Behind every aspect of the voting system that makes it harder to vote, there’s a policy that made it that way. Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org, joins Nick and Goldy to explain how voter suppression happens, and what reforms would help ensure a truly inclusive democracy.
Andrea Hailey is the CEO of Vote.org, the nation’s largest nonpartisan digital voter engagement organization.
Twitter: @AndreaEHailey
Vote.org: https://www.vote.org/
Website: https://pitchforkeconomics.com/
Twitter: @PitchforkEcon
Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics
Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer
David Goldstein:
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Nick Hanauer:
There are all sorts of reasons why the voting suppression nonsense is going on in the country right now is dangerous. But for sure, it will end up being terrible for the economy.
Andrea Hailey:
Every time the voting process is one that is cumbersome, we have to remember on the other end of that is a policy that made it.
David Goldstein:
We learned from the Trump years and responsive Republicans after the 2020 election, how fragile our democracy really is.
Speaker 4:
From the home offices of Civic Ventures in Downtown Seattle, this is Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer. The best place to get the truth about who gets what and why.
Nick Hanauer:
I’m Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
David Goldstein:
I’m David Goldstein, Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures.
So Nick, sometime ago you warned America and your fellow plutocrats that the pitchforks were coming, hence the name of this podcast. And one of the truths about history is that when you look at the modern democracies, they weren’t all that democratic for the most part. And the democratic franchise only expanded as a way to avoid pitchforks. If you really look at the history of a lot of these voting reform acts over the years, in Europe in particular and elsewhere, it was, “We better give more people the right to vote or else they’re going to come at us.”
Nick Hanauer:
That’s right. These rights were never given easily or willingly.
David Goldstein:
No. Pulling teeth.
Nick Hanauer:
They were hard won.
David Goldstein:
Right. And even when you look at giving women, the franchise, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, it happened at a time around world war one, where women were needed in the workplace more than ever. And so, it’s like, “Oh man. They might not work if we don’t give them the right to vote.”
Nick Hanauer:
I know.
David Goldstein:
And that’s how we ended up getting it in the end. It wasn’t out of anybody’s good graces that white men easily give up control.
Nick Hanauer:
That’s right. We’re going to talk about voting rights today on an economics podcasts for a very particular reason, which is that there’s an enormous amount of data to suggest, I think prove, that prosperity in economies is largely a product of economic inclusion and economic inclusion in turn is always a consequence of political inclusion. That one actually does proceed the other. That you can’t have economic arrangements that are good for most people if you don’t have a political system, which is responsive to the needs of most people. And for listeners who are interested in this subject, there is no better book on this subject than, Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. And in that book, they do this marvelous survey of history to show that there’s this almost perfect correlation between political inclusion and economic inclusion and economic vitality, that you basically can’t have one without the other. And so, there are all sorts of reasons why the voting suppression nonsense is going on in the country right now is dangerous, but for sure it will end up being terrible for the economy.
David Goldstein:
Right? So, we’ve seen after the 2020 election around the country, Republicans trying to do… They’re doing their best to roll back access to polls to make it harder to register to vote, to make it harder to vote, to make it easier for local authorities to suppress the vote. We would argue that’s not just bad for democracy in the long run, that’s really, really bad for the economy.
Nick Hanauer:
To be clear, it may not be bad for the pocketbooks of the people at the very top of the pyramid who are attempting to cling on to what they have. But if you want a growing economy, you need most citizens to participate and the participation takes all sorts of forms, including being fairly paid and being well-educated and so on and so forth. And those are the things that high functioning democracies are very good at delivering and authoritarian countries are terrible at delivering because ultimately authoritarian governance creates massive amounts of concentration at the top. Obviously, we already have that in the United States but the only way we’re ever going to get out from under the kind of inequality that we have today is to have a set of economic policies that reflect the interests of the broad public, not just a few rich guys at the top. And so, this is why voting rights are so critical to economic success and vitality and why everybody should be concerned about these issues.
