Are Election Laws Designed to Suppress Voting?

Are laws that are meant to protect the sanctity of the polling place in reality designed to make it harder for groups that traditionally vote Democrat to cast their ballots?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast me. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry
Jerome Rolland you put the three of us together in
a room, shake it up, pick out some of the

(00:23):
chest hairs. You got stuff you should know. I thought
that was gross. I thought you'd like that. You're ready
to get angry on this one. I'm trying to keep
it cool. Man. I woke up yesterday and said, I
really want to take off a significant portion of our listeners.
So what could what topic could we do? And I

(00:46):
thought voter suppression? Perfect. Well, you know what, man, I've
been trying to think about the why this bugs me
so much. Voter suppression obviously bugs me because it's not right.
But what really bugs me, I think is that if
you're in Washington, D C. And you're in government, like

(01:09):
everyone knows about this stuff and everyone talks about it. Frankly,
when the microphones run around, like do you watch the
show Veep? I love it. I've only seen season five,
but man, it is so good. Like supposedly, that's kind
of how it is. Like when the microphones aren't around.
They all talk about politics in very frank terms, but

(01:29):
as soon as you get on television or in front
of a microphone, you have to tow the party lines
on both sides with this rhetoric crap, and it ends
up you can't even really talk about the things. Well no,
but plus also, I think one of the reasons that
that is the way it is is because you've got
to feed the sheeple like a certain like you said

(01:50):
that that company line or that party line, because if
you really talked about what was really going on, some
of the people who agree with your BS would otherwise
disagree with the actual thing that's going on. You know
what I'm saying, Well, yeah, and let's just go ahead
and say it. And this one on voter suppression, historically, uh,

(02:12):
the Republican Party has purposefully done things to try and
keep certain people from voting because they probably vote Democrat
and they can't just say that, so they say, no,
it's really about voter fraud. That's a big problem. And
Democrats want those votes, and they say it's because they
just want a very inclusive democratic process, but that's not true.

(02:34):
They want those votes because they're probably gonna be Democrat votes, right,
and Democrats will do anything, including voter fraud, to get
people to the polls or to get those votes. That's
the current, that's the argument that's going on right now. Yeah,
but you know what I'm saying, though, like neither one
of them can say those things, so they have to
stand behind these two kind of bogus reasons, and it's

(02:57):
just infuriating. Right. So the reasons, these bogus reasons, ostensibly
focused reasons, are that if you take measures to make
it a little difficult to vote, what you're going to
do is protect the integrity of the electoral system. Right.
This is the this is the Republican's viewpoint. If you

(03:17):
do that, then there's gonna be a couple of things. One,
you're gonna cut down on fraud, which again the Democrats
are just total fraudsters when it comes to voting as
far as Republicans are concerned. And then it's also going
to in some cases, sure, it's gonna make it a
little difficult for some people to vote, but the Republican

(03:37):
way of thinking is if you really care about voting,
you're gonna do whatever it takes to get to that poll.
And register and vote. And if you don't, if if
just a couple of simple barriers will keep you from
doing that, then nuts to you, man, I don't care
about your vote and ts for the Democrats who you

(03:58):
probably would have voted for. That's like, that's the that's
the argument in public that you're talking about, that you're
saying is focus when it's really these people who are
having access issues to voting because of the laws that
the GOP is putting up, um are more likely to
vote for Democrats. So hence these are these are targeted

(04:20):
attempts to block people from voting for Democrats. Yeah, that's
that's the reality of it. Allegedly, we should say, chuck,
like there's just calling it voter suppression is kind of
controversial in and of itself. Well, yeah, no one likes
to use those words because on on the one side,
like you said, they there's like, it's not about voter suppression,

(04:42):
it's about like, you know, what's wrong with having to
have an I D to go cast a vote? Right?
I mean, on its face it makes sense. You know,
they say you have to have idea to buy alcohol.
If some clerk decides that he wants to see your
i D. You have to show it to him, or
you can't buy alcohol. What's the problem with that? You know? Well, right,
and then you go to some parts of Texas and

(05:03):
they say, well, you can use your your gun license
to vote, but don't use your student I D. That
doesn't count, right, So, like it's it's the fact that
they're all very targeted. And everyone will see as we
go through this, it's very targeted. Like and we'll we'll
bring up specific cases where you know, they find out
like oh, man, um, leading up to the election where

(05:28):
Barack Obama's first elected presidential election, Um, we saw a
surge in increase in black voters in this county. So
let's go to that county specifically and introduce some legislation
that's gonna make it harder for them to get to
the polls specifically there. Yeah, Like it's maddening. Oh it is.
It's infuriating. Even I was reading kind of the other

(05:50):
side on this by a guy named David French who
writes for the National Review, and he was saying, even
he was like, if that happens what you just described,
it should be vigorously litigated. That that that there's no
excuse for that, for anything that's that's specifically targeting like
minorities or the elderly. You're making it difficult for any

(06:12):
group that to to to like purposefully making it harder
for them to vote, and targeting people like that, then yeah,
it should be litigated and those those rules should be
thrown out. Well, and that happens. It is litigated, litigated,
and quite often reports do say like you can't do this,
and they say, all right, well, we won't do it again.
But it worked on this election right well. One of

(06:34):
the reasons why this we're currently in the midst of
a really massive wave of voter suppression laws that are
are sweeping the country right now. And one of the
reasons why it's being allowed to go on is because
just like in Citizens United Them, Roberts Supreme Court said,
you know what, things are fine, We're just going to

(06:55):
gut an important provision of the Voting Rights Act of
nineteen six five. We'll talk a little bit more about
that in a minute, but it basically said, you these states,
in these specific districts in these states have a history
of voter suppression um and we the federal government are
going to keep an eye on you. So much so

(07:16):
that you can't make any changes to your voting procedures
without the federal government approving it. And in two thousand thirteen,
I believe, the Supreme Court said, you know what, we're fine,
we're post racial being a black president. We don't need
that anymore, and they overturned that provision of the Voting
Rights Act, and it's allowed again, this, this massive wave

(07:36):
of voter suppression laws to be passed in this country. Man,
We're already riled up. It's tough. It's tough not to
be you know what. We're you gonna say, should we
take a break? No, not a break, I was gonna
say it. Should we just go back and talk about
history a little bit? Yeah, man, because the history is
much easier to stomach. Yeah right, Uh okay. So um,

(08:01):
and you you put this article together with our own
article on a bunch of other good stuff. Yes, nice work, thanks, um.
But you point out that very astutele that it's not
in the constitution the right to vote. This has been
uh left up to the states over the years. Um,
even though we've had you know, amendments since then that

