These voters are going to be waiting about an hour and i have to cast their votes. The city has consolidated. Normally 180 polling places, this time just five. Workersh Department Keep people six feet apart while other voters wait in the drivethrough. I think it is the most serious thing that ever happened. They should have postponed this. We are going to get people sick out here. Georges primary election making national headlines. Precinct closing late at night. Calls for investigations following elevations of voter suppression. The results are still coming in with the secretary of state saying it could take longer than usual because so many people chose to vote by absentee ballot. Erin geithner smith, those are scenes from recent primary elections. Are they a harbinger of what this country might expect in november or aberrations . Erin i hope they are not, but i think a lot of preparations need to be made. It is so important that we have these test runs, the primaries, to kind of see where the kinks are, and hopefully the local Elections Officials and those at the state and federal level are watching. Because it is going to be unusual no matter how you slice it. Coronavirus has added complications. Theres been a lot of changes in how states vote since the last cycle. A lot of states with new Voting Machines and new poll workers. What remedies can states actually take to ensure that november works well . It is just about having the manpower and teaching the poll workers how to operate the machines and making enough time to test things out. It feels like we have a lot of time for the election, but theres really no time to spare. Because of coronavirus, we might have a lot of new poll workers and elderly poll workers may choose not to take that service this time. Preparation really is so important. I hope we can get the focus to that, to educate voters on the new systems and even new machine options. Shift toe focus can education and preparation, away from controversy. Susan youve been thinking a lot. You have a new book called thank you for voting. Tell me about the project. Erin the overall goal of the project is to increase voter turnout by educating voters, inspiring them through the good and bad of our history and helping people to understand how they can expand the power of their own vote by getting others to join them. It gives you stepbystep directions, a checklist of things you need to do, but also goes through how different groups got the right to vote. Suffrageh the 100 Year Anniversary coming up. Africanamericans, native americans. And then a look at our current suppression issues. Forward, looking into 2020, people who are doing ,he work to get out the vote innovative uses of social media that made a big impact, talking to people who are focusing on getting out first time and younger voters, what businesses are doing to participate and foster voter participation. And i also have explainer chapters that i think even the most educated voters can have trouble with. Honestly, i learned so much. Those chapters are gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and polling. You have as, if question about a voting process, i hope it is in their and helps you feel excited and empowered when you go to the polls. Susan the book also comes in a Young Persons edition. What is that all about . Erin as we were writing the as i was writing the adult book, Harvard College thought there was an opportunity to transfer it into a younger edition. It is all the same ideas, but hoping that Young Readers will get excited early and participate in the way they can and think about voting and what it means in the country. Kind of how they got to their current stage. But what i learned doing this reporting was that if you are not taught to vote when you are younger, if you dont go with your parents or you are not a member of a church that promotes voting, you really may not understand the importance when you turn 18 or in your early 20s and it can be intimidating. Young people dont love doing things theyve never done before. Votingponsibility around needs to include making sure young people understand the mechanics. There are many steps you have to take. So often, we tell people, go vote, but we dont mention, you need a specific id for your state, all the logistics. The media and educators and parents can all do a better job preparing our young people, because the voter turnout rate among young people is really low and we should want everyone to vote and we should want people to be lifelong voters. Be part ofhat can this book, educating younger people. They are passionate about many things. It is not apathy. It is just not reaching the right person to instruct on the right mechanics at the right time. Susan what led you to voting as a subject matter . Strings that two had to come together. The first was after 2016 as a reporter, not a political reporter, i was a legal reporter for a long time, and also wrote features about entrepreneurs and different trends and politics specifically wasnt ever mined to cover, although im always a news junkie and follow it religiously. But after 2016, there were so many questions about the basics, the Electoral College and the popular vote not matching up for the second time in modern history. I wanted to know more about that. Because there was so much confusion over polling, i wanted to understand that better. And no matter how i thought about it, what it comes down to is each person showing up and making a call. I became interested in the whole subject, trying to figure out how to work my way into it in a way that i wanted to contribute. And then i was scrolling andagram one afternoon Reese Witherspoon was interviewing an author and she told reese that she was writing a book about women and voting. I just thought, that is it. That is the exact sort of project that i would be interested in. Written a lot of stories on books and the business of books for the wall street journal, so i. E. Mailed her publicist and said, she needs a researcher, im comfortable in all legal aspects, so if she needs a researcher, someone to look into background interviews, i would love to help. And