David Goldstein:
And so, to get an update on the state of voting rights, voter registration and at last, voter suppression in America, today we’re talking to Andrea Hailey, the CEO of vote.org.
Andrea Hailey:
I’m Andrea Hailey, CEO of vote.org. And at vote.org, we work to streamline the voting process to make voting accessible for all eligible citizens. Last year, we registered over 4 million voters and we are working to register millions more.
Nick Hanauer:
That’s awesome.
David Goldstein:
Great. Thanks for joining us.
Nick Hanauer:
So, voter registration obviously is one of the most talked about aspects of the 2020 election, both nationally and in particular places like Georgia but it fell off the radar as it does after elections. So, give us an update. What are the trends and themes today?
Andrea Hailey:
In 2019 and 2020, we saw voter registration jump way up. We especially saw a new generation of voters showing up and registering, which is really exciting. Many people don’t realize that 4 million people turn 18 every year. So, I think that last year we really saw the on-ramping of voters.
Once a voter registers and shows up in an election, once you have them show up at least two times, they’re highly likely to continue voting. Voting is a habit. So, the biggest trend we’ve seen is that the people who registered are still active, they’re still interested. They’re still coming to the site and promoting information. And this year we have seen a smaller number of people register. That’s to be expected. Presidential cycles always draw more registrations but the interesting thing is that, I think last year we had about 16% of the eligible voting population using vote.org. This year, we’ve registered about 70,000 people so far. Obviously, this is a smaller number but I think considering that it’s sort of an off time between midterm elections and the presidential, we’re still seeing a high volume of interest considering where we are in the election cycle.
Nick Hanauer:
Of the 4 million people who turn 18 every year, how many, by the time they’re 20, have registered to vote, plus or minus? And I realized that data is probably not top of mind but directionally. Is it half, a third, two thirds?
Andrea Hailey:
Historically, younger voters… People don’t start to really pay attention to voting and elections until they’re older. Registration numbers go way up as people get older. But we saw this last election cycle in 2020, which was about an 11% jump in young voter participation. That’s huge in voting world. You’re usually looking to… It’s big if you’re making 1% or 2% jumps. So, to have an 11% jump is something that we haven’t seen any time in recent history.
So, I think that young people directionally are definitely more engaged and we’re seeing that the trend is that they’re engaged, they’re showing up and they’ve connected the dots between the world that they want to create and see, and how important voting truly is. So, we’re really looking to expand upon that. You’re absolutely right to point out that in states like Georgia, where a good number of people, especially after having put the runoff election and the presidential election, are already registered to vote, that a lot of the 5% there that’s not registered to vote, those are really young voters. And so, I think it’s kind of on programs like ours and other programs that work with young voters to proactively go out there and ask people to register, show them how to do it, step them through the process. It’s not something that schools are really doing or other places are doing. And so, I think the interest is there. We just have to proactively reach out.
David Goldstein:
Yeah. So, how much of this is a process thing as opposed to just trying to get people engaged? Young people understand with how close the elections have been the last couple cycles that, that they can change the outcome. So, how hard is it to register and vote? And of course, how much harder are Republicans making it?
Andrea Hailey:
I think it’s absolutely a process thing. We know how to build and create systems and every state that would make it so the highest number of people possible who are eligible, jumped through those systems and get to an outcome. Really, in our country, we should have 80% voter turnout but the issues with registration decrease participation and some of them are meant to decrease participation.
There are things we can do. 20 states in our country, as well as the District of Columbia, have automatic voter registration, for instance. And so, an automatic voter registration, if you interact with the government agency, you’re opted in to the registration process. You would have to proactively opt out. In states that don’t have that, of course, you have to take it on yourself. And we see the numbers of registrants go up exponentially when states have automatic voter registration. We even have some states that still don’t have it. It’s only a handful but they don’t have online voter registration. Well, if you don’t have online voter registration, your numbers of young people registering to vote are going to be lower. So, there are some very pointed things that are absolutely done to try to decrease the number of young people voting, people of color voting, people of lower socioeconomic levels, both from voting. I think these things are absolutely intentional and we’re seeing an increase in bills targeting these populations all across the country.
