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– Georgia’s tight race for governor is getting national attention.
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– Brian Kemp is not only the Republican gubernatorial nominee,
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he’s Georgia’s Secretary of State.
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– Stacey Abrams looking to make history by becoming the nation’s
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first female African American governor.
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– Volunteers are picking up phones and knocking on
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doors across the state.
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– Come in and register to vote.
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– We are very excited to register as many people as we possibly can.
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– What do we want?
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Register to vote!
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When do we want it?
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Today!
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– I come as one, but I stand as ten thousand.
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– Pull back that veneer,
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and you see something really rotten happening.
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It’s almost like termites coming in, they’re in the wood they’re eating the wood
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away
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and you don’t even realize your house is getting ready
01:00
to collapse until it’s almost too late.
01:03
– We have a historic decision today, striking down a key part of the Voting Rights
01:08
Act.
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The Civil Rights law passed back in 1965.
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– The Supreme Court essentially said racism is over
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and these communities don’t need to preclear these changes anymore.
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– This decision leaves virtually unprotected minority voters in communities all over this
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country.
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– We are witnessing a tidal wave of voter suppression
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around the country.
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– If you look at Alabama
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– Arkansas
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– North Carolina
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– Ohio
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– Kansas
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– North Dakota
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– Michigan
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– Wisconsin
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– And Georgia, which is becoming ground zero.
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– We gotta understand, this isn’t a Klan cross burning.
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This stuff is very bureaucratic is very mundane is very routine.
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But it is lethal.
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– My name is Bobby Jenkins.
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I live in Cuthbert, Georgia.
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The county is Randolph County.
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I spent about 30, almost 35 years in education,
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was superintendent of schools.
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– My name is Loretta Brown.
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I live in Morgan, Georgia.
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I grew up in Randolph County.
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I am the state advisor for the Georgia NAACP youth and college division.
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– My name is Louis Brooks.
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I live in Thomaston, Georgia of Upson County.
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And I’ve been living here my whole eighty nine years.
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Except the two years I spent in service, in Korea.
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n 19…
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I believe it was 55 or 56,
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that’s when they started letting black people vote in Upson County.
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When I went to register to vote.
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It was tough.
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They asked me all kind of questions to try to
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keep me from registering.
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But I passed the test.
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Once I got my voting right I decided I wasn’t going to let
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anything stop me from voting.
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Because I use to walk.
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You’d go right up the street here – across the next street over there.
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And I walk all that and walk back and vote
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I didn’t miss a voting, except when they closed the poll.
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I’m a citizen it’s my right to vote and my speak my opinion.
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– I saw this ad saying that there was a proposal to close
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seven of the nine precincts in Randolph County.
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I said, “What?”
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And they put it in the papers that they were closing
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polls
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cause it was costing them too much money.
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– First of all Randolph is a poor county,
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just to give you an example of what it will mean as a community
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Benevolence, a little north of town,
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had that precinct been closed,
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some of those individuals would have to go 30 miles round trip in order to vote.
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It would have been a terrible hardship on our poor, on our eldery,
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and on those who are least able to afford transportation.
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– And I got disabled.
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I couldn’t do no driving.
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I knew I couldn’t afford to go that far to vote.
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This was in a black neighborhood.
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It made me feel like they was closing it down to keep the
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black people from voting,
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because most black people vote Democrat.
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They only closed one white voting place.
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Everyone from over here in the blacks have to go clean over to the white section to vote
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We human.
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And we have our rights to vote just like everybody else.
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– Voters in Randolph County Georgia are outraged.
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– Randolph County residents expressed their concerns
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with the board of elections.
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– Our citizens turned out in full force.
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They were behind us 100 percent trying to keep those polling places open.
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Convenience of the vote.
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You all are not considering that, at all.
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– There is no disenfranchisement for the African Americans
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– I went to the meeting, find out that they were trying to close seven of the precincts.
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– We’ve got to stand up, we can not allow this to continue.
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– They gave a couple of reasons.
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Saying it would save money.
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The other one, was that several of the polling places were not ADA compliant.
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But the thing that was so ironic, is we voted that way in May.
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You know they weren’t any worse in November than they were in May.
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– It will be impossible for rural voters without vehicles to vote on election day.
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It will be impossible for them.
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They will have to walk three and a half hours just to get to from one of these polling places,
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to Cuthbert and Shelman.
