How does the American voting system even work?

[Music] Hello, welcome to Politics Fatines and welcome back to my studio. Today we will be talking about the Holy Grail of Activism. I'm going to make it quick because by both my phone and my computer is about to die and it will be a headache if I have to re-record this. And I should say that I actually do not know what a Holy Grail is because I never watched those movies about the Holy Grail or Monty Python or whatever. But voting is brought up in many discussions about activism. Even my very first episode I talked about how young people are not voting in America. They just don't vote. In the 2014 election, midterm election cycle only 20% of people aged 18 to 24 showed up to vote. In local elections the voter turnout for people aged 18 to 24 is in the single digits meaning less than 10% of young people vote in their local elections. Less than 10. So it could be 2% or 1%, literally 1% of young people could show up to vote. So in over half of the big city mayor of elections reviewed fewer than 1 in 10 registered voters aged 18 to 34 showed up to vote. There was a study done and that's what they came up with. I studied at the University of Oregon and analyzed voter registration records for what they considered to be the most important election in each city typically either the last one of or in jurisdictions with one party control the primary election. The saddest part is because these are small local elections just a few votes literally like 20 votes not just 20% 20 people can make a difference between choosing a horrible like racist mayor or a nice kind you know humane candidate and not everything is black and white but if young people vote just voted a little more in local elections it would make the huge difference. I don't think that's huge as a real word but moving on. Also change at the local level is really easy to happen because changes easier to happen in smaller governments. You know you're not talking about billions of dollars in funding or major beef within the parties or political you know show business or major money. Big corporations are not giving millions of dollars in exchange for them to vote on bills that favor them to like state senators or the state House of Representatives you know because instead of giving money to senators in 50 states you know they would rather give them a few fewer people in the US actual Congress. State senators are not doing anything for money or fame I would not be able to name any state senator like none other than the fact that Obama was like a state senator I know nobody and I've met state senators and they work three jobs because they don't get paid enough so you know they are if people are vote they are people who can actually make actual change and there are more reasons why young people don't vote and there are like DJ Khaled albums the man has 20 albums and I cannot name any of them also but I think one of the reasons are because the American voting system is on the same level of complicated as doing taxes like maybe a little less that it is definitely more complicated than building like I don't know an IKEA furniture but firstly voting laws are so different state to state like Minnesota for example has same-day voter registration and no picture ID laws other states like Tennessee require voter to register a month ahead of time and present a picture ID when you get to the polls also it has multiple steps which young people hit more than like having good posture this is how most US elections work first you have to register vote you can pre-register to vote when you get your driver's license that will register you vote automatically when you're 2018 keep in mind we are not talking about like US presidential elections just taking an example so you register vote you can register at vote.org you can register as a Republican Democrat another party or just unaffiliated which is like yeah these parties suck and like you know I'm not choosing any then you have to vote in the primaries what is the primaries the primaries are like as if there is more than one candidate that wants to go into election from one party you can go to polling location and the state's primary voting day and vote or vote by male depending on what your state does so you guys might remember there was like a bazillion people who wanted run for president from the Democratic Party from like small senators to like two different billionaires like a writer woman who like only showed up to one debate and talked about random stuff nobody knew what was she was talking about it was actually funny but I don't know if there are primaries in other countries in the country I lived in before didn't have them at all like party just chose people I think after all the Democratic debates in the campaigning there is a primary vote it is all on different days in different states and other hall out all have different rules of doing it stump some states only let people who are registered Democrats vote but some states let people who are unaffiliated vote for the primaries so you first vote on who gets the Democratic seat for the presidential race so if you're a Democrat then you can vote in the Democratic primaries but if some states primaries are not open so you could only vote if you're a registry yourself as a Democrat but if it is open then unaffiliated people can also vote there was three big contestors in the primaries for the president it was Bernie Sanders Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren on top of Joe Biden however they were outvoted by Joe Biden and that is who won the seat okay now that we understand primaries let's talk about what primaries are going on right now not a lot of people vote in the primaries because not many people know about it you know because it's all over the place like in some states like Iowa the primaries are called caucuses you guys probably heard a lot about Iowa caucuses because it's the first place for primaries happen for the presidential race for Democrats or for any other party but it's it's literally we're just think of ever heard you like show up to a polling place in your community and then you all get in lines and then like they go hey if you want to vote for like Clinton or if you want to vote for Sanders you have to stand here so you stand over that place everybody stands in lines and like I don't know does raises their hand or something but we're talking about on November 3rd of this year we will be elected new president we'll also elect all the House of Representatives again as we know there are two houses in Congress or the part of our government that makes policies and laws I'm just saying this for all the young listeners so make a quick if you already know this in Congress there are the Senate which is made of 100 people two senators from each 50 states and there's the House of Representatives which has 435 people and representation is based on population so one state like California could have 50 representatives while in the state like Alaska has one representative people in the House of Representatives serve two terms so there's a new election every two years to elect them senators serve six year terms so every time we do an election for the House of Representatives we also elect one-third of the Senate so not every state votes to choose their senators every two years the idea is that by