shegot back to me was interested in my take. She is a wonderful author. Just getting to work near her brain was exciting for me. It started as a Research Project for her. On that. Nued i would choose a topic a month. It was supposed to be a side project. I just let it take over. I became obsessed. Diggingso much time into whatever was that months topic. Said, ioint, she just think you may be spending too much time on this. This is a lot of work. But as it turned out, she needed more time or wanted more time on the novel she was working on. At that point, i had been into it for almost a year. She just called me one day and said, i think the timing is not going to work for me to do this and i think it is your project and you should take it and run with it. Truly was not thinking of it as my book, i was like, ill do it. I was so excited about the prospect of sharing all this information. I said, yes, lets go. Now here we are. About in an unusual way. I quickly had to decide on an outline and all the sources. I had just been researching, so i had to immediately dive in and start reporting because my version was going to be more reported. Susan so you are a firsttime author and we are talking to you on your books official publication date. For a firsttime author, what does that feel like . Like almostls to me another day in quarantine. It is very exciting. I walked to my local bookstore and saw that they had the full window display. That was very exciting. I adore bookstores. That may have been the highlight moment. It is an interesting time. I talked to other authors and we are doing what we can to get the word out. So at this point, im excited that it is out in the world and excited to talk to you and some others and im going to drop it off personally at a few friend houses for sort of a roving book party. So thats my day. Susan i think everyone watching understands, just another day in quarantine. You write in the book that selfisolation increased your passion around the subject for people to vote. Why . Ms. Smith i think the coronavirus in general, we saw the power that our local officials have, the power and importance, and that they have to make decisions that really impact all of us. In the worst of times, as the coronavirus certainly felt here in new york city, they are making life and death choices. And so, especially during president ial election years, we have so much focus on the top of the ticket, but we all need to vote all the way down. It certainly matters to who are city councilmembers are, and it matters very much who our mayor is. That was throughout the writing of the book, i really wanted to focus on how much your vote matters for offices, of course for the president , but on down. And i really think that coronavirus really drove that home. And then of course vote by mail has of course become a huge topic. And as i was writing the book, its something they were doing for a matter of convenience and have allmail voting have higher turnouts in other states. There are a lot of factors, but it seems like it is a good, positive thing states are doing and there is a Movement Towards adopting it more. Of course when coronavirus happened to became a massive focus as we prepare to do it on a much larger scale. Susan your own story begins in liberty, texas. Tell me about liberty. Ms. Smith liberty is a town a little under 10,000 now but it was around 6000 growing up. It is geographically between houston and beaumont in southeast texas. It is a town with a town square. We have your quintessential courthouse. But it is a town that is very racially diverse, and has its monetary struggles, for sure. It was a special and interesting place to grow up. As i mentioned in the book, its very different politically from where i live now. Its a very republican part of the state, as much of Rural America is. Obviously where i live now is very democratic. I was happy that i have both of those perspectives and i am still very close to both of those places as i write this book. Susan give me the quick story of your path from smalltown liberty, texas to new york city by way of law school and journalism. What was that path like . Ms. Smith i grew up in liberty. My entire life until i was in college. I went to the university of texas at austin. I was a journalism major there. Journalism is not totally out of the blue after being an attorney. I lived in new york city for one year after undergrad and just kind of, you know, if you fall in love with the city, you fall in love. Its hard to ever turn back, or it was for me. I then returned to texas for law school, again the university of texas. I practiced law at houston, austin, at a big commercial Litigation Firm for about four years before i just could not get the idea of being part of the news out of my mind. I knew i needed to learn to not write like a lawyer, to be honest. So i went to columbia for a year for their masters program. So that was my quick, quick or not quick trip. I enjoyed practicing law. I wasnt one of those lawyers that hated it. The parts i enjoyed most was research and writing. It was a good transition to journalism. Susan you described as being in love with new york city. Are you still in love with it after the experience of coronavirus . Ms. Smith yes. It has certainly made its difficulties known to all of us who live in small apartments. And i have a very active sixyearold, and we did leave the city after several weeks of being fully locked down. Obviously back now. But yeah, i want to see the city come roaring back and i want to be a part of it. Even when it was hard. Certainly cannot give up on it, i dont think. You picture the parts of the city you love, and when they were shut down and quiet, thats just so hard to even really contemplate. But honestly, the city feels back and swing now. I think spring did it well. Nice weather makes things better. Im still in love, what can i say. Susan i want to dig into some of the history you telling your book about enfranchisement. Before we start in the specific areas of history that you tell, america was founded around ideals enshrined in the constitution. With that in mind, why did it take this