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– We did petition to keep it open.
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Pressure from the residents, civil rights organizations,
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speaking up, speaking out.
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– When they called the meeting to order, and they only had one motion.
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They voted to keep them open.
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– The news of what was happening here in Randolph County
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went worldwide.
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– The incident that we experienced threw the spotlight on
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everything else that had been going on.
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You know we find out that in the state of Georgia there were
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over 200 other polling places that had been closed.
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– If you move a poll four miles,
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it is the equivalent of a 20 percent drop in black voter turnout.
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That’s what shutting down these polls mean.
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– With two months to go the race is heating up in Georgia.
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– Stacey Abrams campaign feel they have the momentum behind them
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and many of the posts we’ve seen so far support that.
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– There’s no law in Georgia,
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that requires the Secretary of State to process voter registration
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forms on a particular timeline.
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– Kemp withheld putting the names of thousands on the voter registration list until after
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the election.
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– 80 percent were African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans.
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– This is Fulton County.
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Linda Marshall is my name.
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Most of my professional career has been in public service of one kind or another,
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as a teacher, as a government worker.
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I moved here in August of this year,
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but, because of my emphasis on always being registered,
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and always having the ability to vote I did that almost immediately when I got here.
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Of course I also knew the importance of the upcoming election
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and I wanted to be a part of that history.
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It got closer and closer and closer to the election,
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and I was getting a little bit concerned, so I called the Secretary of State’s office.
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My name is not on the roll.
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They can’t tell me where it is.
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So all of that paperwork that I sent in.
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I don’t know where it is.
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I’m 65,
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and for the first time I did not get a chance to vote.
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In a very close election of historic importance and proportion.
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Welcome to Georgia.
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– The midterm election in Georgia is only 29 days away.
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– Civil Rights leaders say Kemp is illegally removing people
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from Georgia’s voters list.
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– Republican Brian Kemp has already gotten the
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backing of our current president.
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– Thousands are purged from Georgia’s voter rolls
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– Purged from Georgia’s voting rolls
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-890,000
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– They had no idea they couldn’t vote
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(news voices overlap)
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– There has been instance after instance of unlawful voter purging.
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States are removing voters,
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many of whom have actually been found to have been eligible
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but were unlawfully removed from the rolls.
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– I received the purge notice.
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So I open it up and I read the first sentence.
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I along with 380,000 Georgians received the same notice.
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– That’s an especially pernicious way to prevent people from voting.
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Because once you register to vote, you would think that you
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should be able to remain on the roll.
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And once you are removed from the rolls, you cannot vote.
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– I went out to get the mail, and there were two letters in there,
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they looked official.
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The city of Thunderbolt states that you no longer reside within the municipality.
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My license is valid my address is valid I own this home.
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Why are you questioning my right to vote?
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– You know the purges, they’ve been going on for decades,
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maybe over a century in this state.
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– If you haven’t voted in the last few elections
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they’ll purge you, as if you must not be in the state anymore.
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If you move within the same county, they’ll purge you,
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assuming your not living in Georgia anymore.
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If you don’t return a postcard, from the Secretary of State,
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they’ll purge you,
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because to them it means you’re not a resident at this address.
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All of these tactics specifically and disproportionately target people of color,
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poor people, the elderly, all of whom who tend to vote for Democrats.
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– Brian Kemp is notorious for erasing the polls and
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purging people right before the election deadline.
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– You have a candidate at the top of the ticket
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who is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the election.
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– He needed to have his hands on the levers.
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– You have an umpire who is also playing in the game.
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– Less than 20 days away from the midterms now.
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– The race for Georgia’s governorship is a toss up.
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– Literally is a dead heat.
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– This governor’s race is already one for the history books.
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But it’s also seeing record numbers of requests for
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absentee ballots especially from African American voters.
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– At a time when we are seeing roughly almost half of the people
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who have turned in an absentee ballot are people of color,
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that’s a really really good sign for Stacey Abrams.
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– We caught them off guard by running such a large scale program
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and mailed 1.6 million African Americans an absentee ballot application.
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– In this midterm election the absentee ballot requests
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are even out performing presidential years.
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So that is startling and eye popping and something we need to dig in on to see what’s going on there. there.
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– My name is Norman Broderick and I’m in Potter Springs, Georgia Cobb County.
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I did 24 years in the military,
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deployed to Iraq twice, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia.