(08:22):
obviously allowed certain people right to vote. It wasn't just
originally included like, hey, everyone can vote. Everyone has the
right to vote in this country, right and no. Originally
the only group that the UM that citizens of the
United States could vote for was the House of Representatives,
the Senate, and the president and the president still this
is the case. We're elected by an electoral college, right,

(08:45):
So eventually they added Senate seats for people to be
able to directly vote for. But in the first presidential
election in seventeen eighty nine, UM, the one that that
or George Washington won and was elected to the president.
See the first presidency of the United States. UM, like
six percent of the population in the US at the

(09:07):
time were eligible to vote, and that was it. Yeah,
it was only white men, uh and freed African American
slaves and just four states. I saw six, six states.
I was really surprised to see that. But yeah, who
owned property? Right, that's a big one. Right, So that
left like eight guys, right they were allowed to But yeah,

(09:29):
you had to own property, and that was the big
division at first, even apparently more so than UM by race.
It was by whether you were a landowner a property owner, right, Yeah,
and you had to be twenty one There were certain
religious restrictions too. So, like you said, that ended up
six percent, six percent of the population could vote. That's
I mean, I'm gonna cut him a little slack on

(09:50):
the first election. Say, they were trying to get it together,
but six percent is an alarmingly non low number. But
they probably thought that was the six percent of people
that mattered, right, And I guess it's it's it's more
inclusive than the one percent, but it's still pretty pretty low.
We're in the single digits here, you know. Uh, But
like you were saying, it's um a class distinctions. Distinction

(10:13):
was really kind of the biggest deal. Uh. And that
changed a bit when war veterans who fought for independence
from Britain stepped up and said, hey, a lot of
us are not landowners and we helped free this country. Um,
can can we vote? And little by little states said,
all right, you know you don't have to own property. Um,

(10:36):
it's eighteen fifty. And let's just say all white males
can vote in some African American males, but definitely not
women right now yet, just give us another seven decades
or so. Okay, we're just trying to keep our heads
from spinning. Overlighting people who don't own property vote exactly.
So the in that bizarre Did you know that the

(10:57):
first group to agitate for for voting rights was white
men who did known land or veterans. I didn't know
that either. So, Um, something really big happened in the
middle of the nineteenth century that changed things as far
as voting went. And that was the Civil War and
the Thirteenth Amendment that and in slavery, followed by the

(11:18):
fifteenth Amendment that granted suffrage to all men in the
United States. Yeah, regardless of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude. But again and some women. Right, And it
should have said dot dot dot supposedly because that fifteenth
Amendment is what unleashed sort of the first uh Like,

(11:40):
like before there was just voter suppression. They were like, no,
you just can't vote. And now they said, uh, well
you can vote, And so they had to be creative
with their voter suppression, right. And at first there was
a period of reconstruction in the in the South after
the Civil War where the federal troops they I guess

(12:03):
it was led still by General Ulysses Grant if he
wasn't president by now, um, where the federal troops were
occupying the South under martial law, right, and they were
enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment and um other laws that had
come into effect after the Civil War, and it was
like black people could hold office, they could vote, they

(12:26):
could live in this transition period from slavery into freedom,
and they were doing it under the auspices of the
Union Army. Um. But then the Union Army withdrew pretty prematurely,
I think of the eighteen seventies early eighteen seventies, and
it went from the Reconstruction South with which ended up

(12:47):
lasting just a few years, to what became known as
the Jim Crow South, which was basically slavery by any
other name than slavery. Yeah, that's when the Dixiecrats, which
were conservative Democrats, uh, I guess conservatives of the day,
that's when they started to get creative and said, all right, well,
we have this new fifteenth Amendment, so let's try and

(13:09):
think of a lot of ways even though the law
says that black men can vote, that we can keep
them from doing so. Um. So how about a literacy test, um,
and not only just a literacy test, but maybe one
only in English. So that way there's no way an
immigrant can vote if they can't read English, or maybe
some poll taxes where you have to pay like like

(13:31):
a dollar to register to vote. But but in like
two thousand and sixteen money that was like eight hundred dollars.
Actually looked it up, it's uh nine thou dollars. In
the in the early nineteen hundreds, I looked up like
Texas it was a dollar fifty to register and that
would be like forty three dollars today. Yeah, but you know,
for a poor person who you know is maybe waffling

(13:55):
on whether or not to bother voting, charging them forty
three dollars is probably gonna sel a deal. And George
actually had a cumulative tax apparently for many years where
every year, uh like if you were forty years old, um,
every year from the age of twenty one that you
weren't registered to vote, you would have to pay per
year when you first registered to vote. Oh wow, So

(14:18):
that was clearly targeting like a freed slave in his
fifties would then have to pay a cumulative tax from
the age from one up to fifty and you know,
and again that just basically meant no one was going
to register. Well, there are a lot of grandfather claus
laws to which basically said that if you were registered
to vote prior to the fifteenth Amendment or your grandfather

(14:42):
was registered to vote prior to the fift Amendment, Um,
you you were eligible now under these Jim Crow laws.
But most black people in the South were not registered
to vote, nor were their grandparents prior to the fifteenth Amendment,
so that basically just stripped them of their voting rights
on aromatically as well. And you mentioned the literacy test

(15:03):
to Chuck. Did you look into those at all? Uh? Yeah,
I mean some of them somewhere like like recite the
U s Constitution, some of them somewhere like that twenty
twenty pages long. And they would be administered by white
Democrats and again Democrats at the time where the Party
of Conservatives, Um, the I I we should do an

(15:25):
episode on that. And when the parties switched names, We've
chatted about that. So, um, it would be left up
to this poll worker who was administering the literacy literacy test,
It would be left up to their judgment whether the
person passed or failed. Yeah, like it like it was
up to them. It wasn't an objective test. That was

(15:45):
a subjective test. Yeah, and so the the end result
of this is in nineteen forty, nineteen forty, not eighteen forty. Uh.
These suppression campaigns worked so well that only three percent
of eligible voters African American Southerners were registered to vote
by nineteen forty. And you know, it's probably one of
the worst parts about that is that I'll bet in

(16:08):
nineteen forty that the average white person considered black people
politically disengaged in this country because of statistics like that,
Oh right to say, like, oh, they don't even vote, Yeah,
they don't even care about politics, and three percent of
them are are registered to vote even you know. Yeah,
And this wasn't limited to the South, kind of up
north and nationwide there were things going on. Notably, there