David Goldstein:
For example, what type of bills are out there right now to make it easier to vote? And of course, we see a lot of activity on the Republican side to make it harder.
Andrea Hailey:
Well, we had historic voter participation, both registration and Get Out the Vote Efforts showing up at the ballot box in this last election cycle. And that’s something we should really celebrate and be joyful about that Americans are engaged, that they care about their democracy, that they’re protecting the freedom to vote and that they’re showing up. But what we saw right after the election was that instead of celebrating and creating more systems that help people to participate in the process or keeping the laws in place that help people to participate in the process, an effort mostly Republican led to suppress the vote occurred. Instead, we had 400 bills that were introduced in a coordinated fashion all across the country, looking to roll back people’s ability to participate. And what that really means is things like a larger number of people can participate when you keep the polls open for longer periods of time.
So, efforts to restrict the amount of time a poll is open or efforts to restrict early voting, efforts to restrict requesting your mail in ballot or efforts to restrict an easy process for voter registration. All of those things were included in many of these bills and famously, also efforts to restrict handing out water at polls, which is a program that vote.org also does. But I think that every time the voting process is one that is cumbersome, we have to remember on the other end of that is a policy that made it. So, for instance, in Georgia, the average white voter waits an hour less in line than the average black voter does. That’s a policy decision that has to do with the number of polling locations open in neighborhoods, it has to do with access. So, these kinds of things, I think everybody… When you look at these bills, sometimes it can be difficult to discern, “Well, is this really voter suppression?” “Is it not? What’s happening here?”
And what I tell people is to think backwards. What would it look like to have a system that was built for the voter experience and to help voters through the process? And is this bill adding to the ease at which a voter can get through a system and get their ballot cast and have their voice heard or is this bill doing something that creates an extra hurdle, an extra jump or make something a little less accessible than it used to be? And if you look at it through that lens, it becomes really clear.
David Goldstein:
In this past cycle, because of the pandemic, there was a move towards vote by mail around the country. So, that people didn’t have to go to the polling place. How important of a role did that play in increasing turnout and how much have Republicans successfully rolled that back?
Andrea Hailey:
That is an excellent question. The thing to remember is that vote by mail, to begin with, goes all the way back to the civil war in this country. So, we have a long history of vote by mail and participation with vote by mail. It’s not something that’s new. Many states have vote by mail opportunities like the one you’re in. Colorado does, red states like Utah and Florida does as well. So, it’s not something that’s new but it is something that became unfortunately politicized in the last election cycle, which is upsetting. But the process itself allowed many people to be able to vote. First of all, on their own time, which is important, especially for people working multiple jobs. And it also allowed people who were afraid of COVID to be able to participate. And so, I do think that allowing vote by mail in many states made access to the ballot box, increasingly accessible for many people, especially in states like California where they went ahead and mailed everybody their ballot.
So, I think there are things that we could do that are highly cost-effective and efficient in allowing access and vote by mail is definitely one of them. It is one of the main targets for rollbacks but it’s interesting because this should not be a red versus blue issue. It’s absolutely a red, white and blue issue because as these rollbacks and these bills are being introduced, you’re really talking about, “Yes, it will disproportionately affect targeted populations,” but it’s also going to affect everybody in Florida. It’s the older generation that tends to vote by mail. So, it will be interesting to see how much backlash there is this to some of these bills. I don’t think that this is a… Rollbacks to vote by mail is not really supported by Republicans, Democrats or Independents. This is purely being done at the legislative level with very, very low constituent support.
David Goldstein:
It’s interesting. The history in Washington State is that vote by mail was initially supported by Republicans because they understood it to make it easier for older and rural and ex urban voters to vote, which was their base. So, early on, it was politicized somewhat and they only started to oppose it once Democrats started you [inaudible 00:18:12] in large numbers.