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I voted absentee before when I was deployed.
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When I was in Iraq the first time I voted absentee,
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and when I was in Iraq the second time I voted absentee.
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The absentee ballot is a very important tool that exists
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to allow people, not only just the military
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but anybody who happens to be away from their voting station to be able to cast a vote. vote.
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– My name is Peggy Xu.
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I’m from Johns Creek, Georgia.
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I left Georgia for D.C. in the beginning of October,
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and before I left I mailed out my absentee ballot application,
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so that our registrar would send an absentee ballot
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to my new DC address.
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– I work at a U.S. Army Central, which is located at
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Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina.
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I’m away from home during the week.
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I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get back to Georgia to vote.
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I could only do this absentee.
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I filled out everything I was supposed to fill out.
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I sent their documents in, I got confirmation that it was received.
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And to my surprise, I did not receive my absentee ballot.
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– I checked my mailbox every day.
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It was like nearing the end of the month.
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And so I started calling the Voter Protection hotline.
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I called my registrar.
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I sent emails.
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And It was really getting close to the election date,
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And I just I never received my ballot.
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The election day came and went,
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and I wasn’t able to vote in the end.
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– When I contacted my wife and asked her about it,
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I think it was a couple of days before the election.
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It came here,
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and I tried contacting the Georgia elections board.
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I was told they did receive my absentee ballot request.
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Everything was filled out correctly.
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But that they mailed it to the wrong address.
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She admit that yes they did mess up it was their fault,
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but there was nothing I could do about it, it’s too late.
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It’s over with, and my vote will not be counted during this election.
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– It was probably one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever experienced.
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After having spent, you know, my entire college career very invested in the political process.
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It was, I don’t know, like a punch to the gut.
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– It still pisses me off to this day.
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Being in Baghdad, voting absentee, was easier than being four hours away
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trying to vote absentee in South Carolina.
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– I took to Facebook, and like the Millennial Activist that I am
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I recounted my experience in a Facebook post.
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I wrote: “this is what happened.
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I wasn’t able to vote.
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And if you had a similar experience let me know…”
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And my friend from high school, she reached out to me.
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And she said I also had struggles trying to get my ballot in voting absentee.
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– So I submitted an absentee ballot.
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It came two days right before election day.
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– Over the course of 48 hours, we had forty people.
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So many people in our immediate Facebook circle
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knew somebody who had a similar experience to us.
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– People had requested it far in advance and some people just didn’t get their vote in.
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– But that was when we really realized this was not
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an isolated incident it was a much bigger issue
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and it was much deeper rooted sort of phenomenon that was going on statewide.
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– I did speak with the Board of Elections he just dismissed it as like a hiccup
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and he’s like; “Oh, like no you don’t really know what you’re talking about.”
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Forty cases not really a hiccup.
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It’s more like a wake up call.
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– Today, we worked to get answers about the claim
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that thousands of voters never got the absentee ballots they requested.
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– Great Tuesday Morning!
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Election Day!
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– The race between Abrams and Kemp is literarily neck and neck
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– Their fate is now in the hands of voters
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– The day is finally upon us.
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– The midterm elections are happening.
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– Voters head to the polls in one of the most intensely fought midterm elections.
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– The race for Georgia’s governorship is a toss up.
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– I live in the South.
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I’m always worried about election day.
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– Have great morning and go vote.
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– Oh yeah,
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gotta go vote today.
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– Voting started here in Georgia this morning
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and if you think getting to the polls early will
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keep you from getting stuck on long lines, think again.
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– Voter protection hotline how can I help you?
19:04
– Voter protection hotline how can I help you?
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(hotline complaints overlap)
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– I really thought I was going to be able to
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run in and run out like I usually do.
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The first thing I saw was just people everywhere, so we stood there for awhile,
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without moving.
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And then we would inch up, and then we wouldn’t move.
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We had a lot of people with children there, pregnant mothers,
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elderly people, some people have medical issues.
19:41
– I took my son to school that morning, and then I went to
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vote at Ferguson Elementary, where I vote every election.
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– The line just keeps going
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– The line was so long, through the school and wrapped
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around the building.
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The lines were crazy everywhere, all over the county.
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It was real long, I was in line for two hours.
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Now I got to the door.
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That’s where they was checking your I.D. before you go in.
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And she couldn’t find my name, she directed me to go
20:14
downtown Gwinnett.