(16:32):
was a h for naturalized citizens. It was very long
residency requirements, UM, basically to try and keep uh immigrants
from voting for a long time, especially the Chinese. Apparently
do you know that I did not. There's a an
eighteen eighty two law it's pretty on the nose, the

(16:53):
Chinese Exclusion Act, and it said if you're Chinese and
you're an immigrant, you're not allowed to become a citizen,
which meant they couldn't vote. And this was on the
books in the United States until nineteen forty three. Yeah,
this stuff isn't ancient history. That that's why it's so shocking,
you know. Uh. So nineteen twenty comes along and um,
women were finally given the right to vote thanks to

(17:16):
the nineteenth Amendment. Uh and you mentioned the Voting Rights
Act of nineteen sixty five, which finally got rid of
the Jim Crow voting laws officially in the South. Um,
but that didn't mean that suppression intimidation didn't still go on. No.
You know, like whenever the federal government decided that it

(17:39):
needed to lend a hand and assist, um, the black
population of the Southern States in gaining their citizenship, that
there would be a huge backlash to that. And um,
initially it meant the formation of the clan, and then
after the Civil Rights Act, the clan again experience. It's

(18:00):
this huge resurgence and popularity and membership and acts of
white terrorism just became the norm. And now that we're
looking back on it, you know, we think of like
the Civil Rights movement. When I think of that, I
don't think of it as actually agitating four civil rights.
I think of it as agitating for full citizenship and
equal treatment under the law and everything that makes up

(18:22):
civil rights. But you don't think of it as like,
really at the basis what the civil rights leaders were
agitating for, where things like protection of their voting rights,
access to to the polls just as any white person
would enjoy. And that march, that very famous march from
Selma to Montgomery. Um, did you see that movie Selma?

(18:43):
That one. It's a great movie. Have you seen either thirteen? No, No,
I'm dying to see that one too, Dude, that one.
That's amazing. It's just it's just amazing. It's really well done,
and the stuff they're talking about is just so eye opening.
It's it's great. Like it's one of those one Joe
watch more than once, I'm sure. But that march from

(19:03):
Selma to Montgomery was a march for voting rights, and
it actually helped usher in this Voting Rights Act of
nineteen sixty five because, um, the the Alabama State Patrol
I believe, I'm like horseback with batons and whips and
um uh, night sticks and tear gas just ruthlessly beat

(19:28):
these unarmed, peaceful protesters in the street of Selma, and
it was all captured on on national television and broadcasts,
and it really changed the mood of the nation as
far as that goes. And it actually was supremely counterproductive
to people who were against black voting because it helped
protect black vote um by by the federal government through

(19:52):
the Voting Rights Act of nineteen Yeah. Another thing that
came with that act was an official ban on any
uh quote test or device end quote uh to qualify
voters on the basis of literacy, education or fluency in English. Uh.
And then it took all the way until nineteen sixty
six until poll taxes were banned, um, which was kind

(20:13):
of way later than I thought. It was like the
next year. Well no, I mean just period. Oh yeah. No,
those Jim Crow laws were basically done away with after
a century. Yeah, as they were around for a century
in one form or another. Unbelievable yeah uh. And then
finally during Vietnam they finally lowered the age voting age

(20:36):
to eighteen and nineteen seventy one post Vietnam because veterans
were like, Hey, I can be drafted and shot and
killed for my country, but I can't vote. Uh, and
they all went, uh, yeah, it's a good point. It
is a good point to argue that, uh you want
to take a break. Yeah, man, all right, we'll be
right back and talk about the eleven voter suppression techniques.

(21:00):
Sk alright, Uh, we're back and um before actually we

(21:23):
move on to some of these eleven techniques. UM, my
question for you, sir, the basis of all this is
voter fraud. Is what the argument is for for a
lot of these, especially with I D SO, is that, like,
is voter fraud real? So? Um, I mean everything I

(21:44):
came across that I that strikes me as legitimate, although
I'm not sure how um legitimate, like say a conservative
might find it, but like the Brookings Institution, to me,
it's definitely left leaning. But I would also say that
it's quite a legitimate think tank. Um, but the studies
that I've come across all say, no, it's not really

(22:07):
a thing like the It's it's basically a specter. It's
a potential possibility, but it's in actuality, it's not a thing.
And one thing I saw was that, um, this came
I'm not sure where this one came from, but eighty
six convictions three hundred million votes cast in the last

(22:27):
few elections. I would say that's probably about ten to
twelve elections. There's only been eighty six convictions for voter fraud.
And the other issue with this, specifically specifically with voter
I D laws is that most of those cases of
fraud where people have actually been convicted of voter fraud
were mail in ballots, and so like a voter I

(22:49):
D card is not going to do anything for that
because you don't you don't produce I D to mail
in a ballot. So the idea that there is a
big problem with voter fraud is um ostensibly not real,
although of course Trump is going to um he's he's
carrying out an investigation and he's formed a commission, so

(23:12):
I'm very curious to find out what they find. But um,
even if it were a real thing, from the the
pattern that we're seeing, the voter ide laws aren't going
to help anything anyway. So far as it actually makes
a difference in an election outcome, it is negligible. No,

(23:32):
And I have to say there are really It's not
like the people who who are who say, especially rank
and file GOP members, right, not necessarily like high elected officials,
but just like the average GOP party member. It's not
like they're lunatics for believing that there's such a thing
as widespread voter fraud, right, Like, this is a big

(23:56):
drum that's beat on the conservatives side and in conservative media,
But there's also like UM instances in the past that
can be pointed to saying like see, see this is
what they do. UM like Acorn definitely didn't help anything.
Acorn was a community organizing UM group that had been

(24:17):
around since I think the eighties, and they were dedicated
to getting UM lower income minority people who traditionally had
trouble accessing UM the polls or voting, getting them registered
and getting them to vote right. So they were very
much aligned with the Democratic viewpoints of universal access, universal

(24:39):
participation in elections and UM. They were very much a
left leaning organization. They were associated with Obama very famously
and then equally famously, they were this disgraced organization because
they were accused of voter fraud, a voter registration fraud
to be specific. And the way that this happened was
they would send out people a canvass neghborhoods and they

(25:00):
would give them a quota and if they met their quota,
then they would say get paid a bonus or something
like that. Right, So these Acorn workers were given and
these were just the same people who were also maybe
on the next Tuesday coming by your house to see
if you wanted to donate to the Sierra Club to
write um. They they were given an incentive to create

(25:21):
fake registrations and a lot of them did they. And
when these investigations were launched in multiple states into acorn
um and voter registration fraud, it was found that these
people weren't trying to pave the way for fraud at
the polls, but that they were creating fake registration forms,
very frequently duplicate registration forms for the same person to

