“If your vote didn’t matter, they would not be trying so hard to make sure it isn’t counted.” In part two of this conversation, Michael Harriot gives specific steps to take to ensure that your vote is counted on election day.
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Panama Jackson [00:00:00] You are now listening to theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, Black Culture Amplified.
Michael Harriot [00:00:05] Welcome to theGrio Daily. The only podcast that doesn’t just rock the vote, we milly rock the vote. I’m world famous wypipologist. It is Michael Harriot and this is theGrio Daily. What we’re going to talk about today is what if you go to vote like you studied your candidates and then they just threw away your vote after you voted? There are ways the Republicans can just specifically target Democratic voters. Another way they can do this is just to ask for election officials to investigate certain voters and they can target whoever they want to. Now, I’m talking about statewide election officials, and that’s not the only tactic. That’s not the last tactic. One of the things that they can also do is just look at a voting precinct and say, hey, we as the state legislature are going to in the cases of Arizona, in the case of of Georgia, just determine who won. In other words, like this, technically, the vote count does not have to even matter. They the legislature in many states, and especially where they’ve passed these new voting laws, can literally just say, nah, we’re going to appoint or decide who won this election. They have the right to disenfranchize the entire state. Right. And so there’s this upcoming Supreme Court case that is specifically going to argue this point, whether a state legislature can invalidate the entire electorate. What these Republican lawyers and the lawyers for the Republican Party are suggesting is that the way the voting laws of America is constructed, that the state Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, a federal court does not have jurisdiction on what a state can do with its voting laws. In other words, if they don’t intentionally and specifically say we’re just not going to count on Black people’s votes as long as it’s not intentionally discriminatory, then a state can basically do whatever it wants to to determine how its people vote and how they count votes, how often they count votes, how they total those votes. And these are just some of the ways that we have to know because like, again, I know this is a saying that has become widespread, but if your vote didn’t matter, they would not be trying so hard to make sure it isn’t counted. And so you just don’t have to wake up in the morning and go to the ballot box. You just don’t have to, you know, make sure you vote. You have to make sure your vote is counted. How can we make sure that our votes are counted? What can we do? Well, one of the things that we can do is we can vote early. Right. Like so one of these tactics is to challenge same day voting versus early votes or mail in votes. We have to challenge that. We have to fight for states to expand mail in and early voting and absentee voting. We have to actually make sure and double check and triple check our voter registration, make sure that it is not just up to date. And the other thing that we have to do is not just a voter registration where you’re voting in this next election or in the current election. But if you have ever lived somewhere else, this is a tactic they use. They’ll say, well, Michael Harriot just moved from Alabama. He’s registered twice invalid, and he voted in Georgia. His vote shouldn’t count. So you have to also a lot of people don’t know that you have to be de-register technically to vote in the place that you lived previously. So a lot of people will register in the new place, but not unregistered in the old place or notify their old precincts or their old election officials. A, I moved. Or A, I you know, I am in Georgia now. I don’t vote here anymore. And people can use that, especially like me, like someone who’s moved to another state knowing that they could challenge my vote. So these are some of the ways that we have to fight for our vote, in addition to making sure that we vote, in addition to fighting voter suppressive tactics like voter I.D. laws or restrictive voting. And we have to ensure that our votes count because the margins are sometimes so thin that your vote actually does matter in a real election. And it’s not again, it’s not just the president or the senator or the congressman, but again, on those ballots are the elected to election officials who will count your votes on those ballots or the state legislatures who will determine who takes over those precincts if it comes to that? And so up and down the ballot and before and after the ballot, we have to protect our right to participate in a democracy, because your grandma don’t want you eating cold food. You gonna disrespect your mama biscuits like that? Nah, all that work our ancestors and our forbearers put in are important and they just didn’t do it. So we can choose the president. They did it because we need to ensure that we are counted and regarded as equal human beings in this settler state that we call America. So as always, don’t forget to subscribe to theGrio Daily. Don’t forget to download theGrio app and don’t forget to tell a friend about this podcast. You know, we hear every day on your TV, on your cell phone, on your iPad. We’re not on the radio. But, you know, do people even listen to the radio anymore? I guess some people do. But in any case, we’ll leave you with another famous Black saying. And today’s Black saying is, if it’s too hot, you got to stay out the kitchen because, you know, their grandma got them biscuits in the oven. We’ll see you next time on theGrio Daily. Thank you for listening to theGrio Daily. If you like what you heard, please give us a five star review. 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