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And I was like I’m not gonna vote.
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And it was this older lady she came over and she like held my hand and was like, “Please
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go do it.”
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We need this.
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And I looked in her eyes and said I will.
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(hotline complaints and phone sounds overlap)
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– About 8 or 9, we started getting the calls about the long lines.
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(hotline complaints and phone sounds overlap)
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– Long lines at the polling stations lead to low voter turnout.
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The research is just crystal clear on that.
20:45
– Everyone in the world knew we were gonna voting today,
20:47
and in my neighborhood, there are no power cords.
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All these dedicated people, waiting to vote.
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This is what we call voter suppression.
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– People are like upset and angry.
21:00
– I started calling the Secretary of State’s office.
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I was either hung up on, placed on hold.
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They want people to go home and not vote.
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I ain’t going nowhere, I’ma be right here.
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– The reason they sent me from Ferguson to the downtown
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Gwinnett was for the provisional vote.
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So I drove 25 minutes and then when I got there,
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it was crowded in there.
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I waited 45 minutes to find out that’s not where I needed to be.
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She told me this was the wrong place and that I can go back to Ferguson.
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I had to call back and redo my schedule.
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So now the voting not only cut on my time, it cut on my money.
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– When we went in filled out all the paperwork, had the ID, took it up to the lady.
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I had mine in my hand one had hers in the other, because she’s legally blind.
21:59
So we go give it to the lady and she goes to scan Barbara’s ID.
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– Wow.
22:04
– So she looked up at Barbara and she said, “Well,
22:08
Ms. Barbara, when was the last time that you voted?”
22:11
And my sister got strong.
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“I’ve been voting since I was 18 years old,
22:15
and I’m 82!”
22:16
– I was disappointed.
22:17
– She was a little upset.
22:18
– Oh, well.
22:19
– My girl went to vote and they were trying to
22:22
keep her from voting.
22:25
– Since I became a citizen I have not missed an election.
22:29
I showed up, and a very nice lady she looked at my ID
22:31
and said “No, you’re not registered.”
22:33
And I said, “No wait a second, here’s my registration card.”
22:36
And showed them that I was registered and they said,
22:38
“Yeah but you know your name is Del Rio with a space, but
22:41
your voter ID says DelRio one word,
22:43
and therefore it doesn’t match.”
22:45
In the voter registration, my name shows up as
22:48
Del Rio with a space.
22:50
My ID card is Del Rio no space.
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That was a non match.
22:55
I said, “This is not legal and I need be allowed to vote.”
22:58
After much discussion, they said to me,
22:59
This time we will allow you to vote, but it’s a little like
23:01
they were doing me a favor.
23:03
The right to vote should be something that we should
23:05
make easier, rather than more difficult.
23:07
– Latinos and Asian Americans are six times more likely than white
23:11
Georgians to be cut from the voter rolls because of exact match.
23:15
And, Black Americans are eight times more likely to be
23:19
cut because of exact match.
23:21
– I have voted in every election now
23:23
all of a sudden I’m not there?
23:24
– Controversy surrounds the state’s exact match law
23:28
that put the registrations of 53,000 voters,
23:31
most of them African Americans on hold.
23:34
Because of discrepancies in the way their names
23:36
are spelled in state databases.
23:39
– People of color have names that are a little bit less
23:42
typical and that’s where the errors are at their highest.
23:46
Brian Kemp knows this.
23:48
– A group of students will not have their voices heard
23:51
at the polls, at least not in Georgia.
23:53
– They’re turning a bunch of students away over here.
23:55
– Were showing up here and at the Booker T Washington
23:58
location, and their names were not on the actual roll.”
24:10
– The students was being turned away, I talked to over 50 students that morning
24:17
– First, they told me I was at the wrong polling station.
24:20
– They said, “You didn’t get registered,” and I was like what do you mean?
24:23
– There was only about like, what, four voting ballot booths.
24:26
– They didn’t process my registration my registration
24:28
didn’t go through.
24:29
– I walked back to my dorm and I said I guess I just won’t vote.
24:32
– Just before I went to vote, I had been in an African-American
24:35
history class,
24:36
where we were actually talking about voter suppression.
24:39
You know about, what was it like for people that were going to vote.
24:42
I filled out a little slip of paper gave it to the poll workers,
24:46
They looked up at me and said, “It’s coming up in our system as
24:50
though you’re not a citizen of the United States.”
