Voter Suppression Past and Present with Carol Anderson

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

NBCNews

News, Nbcnews, Why Is This Happening?, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Chris Hayes, Politics, Government, Society & Culture, Msnbc, Withpod

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2018

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why are Republicans so obsessed with voter fraud? Study after study finds no evidence of any large-scale voter fraud in the country, yet we keep hearing about necessary changes to voting systems in order to combat this major threat to democracy. Here’s the thing - it’s a sleight of hand trick, just the latest in a long history of racist voter suppression laws. By crying ‘voter fraud’, the government has been able to tap into policies based in white supremacy with the intent of curbing voter turnout, particularly among black voters. Carol Anderson follows her wildly popular book “White Rage” with “One Person, No Vote”, detailing the sustained attacks on voting rights that we are watching unfold as we head into the midterm elections. Email us at [email protected] Tweet using #WITHpod Read more at nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening

Transcript

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0:00.0	When people are talking about we must protect the integrity of the ballot box.
0:04.4	So we must have these voter IDs and they're basing it on this lie of voter fraud.
0:10.7	The whole thing falls apart.
0:12.0	But what has happened is that, you know, it's like when you say a lie so many times that
0:17.6	it becomes the truth, too many Americans believe that at least occasionally this kind of
0:24.2	deep voter fraud is happening.
0:27.1	So therefore, requiring something that is deemed as reasonable as an ID becomes like, well,
0:35.6	what's the problem?
0:40.1	Hello and welcome to Why is this happening with me, your host, Chris Hays.
0:46.5	Sometimes when you're reading the newspaper or watching coverage of international news,
0:52.6	you'll hear this phrase log, free and fair elections.
0:55.8	It's a phrase that American officials will use, international officials will use, NGO
1:00.4	monitors will use to describe a kind of threshold for what we think of as legitimate democratic
1:05.7	society, free and fair elections.
1:08.2	And the reason that phrase is so important is that you can't just have the elections
1:12.3	part, right?
1:13.6	It's a key part of this.
1:15.1	Free and fair elections exist as a phrase, as a threshold that defines a democratic society
1:20.2	because the elections part isn't enough.
1:22.4	First example, of course, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which had elections, I think every
1:27.2	four years, which Saddam Hussein won 98% of the vote.
1:31.0	As we know, Putin's Russia has elections and in those elections opposition candidates
	...

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