S07 E10: Part 2 – Protecting the Right to Vote

Episode Transcript

Kanya Bennett
Welcome to Pod For The Cause, the official podcast of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund, where we take on the critical civil and human rights issues of our day. I’m your host, Kanya Bennett, coming to you from our nation’s capitol, Washington D. C. Just days out from the election, we at Pod For The Cause wanted to continue our season- long conversation about protecting our democracy. In this high- stakes presidential election, our democracy hinges on ensuring the right to vote and preventing voting discrimination. In our last episode, Protecting the Vote, Preserving Democracy, we sat down one- on- one with coalition partners at Common Cause, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the League of Women Voters. We discussed how he must be vigilant for a powerful few who are looking to dissuade or deceive voters from casting a ballot. We talked about how we the majority must protect the freedom to vote. For today’s episode I’m going to continue that conversation and I’m excited to have my colleague, Khalid Pitts with me to do so. Khalid is the executive vice president of Campaigns and Programs here at The Leadership Con-ference. And leads are And Still I Vote, or ASIV campaign. We are going to talk one- on- one about, And Still I Vote, which is a powerful movement aimed at strengthening democratic par-ticipation. This campaign empowers people to take action at the ballot box and vote for the change they want to see. And with threats to democracy increasing in these last few days before the election, Khalid will talk to us about how, And Still I Vote stands as a beacon reminding us all that our voices matter, and that showing up is key to shaping our future. Khalid, let’s get to it. Thank you for popping in the days before the election so we can get people motivated and to the polls.

Khalid Pitts
Thank you, Kanya.

Kanya Bennett
So I want to ask you what inspired the creation of the And Still I Vote campaign? Tell us about ASIV and what it sets out to do.

Khalid Pitts
Well, thanks, Kanya. Years ago, The Leadership Conference and a project at the time of The Leadership Conference, All Voting is Local, acronym AVIL, started And Still I Vote. And it was a national call to action to overcome discriminatory barriers to voting. And it was inspired by the late Maya Angelou with her acclaimed poem And Still I Rise. This national campaign is set to spotlight barriers to voting access, particularly in communities of color and other margin-alized sectors of our society who have been historically excluded from our political process. And so the campaign’s aim is to talk to these communities directly, listen to the concerns, edu-cate and inform them on those issues that they have raised, motivate them to take action or per-suade them to stay connected and get involved and then bring their relational orbits along with them. But in the end, their voices is their vote and we want to lift that.

Kanya Bennett
Absolutely Khalid. I love the description. I love the origin story around ASIV. I did not know the connection around… I mean, it makes sense obviously, but did not know that we were inten-tional about our inspiration from Maya Angelou. So how has And Still I Vote been positioned to influence voter turnout and how has it been positioned to protect voting rights in this presiden-tial election cycle?

Khalid Pitts
Well, we’re talking to voters in 11 states across the country. And if I can take a moment of privilege, list those states. They are Arizona, Nevada, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Penn-sylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi. And we chose those states because we still see communities of color and other marginalized sectors of our society still without a voice, still without collective power. So we are talking to these voters directly. We’re talking to them on the doors. We’re talking to them on phones. We’re talking through their digi-tal devices. And then we’re educating the public through town halls, radio ads, radio appearanc-es, podcasts like this one I’m on right now, to share their stories, lift their voices and get them engaged.

Kanya Bennett
And as I think about this work, and I think about it in the context of this election, this 2024 pres-idential election that is fast approaching, I’m thinking about voter suppression tactics. I want to know what you’re most concerned about in that context and how has The Leadership Confer-ence And Still I Vote, been addressing these threats?

Khalid Pitts
Well, 50 years ago, which doesn’t seem long ago for some and not so long for others, it was poll taxes and literacy tests. Today it’s voting roll purges and sort of interference directly with the election process itself. We are largely concerned with the role of misinformation. Just recently, you and others here at The Leadership Conference work with partners around the issue of non- citizen voting. Again, it is illegal for a non- citizen to vote in a federal election, but there has been mis and disinformation that this is actually happening across the country. Try to stoke fears of communities across the country. I think we’re also worried about disruption with the voting process itself. Sometimes people talk about political violence, but we’re also thinking about intimidation of poll workers, intimidation of election officials, and not just leading up to November 5th and early voting and then voting election day post, the counting of the votes, dis-ruption of the certification process. So what we are working with many of our partners across the country, both and local, we’ve got about 140 national, state and local partners across the country, labor, community organizing, issue organizations, working with them to both analyze and monitor what’s happening across the states, particularly in our 11 states, but also in other states that aren’t within our 11 states like Texas or South Carolina to monitor, to create best messaging, to share with our partners, to share with those in the community. Also, to share re-sources for them to get in touch with either DOJ or to other state and local officials that some-thing has run awry at a polling location, that something’s been awry in the community, that something’s happening to sort of disenfranchise voters or dissuade them from turning out to vote.