24:53
I just sort of looked at them like they had two heads like,
24:57
I’m sorry I was born in New York, what?
24:59
– When I got to the front of the line they informed me that
25:02
I was registered to vote but not in Dortey County.
25:05
They were telling me that I was registered back
25:07
home in Warner Robins where I was from.
25:08
And I’ve never voted there, I’ve never even been registered there.
25:11
– The thing was I had brought proof that I was a U.S. citizen.
25:15
I had with me my driver’s license, my passport card,
25:18
and my Emory student ID.
25:20
But, they would not look at the passport card whatsoever
25:23
to prove that I was a citizen.
25:25
walked out crying.
25:27
What I learned in history class just hours before,
25:31
this happened to me in 2018.
25:33
– I had been through and participated in voter registration
25:37
drives on campus within the community.
25:39
It was just like wow after all of this I’m not going to be able to vote myself.
25:40
– When I was growing up, voting was a thing, it was an event.
25:46
So little me is trailing behind my parents watching them vote.
25:49
– My parents would take me to the voting polls everytime when I was little.
25:52
I would go in and help them fill out the bubbles.
25:55
– I get a chance to vote and then you get there
25:57
and the experience is just terrible and
25:59
you have to call your mom and be like why is this
26:02
so hard you never told me it would be this hard.
26:05
– This was huge for us because Stacey Abrams was actually a Spellman alum.
26:10
History would have been made and it would have
26:12
been made by my Spelman sister.
26:14
– If there is no one who gets to 50 percent tonight
26:17
Robin there will be a run off in December.
26:19
– We’ll find out as the day and evening goes on.
26:22
– Voter Protection Hotline how can I help you?
26:25
(underlying phones and complaints)
26:28
– There’s old people who cant vote, there’s young people
26:30
who cant vote, there’s people in every county who can’t vote.
26:33
– It just created this intense fog of confusion across the state.
26:40
– Been here for three hours.
26:45
– Four or five hour wait.
26:48
– Five Hours.
26:49
– This is way way too long for us to stay and vote.
26:52
– How long have you waited in line here?
26:53
– About three and a half hours.
26:54
– And have you decided you can’t stand it, you can’t take it anymore?
26:59
Are you going to go home because of that?
27:01
– I’m hurting I’ll be back I gotta go take some medicine.
27:05
– It was really good the lines weren’t too long
27:07
and everyone was super helpful.
27:08
– We don’t hardly ever have to wait here, its always a pleasant experience up here.
27:12
– If you have a fixed resource an easy way to
27:14
suppress the vote is to just make that resource unavailable
27:18
to the people who you don’t want to vote.
27:20
And that’s exactly what happened in the 2018 election here in the state of Georgia.
27:25
In places like North Fulton County which are wealthy,
27:28
there were more machines than anyone could ever use.
27:31
In black neighborhoods, there were a quarter number of
27:33
machines that were needed to service the population
27:35
– Lots of people left without voting.
27:40
– It was people just dropping off when it became,
27:44
two hours, three hours, fourth hour…
27:47
It was very heartbreaking.
27:49
– All it takes is a little walking away at 159
27:53
counties to influence an election.
27:56
Little here, little there.
27:58
And then in a race like this which was so close.
28:01
There you go.
28:08
– All night on Twitter, a trending topic, #stayinline
28:13
– I had to go and pick my son up.
28:18
He needed to be picked up before six.
28:19
I picked my son up and he went with me and sat in the car.
28:23
And then I went back to Ferguson elementary and
28:26
by this time the evening crowd is there and the line has tripled.
28:31
And I was like oh there is no way.
28:33
Just for my one vote it took me like six hours.
28:37
And I wanted to give up but I promised that elderly lady outside that I would do
28:44
it.
28:45
– Five hours.
28:46
So about five hours it took me to vote.
28:50
It sucks the life out of you.
28:53
– I had been in people’s homes I’d been in
28:57
their neighborhoods, I’d held their hands.
28:59
And so to get to election night and to start hearing more and more stories of voter suppression.
29:05
to hear more and more from people who were told they couldn’t vote or who were turned
29:10
away
29:11
or had to give up because of four hour lines.
29:14
That broke my heart.
29:52
– Republican Brian Kemp holds a narrow lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams.
29:57
– Tens of thousands of ballots left to be counted
29:59
in this election.
