in your book about how it’s malevolence, it is behind incompetence. ABRAMS: I appreciate you mentioning Democratic governors, because there’s benign voter suppression that tends to happen because good intention meets calamity or challenge. We’ve seen that. What happened in Wisconsin—you had a good Democratic governor who ran into the buzzsaw of Republicans who did not want voters to vote. While he oversees the state, he does not oversee the voting system.

In Georgia, we had incompetence and malevolence and malfeasance that operated together; there was nothing benign about it. So 2018, I declared that I’m not going to challenge the outcome of my election, not because I was happy with the outcome, but because I understood that the minute a politician challenges an election, all of the bad actions become about that person’s ambition. It was important to me that everyone understood I wasn’t fighting to

make myself governor. I wanted to fight to make the system better.

That’s why I sued the system instead of suing for my own election. To be clear, I was very, very, very intentional about saying I acknowledge the legal sufficiency, but I will never concede that the election was right. That has caused some consternation on actually both sides of the aisle, mostly on one side. [Laughter.] But what happened in the aftermath was there were all these think pieces about how it wasn’t possible and how I was just making it up—until two Tuesdays ago. When people saw in real time in Georgia, 8-hour lines, 20 counties had to get judicial orders to extend their time. Thousands of people, tens of thousands, never got their absentee ballots they requested—that they were told to request by the secretary of state. The incompetence was he actually did the right thing in cooperation with Democrats telling them to apply for the ballots, but his incompetence was that he then ceded out the process to a third party who couldn’t be responsive to the voters who needed their help.

Then you had the overlay of the existing voter suppression apparatus, the suppression that exists because of the questions: Can you register and stay on the rolls? Can you cast your ballot? And can your ballot be counted? And in Georgia, we continue to have challenges with being on the rolls. We still have voter purges that happen. We still have

some form of exact match, although we’ve been able through litigation to mitigate some of the harm. People couldn’t cast their ballots because either their ballots never arrived, or your ballot arrived [but] you couldn’t use it, or they shut down your polling places, and that meant that we had 6- to 8-hour lines, and we also had inoperable machines, which gets to: Does your vote actually count? We had tens of thousands of Georgians who were given provisional ballots or not given ballots at all. We had people who stood in line for six hours and then finally had to go pick up their child to go to work.

What happened in Georgia was a singular example of what happens across the country in different iterations. Georgia is particularly bad at democracy, but we’re not the only state that has this problem. The reason it was so important to see what happened in Georgia was that when you break the machinery of democracy to target Black and brown communities, the problem is eventually the machinery breaks. We had white Republican counties that had the same problems, maybe not to the same extent, but they finally had to admit that voter suppression is real and that whether it happens through incompetence or malfeasance, it’s just as effective, and just as nefarious. PFEIFFER: You look at what happened in Georgia recently, or what happened in Wisconsin, right? Or what we’re very worried about happening in Kentucky, in

Stacey Abrams with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019. Photo by the Office of U.S. House Speaker.

New York [in] those primaries. What can be done between now and November to limit the amount of chaos or to make voters feel more secure about their own personal safety and going to vote, but also faith that it is as close to a fair election as this country is able to muster in 2020? ABRAMS: The first thing is making sure that we know what the problems are, and the best way to know what problems are is to test. So we need to think about these primaries as beta tests. They are telling us in 2020 what the problems are in our electoral system. In Georgia, apparently the problem is voting. You know, that just doesn’t seem to work. [Laughter.] In Wisconsin, we had a [U.S.] Supreme Court that joined with the state supreme court and with the state legislature to say that lives don’t matter and that you should risk your life to cast your vote because we are too lazy and too mean to allow you to use a mechanism we put in place for exactly this reason.