Andrea Hailey:
It’s true.
Nick Hanauer:
Do you agree with our view that universal vote by mail is where we should be headed? In Washington State, we’re just convinced that this is just the way we should vote, which is so much better and so much easier and so much more effective.
Andrea Hailey:
Yes.I think that it’s definitely the direction that we should go and we do need to remember that early voting is also important and keeping polling locations open for people who may need assistance or things like that. So, I don’t think we should completely shut down or replace the ability to early vote in person but I do think we should widen the ability significantly of people to participate by mail. So, yes, I do agree with your viewpoint with the small caveat of that there are people who are going to need to go into a polling location for one reason or another. And so, we need to make sure to keep those places open.
Nick Hanauer:
So, what are the best states and what are the worst states right now in terms of voting access?
Andrea Hailey:
One of the best states is Colorado. California is doing a great job. Some of the worst states right off the top of my head, we kind of see the same difficult actors, time and time again. Texas of course is a big challenge. Vote.org recently filed a lawsuit in Texas trying to work to open up access. Mississippi is a place that is difficult. Indiana, where I’m from, unfortunately has become expert at voter suppression. Georgia can be a difficult state. Their voter purges and their history. And then there are some states that have a history of taking their online voting registration sites down the day before the registration deadline and things like that. And it happens every year. So, yeah. Those are the states that are the most difficult, I would say. Texas, Indiana, Mississippi and Georgia off the top of my head.
Nick Hanauer:
All the places you would predict.
Andrea Hailey:
Yes. Any place that has changing demographics in our country as well is increasingly becoming a more difficult place to protect access to the ballot box.
Nick Hanauer:
So, how about zooming out. What countries do the best? Are there things that Americans can learn from other countries?
Andrea Hailey:
Sure. You have countries like Australia that have higher participation rates there. They have something called compulsory voting where you actually, I believe are fined if you don’t participate. And so, they have different incentive structures and then they try to make voting, the process itself, as accessible as possible. And it’s seen as your civic duty to go ahead and cast that ballot. So, I think that places like Australia… There are places like India that have high voter participation rates in general. I think one of the things is election day as a holiday, which is a program that we also have at vote.org but we’d like to see nationwide. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have the day off and having a celebration, participate in civics and have a backyard barbecue after you do it.
Why can’t we make this fun and joyful and increase numbers? I think right off the top of my head, Australia might be one of the places with the highest participation rates in a place we can look to, to understand how to increase our processes. Of course, one of the challenges we have here is that every state runs its own elections according to its own election law. And so, we have different… Just like your experience voting is so much easier in Washington than mine is in Indiana, where I had a seven hour line every day of early voting when I went out to go vote.
Nick Hanauer:
That’s just insane. It’s just insane.
David Goldstein:
We wouldn’t tolerate a seven hour line at the department of motor vehicles.
Andrea Hailey:
Oh no.
David Goldstein:
Why would we tolerate it at the polling place?
Andrea Hailey:
You’re absolutely right. It was wild to me as I was working this election, CEO of vote.org. I was not immune from experiencing voter suppression myself and my staff watched. Many of them who live in states that are more pro-voting than Indiana is watched as I had to go out there every day and couldn’t stand in that seven hour line because like many Americans, I had to go back to work. So, I’d go back to work and they’d be like, “Were you able to vote today? And by the end, towards the end as the election date neared, everyone was nervous because obviously, as a CEO I can’t get voter suppressed out of my own vote. And it took a ton of effort to make sure that I could cast my ballot and have my voice heard.
And it also affected my family members here in Indiana. And so, to have that experience live in real time while going on TV and giving interviews about the state of our nation and all of these things, I think that people don’t necessarily realize the experience of people like me and places like Indiana and how difficult it could be and how a simple choice. They opened up five polling places for over a million people. So, a simple choice to add more locations to early voting would have solved that. These are all policy decisions and deals that people cut on purpose to try to minimize the participation.
Nick Hanauer:
But just to be clear. In Indiana, does everybody wait for seven hours?