30:00
– They were counting provisional ballots for hours.
30:03
– Provisional ballots are basically placebos that are being
30:06
given to voters to kind of shut them up, make them go away.
30:10
– The next day I was so excited cuz it was saying that it was a close race and I was
30:15
like
30:16
Oh let me make sure that my vote count.
30:18
So I called their number that was on the paper that I got from the
30:21
voting poll.
30:22
and she go oh no they counted every vote, you don’t need to call.
30:26
I called my mom to double check.
30:29
My mom worked for the poll for 20 some years, and she said no that’s not true.
30:34
You call back and make sure the vote count.
30:36
And someone else answered the phone and I got the same thing.
30:39
No, you don’t need to call back.
30:42
We counted all the votes.
30:43
– We just started discovering so many people voting provisionally.
30:46
We realized oh you voted provisionally so you might have to come back here the next
30:51
day
30:52
and show your ID is that something you know.
30:53
And they were like no I already voted I’m good.
30:56
– But you have to come back within three days with
30:59
the documentation to prove you are who you say you are.
31:04
– When you have a large working class population that has to punch a clock, thats really tough.
31:11
You’ve lost pay from work, trying to vote.
31:14
That’s a poll tax.
31:16
– Hi this is Christine from Gwinnett County Elections.
31:28
– I wanted to confirm if my vote was counted or not?
31:32
– Sorry what is your last name?
31:35
– Kimble.
31:36
– Um……..sigh… lets see there was no participation…
31:41
– So does that…
31:42
– …you weren’t given credit for voting.
31:46
– My vote was not counted?
31:50
– It looks like it on Election night yes ma’am.
32:03
– Alright thank you goodbye.
32:09
– Last night my opponent ended her campaign.
32:12
The election is over and I’m honored to be Georgia’s governor elect.
32:16
– I acknowledge that former Secretary of State Brian Kemp
32:20
will be certified as the victor in the 2018 Gubernatorial election.
32:25
But to watch an elected official bawdily pin his hopes for election
32:29
on the suppression of the people’s democratic right to vote, has been appalling.
32:34
This is not a speech of concession.
32:37
Because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper.
32:41
As a woman of conscience and faith I cannot concede that.
32:47
– This is systematic if you look what has happened
32:50
across this country in the last 5 years,
32:53
40 states have passed some kind of law to make it more difficult for people to vote.
33:03
– In Arkansas, the Supreme Court upheld the measure requiring voters to show photo
33:08
ID.
33:09
– North Carolina, where they’ve targeted African Americans.
33:10
– In Alabama, the governor was shutting down DMVs.
33:13
– Ohio
33:14
– Kansas, tens of thousands of people were prevented from voting.
33:17
– Texas allows a concealed gun license to vote
33:20
but will not include college IDs.
33:21
– Indiana they purged 500,000 voters.
33:25
– Wisconsin, where a recent photo ID law may have handed the 2016 Election to Donald Trump.
33:30
– We lost 41,000 voters.
33:31
I think it changed the outcome of the election in the state of Wisconsin.
33:37
– We are not going to let them take from us what our grandparents and parents
33:48
fought and suffered and died to give us in the first place.
33:52
– We are here to resist an ID law that is undemocratic, unconstitutional, and immoral.
34:02
– People are demanding democracy.
34:05
– In Washington there’s a new Native American voting rights act.
34:09
New Mexico, now has same day voter registration.
34:12
Colorado, Nevada, Florida, and Arizona.
34:15
All passed laws restoring voting rights to those formerly incarcerated.
34:19
Indiana, blocked a law that would have allowed purging.
34:22
New York, activism lead to an expansive package of voting reforms.
34:27
Michigan, a ballot initiative to end extreme partisan Gerrymandering.
34:32
And there is national legislation now to restore the Voting Rights Act.
34:37
– These efforts are being fought in the streets, they are being fought
34:40
in the city councils, they are being fought in the state legislatures.
34:44
– We belong together.
34:46
We are all part of the fabric of this country,
34:49
and we understand what’s at stake.
34:52
– Any voter suppression law is not just about black people.
34:56
It is about America itself.
34:58
– On my mother’s dying bed at 92 years old former sharecropper,
35:03
Her last words were do not let them take our votes away from us
35:09
– We have the power to change this.
35:11
We are going to vote you out.
35:14
So that we really do have fair and free elections.
◊♦◊
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