(25:45):
get paid for work they hadn't done to get paid
from Acorn. And that was the extent of it. So
Acorn ended up disbanding, but they left a huge, huge
blemish on the argument from the the the liberal side
saying we don't engage in voter fraud? What are you
crazy for even thinking that? Now? Forever conservatives, especially people

(26:07):
who aren't who are you know, let's just say conservatives.
I can point to acorn for the rest of the time,
the rest of the time, and be like, look, you
guys did that. So, yes, there is such thing as
voter fraud in my mind, and you can't persuade me otherwise.
And as long as there's that kind of division, uh,
there's you're not going to be able to persuade anybody

(26:29):
if there's no such thing as voter fraud. That's a
good point. Um, all right, should we talk about the
eleven techniques? I'm pretty tired, man, I don't know. Yes,
all right. Number one, number one on our list voter caging. Um,
who was that? Was that your carson? Oh? No, sort

(26:51):
of a casey case of me. That was pretty good.
Did you ever hear that great outtake when he had
to read the letter? Pretty wonderful that that taught me
to just shut up when a mic time? Was it dead? Dog?
Was that it specifically? But it was? It was a
pretty funny out take, man, God bless him, alright. Voter

(27:15):
caging is when uh you send mail uh un unforwordable
forwardable M. That's really a mouthful mail which cannot be forwarded. Um.
Uh send that mail to an address uh that is
on the voter rolls UH. And then and when it's

(27:38):
not uh, when it's returned undelivered. Basically they challenge and say,
this person no longer lives at this address, so they
can't vote, right, which in and of itself is not scientific,
it's not illegal. It's when you target say Democrats, UM,

(27:59):
I think SpeI typically minorities, it becomes illegal. You're you're, you're,
you can't target any minority group. UM. But I believe
you can target the opponents party like registered party members.
But the whole point is is you're saying this person
doesn't lived there or else they would have gotten their mail,
and because they don't live there, their their vote can't count.
They should be purged from the rolls. Right. Very famously

(28:22):
happened in ninety eight when this literature was sent to
eighteen thousand registered Democrats UH, and then again in nine
one when UM Republicans sent thousands of letters to UH minorities,
blacks and Latinos in New Jersey and UH. That one
actually calls such a stir that the the r n

(28:43):
C got together with the d n C and said,
you know what, I'm gonna consent here, UH with a
consent decree and we're not gonna do it anymore. Right,
they didn't just do that the goodness of their hearts.
The d n C sued the r n C for
that night one an election because there was a lot
of dirty stuff. And to this day, the r n

(29:05):
C if it does any if it undertakes any um
uh voters suppression techniques, wants to create any changes in
in voting regularity. Um, it has to get approval by
the courts first, correct, But that doesn't stop it from
happening because now it's just, uh, the third party groups

(29:26):
can do it now because they're not part of the
r n C officially or the d n C, and
so it still happens. Yeah, what about these flyers, these
so these kind of fall into uh larger category of
misinformation campaigns. Right, you got flyers, you got robo calls. Um,

(29:46):
these are just so brazen. They really are, like literally
robo calls that say, hey, you your Democratic Canada has
basically already won, so you just stay at home and
relax tomorrow. Yeah, don't forget to vote on November five,
Latino voter, even though election days November four. Yeah, it's

(30:08):
so And you know, I was about to say how
did they get away with it? But it says right
in here, uh who is it? The co director of
the voting rights group Advancement Project says, basically, you know
they're usually anonymous, So like, how do you how do
you go after someone? You wait around at mailboxes? You
could arrest the mail carrier. I guess, oh did you

(30:28):
think about that? I was thinking that they were just
dropped in the mailboxes, but I guess they are mail
These guys at these like handlebar mustaches and like black capes,
come in hand deliver these things. So basically there's no
way to trace this stuff. Um So, as a as
a minority in a in a minority neighborhood, you might
get a flyer and a robo call saying a wrong

(30:52):
date like you said, or don't bother your candidates one,
or you know, mail mail your absentee votes to this address,
which is incorrect. Yeah, and this is like really really
underhanded stuff, super illegal stuff. But again you can't unless
you can trace it back to somebody who specifically and

(31:13):
purposefully carried out this this campaign. That what you can't
do anything about it except go public and say no, no, no,
don't listen to that Yeah, well, because what happens is
you get a Hispanic voter on the nightly news. It
says I got a call that said I could vote
my phone, and half the people watching that probably think

(31:34):
while like this guy probably didn't even understand that phone call.
So it's choked off as that when in fact he
really did get a phone call saying he could vote
by phone. Yeah. Well, yeah, that happened in Nevada in
two thousand and eight. I think that it. Um sorry Nevada.
It'll always be Nevada to me. I'm sorry Nevada. I

(31:55):
know it tries you guys at poop, but it's true. Nevada, Nevada.
What else, Chuck, This is a big one. I got one.
You're ready, Uh, felony disenfranchise mare fellon disenfranchisement. Yeah, so
there used to be apparently the Greeks are the ones

(32:16):
who came up with this, but it was really codified
in in the West through medieval Europe, where if you
were a convicted bad guy, you would would undergo what
was called a civil death right. Um, yes, so much so, Chuck,

(32:38):
that you could be murdered by another person and you
were no longer protected by the law, so the other
person would get away with its scott free right. One
of the things that you lost was any kind of
representation you might have or being able to participate in
any kind of community processes. Right that carried over to
the United States, but it really started to gain ground

(33:02):
over the UM right after reconstruction, during the beginning of
the Jim Crow period, where UM a lot of state
legislatures enshrined in their state constitutions that if you were
convicted of a felony, you lost your voting rights, and
in some cases you lost them forever. You had to
appeal to the governor to restore them. Some states said

(33:25):
you lost them while you're in prison. Other states said
you lost them after, say, if you were paroled, UM,
whenever your sentence was fully finished. But to some degree, UH,
felons lost their right to vote, and it's stuck around. Yeah,
you know, I got the current stats here. There are
only two states right now that allow an incarcerated felon

(33:48):
to vote. Do you know what those are? One is Vermont?
Uh is the other I honestly in New Hampshire, But
I don't know that that would be an obvious guess.
But Maine m hm so close, crazy manners. It's that
Canada rubbing off on UH. Voting rights restored automatically upon

(34:09):
release d C Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire,
North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah from the
rights restored automatically once released from prison and discharged from parole.
Probationers can vote California, Colorado, Connecticut, New York restored automatically