choosing one-third of the Senate every two years in six years this Senate will be fully new so these senators and House of Representatives also has to do primaries how fun and these primaries are going on right now Alexander Cazio Cortez AOC who yes is my hero you probably would have figured it out just want her primaries sometimes primaries are really important for example the district that AOC runs from is a blue blue district in New York it includes part of Bronx and Queens I think so they almost always vote at Democratic candidate for House of Representatives over Republican so if you win the Democratic primaries like if you win the seat to run as a Democrat you basically win the general election the real election but when AOC first came out the first came out two years ago the problem was this guy Joe Crowley he was a Democrat he ran every year and he won for 20 years because nobody wanted Republican they just voted for him every year even though he kind of sucked Joe Crowley didn't even live in New York when he represented New York for many years and he was taking a lot of money from big corporations and working for them rather than the people who represented he was a 30-year incumbent meaning he was the person holding the seat and nobody you know dare to even go against him you know and AOC was nobody she didn't accept any big money for her campaign and she had promises real progressive promises like affordable housing and Medicare for all and people in that district voted for the same person for 30 years and things were lacking and AOC challenged him and although she was 36% down and then him at the start of the campaign she won at the end no because again young people voted it was almost entirely impossible for her to win but she did the work hard work and actually campaigned Joe Crowley didn't even come to debate her and just assumed his district would reelect him like he hadn't done an actual campaign in years and primaries are what determines whether you're gonna have a white guy with money and power or a working class candidate that has humane policies and that is partially because because we have a strict two party system. If AOC ran from another party, she would have never won. She had to run as a Democrat. But the primaries were in her way because not many people, especially young people, vote in the primaries. We're still talking about the process of voting still. Because we have a strict two party system. There's no way you can run from another party. So you have to run as a Democrat. But there's a person who's been there for 30 years as a Democrat. You have to go against them. That's why primaries are so important. So after the primaries, you wait for the actual election. Now, the Democrats are not going to campaign against each other, but they're publicans and the Democrats and the other parties going to be beating and campaigning. So you know, like the Democratic debates are over. And then, because you're the registered vote on the voting day, you go to a polling station and you show your ID like a driving license and you go to a booth and vote. Some states have different voter ID laws. This raises many different voter suppression like laws sometimes. Some states like Colorado have a mail-in voting system. You don't have to go to polling place to get a ballot. They send you a ballot, whether it's the primaries or the general election, the real election, or voting like on laws. They just send all the registered voters a ballot. And then you choose your candidates and mail it in or drop it off a ballot box before a certain date. So many states are different. Which is part of the problem. For the general election, the date is November 3. But when you're electing your local state senators, house of representatives, or even like mayor, you have to do primary voting and actual voting. And they are on different dates. In the country I live for, these were all the same states. So letters, states, let us review. First, you register the vote, then you vote in the primaries, then you will vote in the real election. So right now, even if you are 17, you can vote in the primaries. If you will be 18 by November 3, it doesn't sound that complicated, but really is. You have to research when your primary date is and who is running from your district from your own party. So I hope this is making sense. I spoke really fast. I hope you go to the website of your state and find out when your primary dates are and who is running from your party and how you can vote. I think that is our responsibility as young people. And we've been hearing a lot about voter suppression laws and how we have so many people in prison. And we've put so many people in prison. And even if they are not in prison anymore and they are regular citizens, they are not able to vote. And we talk a lot about taxation, or the representation in this country. So even if people has committed a felony, in now they are working, and now they're paying taxes, they still can't vote. And these are, of course, disproportionately people of color, especially black people. And their votes are being suppressed. That is many of the ways that's being suppressed. But there are so many other glaring ways, like only having only one polling station in the middle of a white area, and no polling stations in black neighborhoods. And the only way for us to show up for them is to go votes, because they can't. We talk about stop having violence, stop protesting too much, stop doing crime or whatever, like go vote. But they can't. They literally cannot. Their votes has been taken away. So the only way for us to be good allies as young people is to go vote. There's a show that I've been watching. I really like, because I like politics, is called politician. We'll look at that. It's on Netflix. I think you can find it if you're pirated, if you don't have Netflix. But it's this young person going against this really like 30-year-old incumbent in New York. And she talks about how he's never going to win, because young people never vote. And it's just the truth. But I think we should start voting. And we should at least build the habits of voting. You don't have to vote every election, like every local election. Every time you have to elect your city mayor, your governor, your state senators, not every time, but at least if we keep building habits, then there will be more people voting in our country. And if you look at global data, America is the only country that has the lowest, the lowest voting rates. Like it is horrible how low our voting rates are. In other countries, at least 60% of people vote, like more than 50% of people vote in any local national election. But in America, we can have below, like voting, voter turnout below that, and still call it an election. It is really bad. And there is definitely reasons why voter suppression is encouraged, because it is way easier for money, and corporate interests to be represented if less people are voting. So I will end the podcast with a homework. This episode's homework is go register a vote in voting your primaries, go to your website of your state, find out how your state holds elections, and vote in the primaries. Like all I have to say, and then you have to, let's all show up on November 3rd. Please, let's vote Trump out. This was Paul Stix for Teens. Thank you for listening. See you next time. (gentle piano music)