Andrea Hailey:
That’s an excellent question. No. That’s not true. There’s a suburb just a little bit north of me. And again, it’s also different. Management’s a suburb of… It’s called Caramel Indiana and they did not have my friends living in Caramel. Were in and out in 10 minutes. Caramel was established back in the sixties after brown vs board of education as a suburb that had a lot of flight to it. It tends to be not as diverse as the rest of Indianapolis.
David Goldstein:
Again, you’re not using the word white in there.
Andrea Hailey:
Got a lot of white flight to it and they tend to have a better voting experience in Caramel, which is wild. There are all sorts of things that occurred during this last election cycle but then there’s a lot we could do to improve the situation. I think what I did see that was so exciting, but I don’t want to celebrate it or make it the norm, is people during the last election cycle stayed in those lines anyway. I saw chairs and people with canes and food and backpacks. Just ready and prepared for shenanigans and ready and prepared to have to wait to cast their ballot. But they waited anyway. It was kind of an attitude of like, “Whatever you throw at us, we’re going to still be here and still have our voice heard.” And I hope that, that energy lasts into the future and that momentum maintains into the future and people continue to fight for access. It would be so easy to not create this situation at all.
That’s why I don’t spend a lot of time talking about all those amazing people who waited in line and made sure to cast their ballot because those lines shouldn’t even be there. Georgia and Florida passed laws against giving food and water at the polling locations. And my argument back was, “Hey, look. Vote.org wouldn’t have to send food trucks out and give food and water if people weren’t waiting in six and seven hour lines.” If you don’t have those lines, the whole point is moot. Let’s just make a policy decision that no voter in America should have to wait more than a half hour to cast their ballot and call it a day.
David Goldstein:
Yeah. Have they banned chairs and canes in line yet too?
Andrea Hailey:
Not yet but I feel like that’s coming next. It’s ridiculous. I’m being facetious there but you know.
David Goldstein:
But the amount of engagement. The fact that people did wait in line, that’s very encouraging.
Andrea Hailey:
It is encouraging. I think in a way, I think America has a lot of voters that have woken up and they see that there’s a system set up in many states that is set up against their participation and people are kind of working to overcome. I think there’s a backlash to that. And I do believe that there will be a backlash to these 400 bills that are seeking the suppressive the vote further. I think after this last election cycle, people are not asleep. They’re paying attention. They’re also paying attention to their local elections, not just the presidential. They want to know what’s happening in their mayor’s race and in their city county race and things like that. And so, I think that with that level of civic awareness, you become aware very quickly when people are trying to take away your vote, where they close the polling location close to you or they refuse to mail you a ballot. These things that are so obviously processed decisions that would make it easier to participate.
David Goldstein:
So, obviously, individuals need to let their lawmakers know that they want to make voting more accessible. I’m curious though about the business community. Obviously, they spend a lot of money on politics. Citizens United allows them to do that. Some of them, we know like [Koch Industries 00:27:45] is intent on making it harder to vote for obvious reasons. What role is there for businesses and other organizations to get involved?
Andrea Hailey:
There’s a huge role for businesses to play in this moment. At vote.org, we have over a thousand corporate partners that joined with us this last election cycle to become pro-voting companies. That meant everything from having us come talk to employees to disseminating voting information. Schools, businesses and vote.org are some of the few places that people still trust to get their voting information and trust that they are getting accurate information. So, we really encourage businesses this year to talk about, “How do you request your mail and ballot?” “Circulate when the registration deadline is.” We have companies like USA Today that partnered with us to add voter registration to the end of their articles. And they registered over a hundred thousand voters. Businesses can also take a stand. They can do things like having paid time off to vote, which is huge for employees.