(34:31):
upon completion of sentence, including prison, parole and probation. In UH,
A bunch of other ones. How about this everyone, But
these last two voting rights restored dependent on type of
conviction or outcome of petition to the government Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, Wyoming,

(34:53):
and only restored through individual petition to the government Florida, Iowa, Kentucky,
and Virginia. Right. So the ones that you did not hear,
we're upon completion, including prison, parole, probation. So people might say,
don't don't do the crime. Right, So if you if
you like, On the one hand, it makes sense like

(35:17):
you've given up some sort of civil liberties because you
you did commit some horrible, heinous crime. Other people say, okay, well,
then maybe once you've done your time, you should get
your your rights back. The problem is in the United
States there is um a real racial disparity between people
who are convicted of felonies who are black, and everybody else. Right. Yes,

(35:42):
so overall seven points seven percent of the United States
African American population as a whole, it does not have
the right to vote because of a felony conviction. For
the rest of the United States overall, just one point
eight percent, that's including all every other race. Right, So

(36:04):
there's out of the gates. There's disproportionately more convicted felons
among the African American population in the United States than
everybody else. Right. But then when you start boiling that
down to voting rights on a state level, it becomes
painfully clear that this certainly seems strategically targeted. These these laws.

(36:26):
In Florida, one in four of Florida's black residents in
two thousand and sixteen couldn't cast a ballot because they
were disenfranchised for being felons, and four Florida was one
of the ones that uh one of the four states
where you had to have an individual petition approved by
the government. Right, So one quarter and that's not saying

(36:49):
one quarter of the the voting population of African Americans
in Florida. That's that's the whole population, right. Um, and
the African Americans have traditionally voted Democrat. Any law that says,
now you're a felon you can't vote, you can just

(37:09):
leave it at that and make your own your own
surmises about it. Surmises it's a word. Now, surmations, Sir Masons.
That's what I was looking for. Uh. Voter i D laws,
that's sort of a obviously a big one because it's
probably when you hear most about in the news. Um.

(37:30):
As of this year, thirty two states have laws requiring
or requesting idea when voting. West Virginia's coming and um,
so that would make thirty three states. Uh. And we
mentioned Texas earlier. That's one of the states where they
say like, oh, well, um, you can use your gun permit,

(37:51):
but you can't use your college student i D even
though the state has issued both of those. Right, Because
if you're a student, you're possibly more likely to vote Democrat.
If you are a gun owner, you're probably more likely
to vote GOP. Right. And if you're talking nationally, eleven
percent of Americans don't have current state issued photo I D. S. Um,

(38:14):
there's a lot of reasons why. Uh, maybe you're elderly
or disabled or both and you can't drive, so ay,
you don't need a driver's license. B you have a
hard time getting to the DMV just to get an
I D like a non driving I D state issued
I D um to vote. And once again, historically, uh,

(38:38):
these people might be more apt to vote Democrats. So
it's um, it's hard to not look at it along
those lines, right, And a lot of people say, well,
there was this this commission back in I think two
thousand five American university spots or to bipartisan commission to
look into voter i D laws, right, whether they suppressed voting,

(38:59):
whether they would prove fraud. And it was led by
former Reagan Chief of Staff James Baker and former President
Jimmy Carter, Right, two opposite sides of the coin. Yeah,
but two statesmen, you could make the case. So um.
So what they found is that both groups concerns were valid. Yes,
voter I D could prevent voter fraud. Yes, voter ID

(39:22):
laws would suppress voting. So they suggested the government, minorities, minorities, women,
the elderly, and the disabled are the ones who are
most likely to be affected by voter I D laws. Right, yes, sorry,
the the elderly, the poor, women, the disabled, and minorities.

(39:45):
All five of those groups tend to vote Democrat two.
So voter I D laws UM could be enacted to
prevent fraud, said this commission. But if you're going to
do that, you need to basically give out I D
s and you have to make access to these I
D s UM extremely easy. And so Texas, who has

(40:07):
a very strict ide law, you have to show a
photo ID to vote UM and only specific ones said okay,
well then we'll we'll undertake this. We'll give away free
I D s. But UM, you got to produce some
documents to get the I D. So, for example, you
might need to produce a birth certificate. If you don't
have your birth certificate, you have to go get a

(40:27):
copy of it. And if you were born before nineteen fifty,
then you have to go to wherever count whatever county
you were born in because they're not computerized records. You
have to go to the county clerk's office, get it,
pay forty two dollars for the copy, and then come
back and get your I D. And hopefully you also
remember the other two pieces of documentation that you have
to bring with you to get this free I D.

(40:50):
And this investigation, actually think it was a court case
found that in the fifteen months leading up to the
mid term elections, Texas is Free Vote your I D
registration drive managed to issue just two D and nine
I D s for the entire state over a fifteen
month period. Well, and this whole thing with you have

(41:10):
to go to the county where you were born, if
you're basically elderly, right like you're driven across Texas. Well, Plus,
if you're poor, remember that poll tax. You you calculated
the dollar fifty poll tax in Texas, who came out
to be about forty something dollars. Well, it costs forty
two dollars to get a copy of your birth certificate
to get that free I D. Some people say that's

(41:31):
a modern poll tax. Almost down to the penny, it's
a modern poll tax. If you're poor, if you're broke,
if you have trouble making ends, meet forty two bucks
is a lot. Yeah, And if you're on the fence
about voting, like you really want to vote, and that's
if you can get there to begin with. Right. So,

(41:51):
but I live in San Antonio, right, and I don't
have a car. So all of these things like these
are to to a person who believes, if you really
want to vote, you're gonna you're gonna make it through
hell and high water to vote. All of these excuses
that we've just thrown out are just falling on deaf ears. Right,

(42:12):
But if you really step back and put it into
context and really think about it from a realistic point
of view, like these are hardships. This is tough stuff.
And if you're if you're a voter and you really
want to vote, um, it could dissuade the average person
from doing that. And from from everything I've read, it
is really easy to overlook how difficult it can be

(42:33):
to get an I D. For people who who already
have an idea and use them every day and have
probably had one ever since their parents took them to
the d m V when they were sixteen to get
their first driver's license, it's really easy to act like
it's not a big thing to get an I D.
When in reality, the the poorer, the more disabled um
and and the more minority you are, the harder it

(42:57):
actually is. There was a study ineen by Rice University,
and not to pick on Texas, but this, you know,
it's Rice University. I think Texas brought this on themselves
at the University of Houston UH, Texas is twenty three
congressional district found that twelve point eight percent of registered