What’s going to happen in Kentucky tomorrow—I know a lot of people have heard about the closure of the polling places, and there’ve been a lot of people vouching for the aggressive vote-by-mail system that was actually authorized by the Republican secretary of state and very much supported

in his way by Governor [Andrew] Beshear. Alexander Hamilton was kind of, you know, people could not cast a ballot. If you live in He has tried his best to get as many people coming into fashion, when he created the a rural community and what was 10 miles to vote. But that’s why I go back to my sense that we, as a nation, we band together away is now 50 miles away, it might as well original point. It’s not just about people to finance one another, because the federal be on the moon. So we have to recognize that being able to vote by mail. It is about people government in times of crisis has the only the primaries are how we learn what we need being able to vote in the way that is best for ability to really solve these problems. We for the general. them. That’s how democracy is supposed to need the Heroes Act to pass. [The Health And I want to say just a moment of thank work. You’re supposed to be able to allow a and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency you to you and the guys that Crooked Media, voter to meet the moment. If that moment Solutions Act—HEROES Act—was passed by because we through Fair Fight had been in means you can vote from home, great. But the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2020; place in 18 states, able to gather the data and if it doesn’t, then it is the obligation of the it authorizes spending $3 trillion in response to inform voters, build volunteer lists, do the state to provide an alternative. The challenge the COVID-19 pandemic—Ed.] The Heroes advocacy because you helped us get there, in Kentucky is that the alternative looks Act is the only way we can use these primaries because we knew the primary was going to to be remarkably insufficient, particularly as proof points that without that money, be necessary to understand the general. We given the legitimate distrust that African November is going to be a calamity. But didn’t know it was going to be necessary to Americans have of vote-by-mail, and because with those resources, we can scale up, vote understand a pandemic that was crushing this is a brand new system. There’s some folks by mail so everyone who wants to [can] vote democracy, but we knew something was who are first adopters; they go out going to go wrong. there the minute there’s a new tool. “The Heroes Act is the only way we can PFEIFFER: You’ve mentioned two Then there are the folks like me; I only have an iPhone 7 because they use these primaries as proof points that things—one is what is called “exact match” and another, a very related will no longer give me a 6. And I without that money, November is going situation, which is historic distrust didn’t even go with the S, ’cause that just seems too newfangled to to be a calamity.” of mail-in balloting in the African American community. Explain me. So we have to recognize that how exact match [of] signature has the operation of voting has to meet people by mail, which will be even more than we’re been used to disenfranchise voters of color, where they are. You don’t have to create seeing in these primaries. And the primaries in particular Black Americans? special opportunities, but the ones that they are telling us a lot of people—Democrat, ABRAMS: Exact match is actually a process are used to—you don’t get to pull the rug Republican, independent, agnostic—they I think Georgia, Florida, and a couple of out from under them without giving them all want to vote by mail. other states use. It was pioneered by [former a legitimate alternative. And vote-by-mail This tells us what they need. But it also Kansas secretary of state] Kris Kobach and a is not a legitimate alternative for everyone. tells us we’re going to have to create early few others, where you have to exactly match

But the other reality is states are cash voting in a lot of states so that people can go your identity to some random database strapped. They are buckling under the and vote and not risk their lives. That we’re in order to be allowed to register to vote. economic collapse that is the current going to have to have in-person voting, and We’ve been able to mitigate that harm in economy driven by Donald Trump and his we’re going to have to maintain the polling most states. It’s still a terrible, horrible idea. inability to acknowledge that a pandemic was locations for in-person voting, because people Racially discriminatory. Captured 53,000 upon us. So each county, each city, each state don’t just want to go vote near their homes people in Georgia in 2018, 80 percent of has had to grapple in their own way. The tax just because it’s fun; it’s because they often whom are people of color, 70 percent of dollars that aren’t flowing are not flowing lack the transportation. They often lack the whom were African American. to the local administrators who have to run ability to get somewhere else. In Georgia we But then you have the scourge of signature these elections, to the counties, to the states. know that because of the 214 polling places mismatch. Signature mismatch says that

But we anticipated this back when shut down in 2018, between 54–85,000 when you get that absentee ballot, when

you sign the back swearing that it is you who filled out that ballot and you send it in, a poll worker then tries to match your signature to the last signature they have on file for you, whatever signature that is. Now in some states, it’s the signature you provided months ago; in other states it’s a signature you provided 30 years ago when you got your driver’s license or you first got your voter ID card, your voter registration card. This untutored person is going to use the “Forensic Files” episode she saw on television the night before and she’s going to match your signature to the things that she sees. And it’s usually women who are poll workers—I’m not being gender-biased. They’re going to match these things up.