country nearly two centuries for all adults to be enfranchised . Ms. Smith you know, its the old story of people with the power being afraid of giving it up. What i learned as i studied specifically the timeline of voting, was the idea of everybody being able to vote was always there from the start. And then every time it was expanded, there were people who were pushing for it to be expanded a little more. When the 15th amendment, which allowed black men to vote, when that was debated, there were discussions to put in there prohibitions on discriminating on the basis of education, or language, or things like that. They did not make it in, and so we have decades and decades of things like poll taxes and literacy tests. The ideal was always there. Our thought of everyone gets to vote that we are all so proud of has existed throughout our history, but it has taken a long time to fully grant those rights, or admit that citizens of the country have already had those rights, which i think is a better way to look at it. It just took the country a really long time to get there. Susan you start out by telling us a little more about the history of the africanamerican vote. I want to start this part of our conversation with a recent clip from Atlanta MayorKeisha Lance Bottoms that went viral after she spoke it on may 29, 2020. Lets watch. [video clip] you burn down the city, you are burning down our community. If you want change in america, go and register to vote. Show up at the polls on june 9. Do it in november. That is the change we need in this country. Susan what is the recent history of africanamerican turnout in american elections . Ms. Smith africanamerican turnout is similar to the way that white americans turn out. So, about 60 in the last election. But it goes up and down. Obamas firstterm, there was really large turnout, a little less in the second term, but still big. A lack of africanamerican turnout for Hillary Clinton was considered part of her downfall. But i think the better way to sort of think about it is, all the barriers that some africanamericans face, especially in the south still when they go to vote, that quote, the speech from the mayor of atlanta, i found it so powerful at the time. And still do. Of course she is absolutely right. You cannot have change without voting. But you understand a little of the pushback of, ok, weve voted and we are not seeing enough change. I think any conversation now needs to fully admit that voting has to go with other policy changes, but you cannot have the policy changes often without the voting. Voting is not the only solution, by any means, but it is a huge part of it. Whats interesting that has turned out from both the Atlanta Mayors call to action and president obama talked about voting later, and then lebron james just in the last few weeks, kind of pushed back a little. That voting is not enough. But he is starting an organization that not only educates, his focus heavily will be on educating young black americans to vote, but also at the same time tries to tackle current suppression issues. I think we need to think of all of all those as going handinhand, and really admit where our faults still are in the system. Oppression does not look like it did in the days of jim crow laws, where there was an absolute, no, you cant vote, or Something Like literacy tests that was impossible to pass. Those were pretty blatant. But today, there are things that we really have to keep an eye on. Voter roll purges, wait times being too long. In georgia, we saw in the last primary, just terribly long lines. A lot of it was from a lack of preparation. Whether that lack of preparation had ill intent or not, there are people who cannot wait seven hours to vote and that is not a barrier that should happen in the country. And i think all of the focus on it now, especially this far before the election, will maybe make a difference in november. I feel like a lot of americans are focusing on it more, and that can only hopefully lead to improvement. Susan a seminal moment in africanAmerican History and enfranchisement was the signing of the Voting Rights act. We have a clip of lyndon johnson, president at the time. [video clip] this is a victory for the freedom of the american negro. But it is also a victory for the freedom of the american nation. And every family across this great entire searching land will live stronger in liberty, will live more splendid in expectation, and will be prouder to be american, because of the act that you have passed that i will sign today. [applause] susan that scene in the rotunda of the capital. Erin geiger smith, congress wrote the law so that it would have to be renewed at intervals. What was the thinking behind that . Ms. Smith the thinking was twofold. One, that if all of a sudden country no longer needed those federal oversights of states with discrimination issues, if it was no longer necessary, then it could expire and it was to pacify those who were not so much interested in the Voting Rights act lasting forever. It kind of gave them some cover, too. So it was both in case the country turned itself around fully and it was no longer necessary, and then also so those who did not want it might have a chance to not vote for it when it came up for renewal. Susan one of the president s who enthusiastically signed a renewal of the Voting Rights act was Ronald Reagan in 1982. In general when congress has had to debate the reauthorization of the vra, what has the tenner been like in those debates . Is this always a divided conversation . Ms. Smith well, it almost always seems very divided in the background. In public, people arent likely to say that people do not need the right to vote and we do not need to protect it. I always find that in soaring rhetoric, when it is signed it is how we like to think about ourselves, and what goes on in the background of maybe trying to chip it away. That happened nearly every time it was time to renew. Ultimately congress and whoever was president at the time felt like renewing it, whether politically important or just important, it was always renewed. Sometimes it was a lot of backandforth, and there