(43:17):
voters who didn't vote cited lack of required photo I D.
So almost didn't vote, and they said this because I
don't I don't have the proper identification. And only three
two point seven percent of those people actually didn't have
the right identification, So a full ten percent had the
right I D and didn't vote because they didn't think

(43:38):
they did, which and you know what, we'll take a
break and talk about it after this. But the reason
that's not happening is because of things like billboards and
poll watchers and other intimidation techniques. So we'll talk about
that right after this. A SKS puffy shouldn't all right,

(44:16):
So I set that up with the study from Rice
University cent in the twenty three congressional district in Texas
did not vote because they didn't think they had their
right I D even though ten percent of that thirteen
percent did have the right I D and just didn't
vote because they were I don't know, misinformed by a
billboard and scared to go to a polling place. Yeah,

(44:39):
has that ever happened? Sure, it's happened. There's been plenty
of billboards that have like UM prison bars or something
on them. It says like voter fraud as a felony.
And apparently these billboards that are sponsored by dark money
groups that have no direct ties to say like the
GOP or the campaigns of a candidate. UM are they

(45:00):
sprout up. They tend to sprout up in UM poor neighborhoods,
minority neighborhoods, UM neighborhoods that are more likely to be
intimidated by billboards like that, rather than just laugh at
them and flip them off. UM. Well, it's apparently the
jury is out on whether they have an effect or not,
but it is and it's intended to be voter intimidation. Yeah.

(45:22):
They use threatening language. Uh, like you said, like someone
behind bars and all of a sudden, let's say you're
a newly naturalized citizen, or you are a felon that's
now out and cleared your parole and everything, and you
see those bars and you're like, well, I'm not gonna
take a chance and going to vote because I might

(45:43):
be locked up. And again the disingenuous argument number eight
thousand ninety two is well, if you're not a criminal,
you've got nothing to worry about, which just completely disregards
the psychological impact that something like bars and crime and
fellon have on a person seeing a billboard that's shouting

(46:03):
that at them. Uh, if you actually are you know,
fight your way through that and say, you know what,
I'm gonna vote anyway. I'm not scared of the billboard.
And you might show up to your polling place to
find what's known as a poll watcher, who are there
to scout out uh, potential voter fraud. Uh what has

(46:25):
generally in many cases amounted to intimidation squads kind of
right there at the front door. Yeah. Do you remember, um,
I said that the RNC got in a lot of
trouble for the election for a bunch of stuff. Yeah,
this is another one one of the things that they
had in this night. One I believe. New Jersey election

(46:46):
was called the National Ballot Security Task Force, and it
was basically off duty cops wearing guns, wearing blue arm bands,
patrolling polling stations who were basically ostensibly looking for voter fraud.
But they the court sided with the d n c's

(47:07):
contention that they were meant to intimidate voters who were
likely to vote for Democrats just because they were there
with guns. Yeah, Like, you don't want some dude just
walking around like looking at you, watching you, you know,
what are you doing here? Kind of thing? Like, No,
that's not it's not what. The polling station doesn't belong
to one group. It belongs to everybody, and no one

(47:30):
should be made to feel like they're a threat or
they are not welcome at this polling station. It's not
that guy's polling station doesn't have any right to walk
up and down with the gun intimidating people. What a
despicable thing to do with your time. Yeah, I mean,
how about this. The U the Conservative group True the Vote,

(47:50):
their national elections coordinator was he was, you know, talking
about poll watchers. He said that he wanted voters to
quote feel like they are driving and seeing the police
following them. Yes, that's not It's not how you're supposed
to feel when you go vote at the polling presect
that's at Yeah, he wanted them to feel scared. And

(48:12):
that was one that was from the two thousand and
sixteen election. So, um, it's not. It hasn't just been say,
GOP leaning voters who have done pole watching there. But
there was a very famous case in the two thousand
and eight election in Philadelphia where the new Black Panther

(48:33):
Party for Self Defense, which, as we pointed out in
our Black Panther episode, is not affiliated with the Black Panthers.
They're kind of like this new offshoot group that that
took over the name. Um. I think they were arrested
for voter intimidation for basically doing the same thing but
with the police baton rather than say a gun. Um. Yeah,

(48:55):
I don't care who you are, what side you're on,
don't intimidate voters at the polls. I don't know if
I could if I said that clearly enough. Yet that's
a disgusting thing to do. Josh is gonna come after you? Yeah,
I'm watching you. Uh. Early voting is um is one
thing that that you say and you're writing here that

(49:19):
I agree with that, Like, who could argue with early
voting because it works. People love it, voters like it,
elected officials like it. It's been a really big success
in the states that that do it, like a lot
of almost a third of this past election people early
voted me included, right. UM, So like everyone should love this,

(49:41):
right sure, yeah, And it really really works. It gets
voter participation up. And like you said, the lines are
not long. There's not like long waits on election day. UM.
And Yet despite that, despite everybody basically loving early voting,
there have been cutbacks since UM two thousand eleven in

(50:01):
eight states. Rather than this decades long trend which had
been leading up to you know, the I think two
thousand eight election, which is when it really came on. UM,
there's been cutbacks rather than continuing forward with getting early
voting out there. UM. And these eight states UM are
except for West Virginia, GOP governored states. UM. And the

(50:26):
reason why people who are critics of these laws UM
or changes to the rules point out the reason why
that these are being done is because in the two
thousand eight election, this early voting was used by far
and away more by African American voters who voted for
Obama and the Democrats than white voters and specifically white

(50:49):
GOP voters. Right, something like se of early of African
Americans in the two thousand eight election voted early compared
to like fifty percent of white voters in the two
thousand and eight election. I'm not sure what the breakdown
was for Democrat to GOP, but I'm quite sure it
was lopsided in favor of the Democrats. And that right,

(51:11):
So that happened, and then all of a sudden, the
midterm elections of two thousand ten were just a blood
bath for the Democrats and swept gop UM governors and
legislatures into power. And as a result, UM early voting
was cut back under new laws that were introduced in

(51:31):
these new sessions. Yeah, and Sunday voting was a big
deal to UM. Historic Black churches have had a big
a great success story and organizing. Uh this campaign called
Souls to the Polls where they would get their church
members to the polling stations on Sundays to vote. It's
been a big success. And so what happens when there's

(51:52):
a big success for a minority group organizing and getting registered.
As states pushed back. Ohio and Florida specifically banned voting
on Sunday, Uh, the Sunday before the election. Sorry, uh,
not just any Sunday. Uh. And that's when these the
black churches had organized to vote for the souls to
the polls campaign. Uh. And it made a big deal. Um.