Every forensic scientist will tell you it is junk science, that it is nearly impossible for people to do this, because your signature differs based on the implement you use, the surface you’re writing on, and the surface beneath the surface you’re writing on. As I put it, my signature doesn’t match from CVS to Kroger, and yet in a number of states, this mismatch is used to disqualify applications.

And guess what? It is most often used to disqualify applications of African Americans, Latinos, and young people. Black and Latinos—it’s twice as likely to kick your absentee ballot out. And for young people, it’s five times more likely that something’s going to cause your absentee ballot to be rejected. It is junk science that tells you nothing. It just makes people feel better. But if this is the first time you voted by mail, if you go through this process and then your vote is rejected—and they don’t tell you it’s because it’s your signature, they just say your vote’s been rejected, if they tell you at all—why would you then invest in a process where when you finally decide to try it, they tell you not that it didn’t work, but that you failed?

And that’s what is so insidious about voter suppression, signature mismatch, polling place closures. It all makes the voter feel like they did something wrong. And if they are the mistake, then no one is responsible.

We know that we hire people to make this work and that if they are not willing to do their jobs, they should not have their jobs. And their fundamental job is protecting and engaging us in our democracy. PFEIFFER: How do you have [a] conversation in 2020 with someone who is afraid to go vote either for health reasons or because of fear that their vote will not count? ABRAMS: One of the most effective ways to fight fear is to call it what it is, to acknowledge it’s either legitimacy or it’s fallacy. People are right to be afraid of the process of voting in America, particularly if they are in a community that’s been targeted. So part of my mission since 2018 has been to serve as a clarion call to say, “It’s not in your head. They really are after you.” Because when you shift the notion from paranoia to awareness— paranoia makes you feel bad, but it also convinces you there’s no solution. Awareness tells you how to prepare. So talking about voter suppression, debunking the myths of voter fraud, is how we prepare people to know they’re going to have to work hard. It’s not fair; it’s not right; but it is necessary.

The second part then is to tell them what else can happen. It’s not just vote by mail, but in-person early voting and voting day-of. and we need people to know they have these options so they can pick the best option for them and so they can demand the options they need. If the Heroes Act passes the Senate, that act will guarantee that in every state in the nation you have absentee balloting, early in-person voting and inperson voting on the day-of.

But then the third is to remind people why we vote in the first place. I’m very appreciative of being considered a voting rights warrior, a champion. Voting is an action.

I do this work because I grew up poor and Black in Mississippi, because I lived poor and Black in Georgia, because I’m now still Black, but I’m no longer poor, and I want other people to have that opportunity because it’s so much better on this side. And the only way we get here is through changing policies. I do this because I have a brother who has been in and out of the carceral system, in and out of mental health challenges, and in and out of drug addiction, and I want him to get the help he needs. He is finally able to be stable and he’s in a great program, but that’s because I’ve had opportunities that most people don’t have. I need everyone to have the opportunities I’ve been able to access for my brother.

I want voting to happen because the world we need will change and become closer to that world only if we vote.

T hese s ystems t hat people a re demonstrating against and rightly so that we are decrying and rightly so, these systems are people. People make these choices, people pass laws, people break laws. People decide whether these laws are stupid and need to go, and whether these laws are good and need to be reinforced. We have to use voting to change the people.

So the third thing I will tell folks is we have to vote because our lives actually depend on it. We have seen the trailer for what is to come and the apocalypse of a second term of Donald Trump and a second governing rein of Mitch McConnell. We know what they’re willing to do to the courts. It is worth risking something, because we know that the consequence of inaction is that evil will reign. And that’s something I’m just not willing to live with.