They can do things like stand up to these voter suppression bills and they can also support positive bills like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. I do think for a lot of companies right now, when it comes to the major federal legislation that could really solve a lot of what’s happening in states right now, a lot of companies are just figuring out how to flex their muscle in service of democracy and freedom to vote. I think that a ton of corporate leaders have engaged on things like climate change in the past but they haven’t really had to be the backbone of safeguarding our democracy, the way that we really need them now. So, I think teams, in real time, are figuring out what can they do? How can they talk about these issues? How can they make sure to not let the issues get politicized?
How can you state, like I said before, that it’s a red, white and blue issue? Protecting access to the ballot boxes is a fundamental value as an American that we have. So, something the business community absolutely can engage on and that we’re seeing more and more leaders step into this space of protecting voting rights. And I’m so excited to see it. And I hope that it gains momentum over the next few months so that we really have leaders of all backgrounds that are coming together to say, “No. As Americans, we believe in a thriving and healthy democracy.” That means making sure that every eligible American can have their voice heard.
Nick Hanauer:
Awesome. Should we ask the final question, Goldy?
David Goldstein:
Go for it, Nick.
Nick Hanauer:
So, Andrea, why do you do this work?
Andrea Hailey:
I do this work because it’s personal. Often the communities targeted are members of my family and this is work that has always run in my family. My parents are the type who worked the polls and give rides to people. And I grew up always participating in elections that way. I think I always knew how fragile and had a good understanding of how fragile the right to vote is and how quickly it can be rolled back or taken away. Because as I spent time as a kid with my grandfather, he told stories about being in world war II. He’s a black man from Anderson, South Carolina, who came back to a country that didn’t want him to vote and didn’t want him to participate. And where they had a lot of local rules and different things that they would try to make people jump through so that they wouldn’t participate.
So, knowing that, that happened in my family and knowing that it was so close, I really felt that it was kind of on each generation to use the tools that they have access to, to make sure that we protect the right to vote. I think for a good number of people, this current environment feels new but this isn’t new. It’s actually quite old and something that’s been around for a long time. So, I’m called to do the work because I want to be able to participate in democracy and I want my friends and family to be able to as well. So, I take it personally.
Nick Hanauer:
That’s great.
Well, thank you so much for being with us today.
Andrea Hailey:
Well, thank you for having me.
David Goldstein:
We learned from the Trump years and response of Republicans after the 2020 election, is how fragile our democracy really is and how important it is for everybody to get involved because if we don’t, it can be taken away. And in fact, they’re trying to take it away. And it brings me back, Nick, to a comment you made earlier about how essentially authoritarian governments are not responsive to the wants and needs of the masses. And I think to a very particular instance of how important a vibrant democracy is and that was right here in Seattle with the $15 minimum wage. We didn’t get a $15 minimum wage here because the political elite decided, “That would probably be a pretty good thing for the people and for the local economy.” And we got it because essentially that people said, “We want a $15 minimum wage.”
Then the mayor and the council members went to work and they hammered out an agreement and because we passed that in little [inaudible 00:33:01], we passed it in Seattle. Because we passed it in Seattle, they passed it in San Francisco. And because they passed it in San Francisco, it was passed in cities and states around the country, either $15 or substantially higher minimum wages. And now we have tens of millions of Americans who are benefiting with higher wages, all because people demanded it here where we have a vibrant democracy. Had we been Mississippi or Texas or Indiana as we’ve learned-
Nick Hanauer:
It wouldn’t have happened.
David Goldstein:
It wouldn’t have happened because the politicians have no need to be responsive to voters when they can keep people from voting.
Nick Hanauer:
No, you’re absolutely right.
Yeah. Well, Andrea was fantastic and yikers. Let’s hope she’s successful.
David Goldstein:
And of course, to thank Andrea for coming onto the show, we ask you to go and make sure that your voter registration is active. If it’s not active, please re-register to vote. If you haven’t registered to vote, you can go to vote.org. We’ll provide a link in the show notes. And by all means, I know it’s an off year election. It’s an odd year but there are local elections all over the country. So, please, please, please vote. It was an off year election that got us the $15 minimum wage.
Go to the polls. Vote. Let your wishes and needs be known.
Speaker 4:
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