(52:12):
And more than eighteen percent of Floridians who voted on
the last Sunday of early voting in two thousand eight
uh did not vote at all in two thousand twelve
because well maybe not just because they weren't allowed to vote,
but that was that right was taken away from them,
And so eighteen percent didn't vote in So you do

(52:33):
the math, yeah, yeah, And I mean that's that's a
significant amount of voters in Florida alone. And again it's
it's targeted like that. They do the research and they
find out the data on where these votes coming from,
when are they being cast, who is casting them? And

(52:53):
now let's put in as many laws, let's been the
law however we can to try and keep those people
from voting. Yeah, Like there have been there was who
was a guy, there was a legislator in Pennsylvania that
was that bragged during the Romney election, like, hey, our
voter suppression techniques are going to give this to Romney. Right,

(53:16):
there's a legislator. Yeah that's true. So um, you know
it's funny to some people listening right now, we sound paranoid.
So early voting is suppressed, and as a result, it
can it can lead to voter suppression as well. Right,
you've you've also got UM voter registration. We already talked

(53:38):
about acorn registering people, but typically UM voter registration drives,
like the soul of the polls campaign UM have an
effect on Democrats votes, so curtailing those can lead to
UM can lead to a suppression of votes for among

(54:00):
Democratic voters. Right, Yes, and we've been picking on the
GOP basically this whole time. Dude. I went all over
looking for instances of Democrats doing robo calls and using
intimidating billboards UM, and I didn't find it. They're just
not out there. If they specifically robo calls Senate, deliver

(54:20):
misinformation right or send out deliberately misinforming flyers UM or
supporting laws that and early voting, I didn't find it anywhere.
This all seems to be at least in this current
incarnation GOP lead wave of voter suppression laws. Right, there
is one type of voter suppression that Democrats do favor though,

(54:45):
basically across the board and around the country, and it's
called off cycle, off cycle election scheduling. Yeah, that's when, Um,
if you may notice that they'll they'll be an election
and you're like, what, there's an election coming up, Well,
why haven't I heard any about it? It's because it
might be for the city council or the local you know,
it's it's very much local, locally based, and Democrats, Um,

(55:11):
they know that those are not very heavily voted. You know,
it's very low voter turnout for that. So if it's
a referendum on like something that has to deal with
the teachers or specific union or something, they know about
it and they're really going to turn out to vote
and basically have that one in the bag. Right, And
and teachers unions and city workers unions and basically any

(55:35):
unions typically are democratic leaning, right Democrat leaning, So um,
through this off cycle election scheduling, by cutting down on
voter participation, they're increasing the impact that these Democrat leaning
groups have on that vote, right, Well, yeah, because everyone
wants a consolidated elections like you pull people, you pull people,

(55:59):
and like every will say, you know it kind of
really rather justus vote on everything all at once. Right.
But um, this, this idea of controlling local elections, especially
local school boards, UM leads to accusations of controlling developing
minds of America's children. There, so Republicans have taken notice

(56:20):
of the strategy and UM this this is from this
great article from Eaton Hirsch from five thirty eight, and
he talks about a political scientist named Sarah Anzia who UM,
who was studying this, and she found that between two
thousand one and two thousand eleven, UH, over two hundred

(56:41):
bills aimed at consolidating elections getting rid of off cycle
elections UM were floated across the country. Half of them
specifically on focused on moving school board election dates, but
only twenty five became law. Most of the time the
bills were sponsored by Republicans and killed by Democrats Democratic pushes.

(57:02):
So there is definitely voter suppression techniques. And apparently the
Democrats will say, well, you know what, people who aren't
that informed, uh aren't going to turn out for these
off cycle elections anyway, that's good. And people say, wait
a bit, Wait a minute, that's the same criticism for
the same justification that the GOP uses to justify their
voter suppression techniques, and you're using it for yourself. So

(57:26):
you know that really sucks when people do that. Yeah,
what is that called hypocrisy? I think that's the word. Uh.
So you know this, this is all still happening. Um.
I mean a lot of these examples are kind of
throughout history. Um, but this is still going on, and
especially after the two thousand election, uh and this most

(57:49):
recent one. It's it's pretty clear that like a few
thousand votes can swing and swinging election, and so this
stuff matters. Yeah, to fight it and whoever is trying
to suppress votes, it can make a difference, right, and
so specifically, um, well there's this one study that found

(58:11):
after that huge surge. So you remember after the fifteenth
Amendment was passed, where um, I remember, so the the
the black population of men at least suddenly had the
right to vote. It threatened the status quo. So the
status quo the establishment went to come up with new

(58:32):
loopholes and issues to to to to make barriers to voting.
Right after the two thousand and eight election, there was
a huge surge in African American voting threatened the status quo.
So the establishment came up with new loopholes right um
and the there was a study from the University of
Massachusetts should be totally disregarded because that's an elite academic

(58:55):
education and therefore liars um. But they did a study
the at um the more states saw increases of minority
and low income voter turnout, the more likely it was
to have laws floated that pushed back on voting rights,
that cut voting rights. During this two thousand thirteen study,

(59:16):
and apparently there's this wave of UM voter i D
laws specifically that just hit the country after the two
thousand ten elections, those two thousand ten blood bats um
there the country was suddenly just flooded with state and
local bills that sought to require voter I D right

(59:37):
And it came out of nowhere, seemingly. Somebody, this group
called News twenty ones like journalism Students, who did an
investigation under the auspices of the Carnegie Night Journalism Foundation.
They trace this back to ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Counsel,
and they deserve a podcast themselves for sure. But basically

(59:59):
they're a group that was founded I think back in
the seventies or eighties, UM, that brings together elected officials
in the United States who pay something like a hundred
dollars and dues every two years with corporations that pay
thousands and thousands of dollars and dues every year, and
they get them together and they say, hey, what do
you what do you need to make business easier for you? Oh? Well, um,

(01:00:23):
it would be great if we could get the Democrats
to not vote quite so easily. So let's come up
with some voter I D laws. They come together, they
draft model legislation, and then the ALEC members go back
to their various state legislatures or um national legislatures and say, hey,
I've got an idea. Here's a bill, let's pass it.