Kanya Bennett
So Khalid, you mentioned partnerships that have been formed under the And Still I Vote um-brella. Do you want to talk a little bit more about some of those relationships, some of those co-alitions that were formed ahead of the presidential election to amplify the impact of And Still I Vote and to safeguard the integrity of the voting processes you just described?

Khalid Pitts
Sure. And as I mentioned, we have over 140 national, state and local organizations. The core of them are the core folks in our coalition, 240 plus. And that includes labor, both public sector unions and private sector unions, community organizing groups, particularly on the state and local level issue organizations, whether you’re looking at reproductive health, immigration, criminal justice, education, social justice groups and groups are concerned about our democracy and good government.

Kanya Bennett
So Khalid, talk to us about the communities. We’ve talked about partners. We’ve talked about coalition members. Let’s talk about our voters, our individual voters in the communities that they represent, particularly those folks who are most marginalized in our society. What is And Still I Vote doing in the last few days before the election to get folks motivated, to get folks turning out? And then talk to us about sort of what role And Still I Vote may play in the imme-diate aftermath of the election?

Khalid Pitts
Well, we’re talking directly to voters as I said earlier. We’re talking to them on the doors, talk-ing to them on phones, directly live calls, no AI assist here. We’re talking to them on digital de-vices. We expect to make hundreds of thousands of calls across the country asking voters if they plan to vote and making a plan to vote, educating them on their polling places, educating them on existing voting laws in their state because it differs in different states. So we’re doing that through the early voting period and through election day. And then the aftermath what we are doing, we plan to play a coordinating communication role as we monitor post- November 5th. If we were recall back in 2020, the Associated Press didn’t call the election until the Saturday fol-lowing election day. And if we work back to thinking about Inauguration Day, there is a lot of stuff that’s going to happen before then. December 11th, that’s when states issued their certifi-cates of ascertainment. On the 17th of December, the electors vote in their states. By Christmas, the 25th, the electoral votes will arrive to Congress. On the 3rd, the archivist transfers the certif-icates to Congress. And then that date that in some degree will live an infamy January 6th, Congress counts electoral vote. So, post- election there’s roughly two months of things that have to happen for both the election to be certified and for the new president to be inaugurated. So there’s a lot to coordinate. There’s lot to monitor. There could be a lot of shenanigans that hap-pen, but we are going to be vigilant and we’re going to work with our partners, work with folks nationally and state and locally to make sure that every vote counts, every vote is counted, and the peaceful transfer of power will continue on.

Kanya Bennett
Absolutely Khalid, thank you for sharing that timeline with our listeners. I think it’s important for folks to understand that we cast our ballots and like you said, it could be a week, it could actually be longer than that, we hope not, before folks know the election outcome. So I think that timeline, those deadlines are important for our listeners to have and to understand. So we talked about all the things tied to the election, but I want to ask you about And Still I Vote and our organization will ensure that once we have our electeds in place, we then hold folks to the agendas that they have campaigned on. How do we ensure that civil and human rights are pri-oritized, now hopefully many days post- election?

Khalid Pitts
Well, we talk about voting in the election day, and that’s where lots of organizations go out and talk to voters and engage them in the voting process. But the voting process is just part of larger process about civic engagement. We talked about earlier that their vote is their voice, but their voice continues on. We will continue to talk to those voters that we’ve heard them and said, whether it’s education, whether it’s criminal justice, whether it’s voting rights and enshrining them more directly into our constitution and into our legislative process, both at the federal and state level. That’s a concern for them. We want to continue to lift those stories, lift their voices. Just recently we worked with about 47 or so national and state groups to bring impacted voters from across the country here to Congress. Legislators hearing their story directly about how the voting process and how it’s been used to suppress their vote and thusly suppress their voice is happening. So we will continue the conversation with voters. We will continue the conversation with policymakers, whether it be elected officials or those appointed in regulatory administra-tion bodies. We will continue the conversation with the general public.

Kanya Bennett
I look forward to it, Khalid. Thank you for joining Pod For The Cause today. I appreciate you hopping on and having this conversation. In the days leading up to the election. I’m certain that our listeners are charged and energized about what’s ahead. So you have done exactly what I hoped you would do. So again, thank you so much for hopping on here today. And now, listen-ers, as we have urged before probably every episode this year, go and vote. Like Khalid said, get your plan together, your voting plan together, help others get their plan together. Democracy is on the ballot. Thanks again, Khalid, for being here today.

Khalid Pitts
Thank you for having me. And again, echoing what Kanya said, go vote.

Kanya Bennett
Thank you for joining us today on Pod For The Cause, the official podcast of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund. For more information, please visit Civilrights. org and to connect with us, hit us up on Instagram and Twitter at Civil Rights Org. You can text us, text civil rights, that’s two words, civil rights, 252- 199. To keep up with our latest updates. Be sure to subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast app and leave a five star review. Thanks to our production team, Shalonda Hunter, Deena Craig, Taylor Nicholas and Oprah Cunningham, my colleagues at The Leadership Con-ference. And shout out to Podville Media, our external production crew. And that’s it from me, your host, Kanya Bennett. Until next time, let’s keep fighting for an America as good as its ide-als.

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