(01:00:44):
And so from this two thousand nine meeting in Atlanta,
actually UM a draft voter I D legislative model was
produced and it suddenly just appeared everywhere around the country
starting in about two thousand ten. So apparently that's what's
going on right now, that that's behind this current wave

(01:01:05):
of especially voter id laws, but also voters suppression laws
that are going on, Like the the history in this
country of voter suppression is pretty shameful, but it's even
more shameful that we're doing it again, it seems. Yeah.
North Carolina is a pretty good example of recent years. UM.
They there was a law that UM led by the

(01:01:28):
GOP that did a bunch of things that eliminated same
day voter registration UH, cut a full week of early
voting UH at barred voters from casting a ballot outside
their home precinct. Uh. They said you could no longer
straight ticket vote. UH. And then they got rid of
a program that would pre register high school students who

(01:01:49):
would be UH voting age by election day. High school
students that wanted to vote UH that would preregister them
said no, too dangerous. Yeah, so uh and had one
of the most strict voter I D requirements in the country. UH.
This one actually went to court and it was struck
down UH and the judge ruled that it quote UH,

(01:02:12):
I'm sorry that UM, the intention to suppress African American
voters was quote with almost surgical precision. UH. And the
court noted that lawmakers first studied which racial demographics use
which voting methods, then moved to eliminate those favored by
black residents. So like they actually found out they did
these studies and looked at the data and said, all right,

(01:02:34):
this is how black people are voting in North Carolina,
so let's let's try and make that much more difficult
for them to do. So. I think the judge that
overruled they're struck down that those that basket of laws
also said that it read like it was written in
one Yeah. So North Carolina got pantst in front of
everybody because I guess they were too aggressive. But plenty

(01:02:55):
plenty of other states or able to pass new laws
of very strictness. Um, as far as voting suppression goes. Uh,
since the since two thousand eleven, North Carolina just got
pants this week for the racial jerrymandering. Yeah, jerrymandering is
another episode we need to do to So. Um, what

(01:03:17):
the whole thing comes down to, I think we said
earlier to Chuck is with these laws, right, there's there's
kind of a litmus test that's emerged. Are are the
results of these laws more likely to be to to
prevent voter fraud or to suppress votes. And ironically, it

(01:03:38):
seems like it's going to be Donald Trump's commission that
that could conceivably put an end to this debate with
what they find with the with the voter fraud investigation,
which seriously, I cannot tell you how interested I am
in finding out what they find and hearing all the
grizzly details from it. You think it will be on

(01:03:59):
the on the up and up. I don't know, But
I don't know. If it's not there, we'll hear all
about it. I can tell you that, Yeah, I don't know, man,
I'm just I'm very curious to see what they what
they find, or even if it just falls away. I
think the worst thing for this would be if it's

(01:04:20):
just allowed to just just fall to the wayside, because
I mean, if we can get it out in the
open and discussed and investigated and all that kind of stuff,
I mean, who knows, maybe they maybe they did. What
if they legitimately found that massive voter frow was a
huge problem, well then sure maybe we should have voter
id laws. Who knows. But if they find that that's
not the case, then we can say, all right, this

(01:04:43):
law is going to suppress votes. There's no such thing
as massive voter fraud, so this law should be struck down.
Just let people vote. Yeah, you know, are like, who
who is one person to say, you know that they're
not as up on politics and they don't they don't
really take the time, so they shouldn't be allowed to vote.

(01:05:03):
I mean that is so anti American. You have to
be an elitist to think like that. Like, that's an
elitist thinking, we're regardless of what your party affiliation is.
You got anything else? No, Well, this is probably the
last one we'll ever be allowed to record. So it's
been nice, Chuck, I've enjoyed working with you. Been nice, Jerry. Uh.

(01:05:26):
If you want to know more about voter suppression laws,
you can type those words in the search bar how
stuff works dot com. Uh. And since I said voters suppression,
it's time for a listener mail. Uh. Yeah. And you
know what before I do listener mail for two listeners
who are upset at us right now, like send us
in a a thoughtful, researched email of refutation. You know

(01:05:53):
that's what I want to see, Yeah, because I'd like
to think, like, give me some proof of stuff. Yeah,
all right, I'm gonna call this fan theory. Oh this
is a good one that you picked out, Josh. I
really enjoyed your show. Guys on the crazy fan theories,
thought of share one and came up with a couple

(01:06:14):
of years ago. It involves to kill a Mockingbird, go
set a Watchman, which was the famous sequel to that book. Uh,
and Back to the Future Part one, and Back to
the Future Part two, which was the very famous sequel
to Back to the Future Part one. Right, I added that, Uh,
did you know that the courthouse steps in the movie

(01:06:35):
adaptation of mocking Bird the very same as the courthouse
in the Back to the Future movies. I did not
know that, did you. Well? I didn't. I've been on
the Universal Lot and walk those steps though, So I
was just like, in my mind, I was thinking, well,
it's just a movie lot, dude. So he says, aside
for from it being on the Universal Lot, the reason

(01:06:56):
for this has to be that both To Kill a
Mockingbird and Back to the Future take place in the
same town. Well that's not true, no, but still to
kill with the chuck. To Kill a Mockingbird depicts the
town in the nineteen thirties and the trial that exposes
the deeply racist tendencies among its people. This is why
in nineteen fifty five it would have never occurred to
a black malt shop worker. I believe Goldie is not

(01:07:20):
right that he could one day become mayor until some
guy from the future accidentally suggests it. This is falling
apart from me already. I love this idea. And back
to the future to Marty steals a sports almanac, from
which winds up in Biff's hands in n creating an

(01:07:41):
alternate timeline from that point forward. Some twenty years after
To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout returns home and go set
a Watchman. Uh, but it's set in the alternative timeline,
which is why at least one character, Attica's Finch, seems
very different, because any like racist in this sequel. Yeah,
and it's Marty McFly's fault. Ghost At a Watchman was

(01:08:04):
written in ninety seven. It is uh. The Tequila mocking
Bird of the alternate timeline. To Kill a Mockingbird was
published in nineteen sixty. Is the version of the book
written in the timeline Marty fixes when he burns the
almanac at the end of Back of the Future too.
I'm completely lost on that one, and he says, how
fitting that ghost at a Watchman was published and that

(01:08:27):
bit of uh fan theoriousness is brought to you by
Brian McBurney. Nice job, Brian. That was outstanding. It did
have its poles. It was a little rough around the edges.
But you're using your noodle and I like it. Yeah,
that's better than Angela Lansbury is a serial killer. Uh

(01:08:53):
you want again touch of us like Brian did and
send us a really cool fan theory you thought of
yourself that holds up. You can tweet to us at
s Y s K podcast. I'm also at Josh Underscore,
UM Underscore Clark. You can hang out with Chuck on
Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
You can also hang out with them at Facebook dot
com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us

(01:09:15):
both and Jerry and Noel and Frank the chair an
email to stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com
and has always join us our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
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