-Hello and welcome.
Thank you so much for coming on our show.
-Thank you for having me.
It's a delight. I'm excited to be here.
-I'm happy you're here.
Congrats on the book. It's fantastic.
I want to talk about your historic run,
and Obama got behind you, Oprah got behind you.
Do you remember getting the phone call
that Oprah wants to support?
-Oh, yeah, so, she called,
and we had to pull off on the side of the highway
because we were heading into one of those parts of Georgia
that did not have cell service.
And I sort of scared the driver like, "We got to pull over now!"
-"Oprah is on the phone! Do whatever you have to do!"
-Seriously.
We, like, barely avoided an aardvark or something.
-[ Laughs ] -It was dynamic.
-Your book, "Our Time Is Now,"
you wanted it to come out now, as soon as possible because why?
Tell people.
-One is that we're in the midst of primaries
and we often think that voter suppression
only exists in the general election,
that it's Democrats versus Republicans.
I wanted people to really understand that suppression
is a system and that system exists year-round,
whether we're picking our side or they're picking their side.
And if you don't understand that it's always present,
then you are going to ignore it or think that it's just about
politicians being mad at each other.
So I wanted to use the book and the timing
to give people time to absorb it,
to understand it, and to know what to look for
so we can fight for fair elections in November.
-The beginning of the book, the introduction,
you tell this great story
about the first time your grandma voted.
-So, my grandmother -- we call her -- her name is Wilter.
They call her Bill.
I was very confused as a child for a very long time
because my grandfather, his name was Walter
and they called him Jim, so it was a lot of names
that did not make sense.
So, you know, during my campaign,
I was home for a visit and I was talking to my grandmother.
She was watching what was happening here in Georgia
as more and more about the voter suppression was coming out.
And she decided to tell me about the first time she voted.
She didn't want to.
She had watched her children be arrested and attacked
during the civil rights movement.
Her husband had served in two wars on behalf of
the United States and was never allowed to vote.
She had been, you know, assailed herself
and she just didn't trust that the right to vote was real.
My grandfather kept urging her from the front room
to come and vote because that was during the time
where people used to dress up to go and vote.
And it was the first time black people in Mississippi
would have had a chance to vote in a presidential election
in modern times.
And she just didn't want to go, and when she told me the story,
she wanted me to understand
it wasn't that she was -- it wasn't just the fear.
Not just fear of the guns and the hoses and the dogs.
It was fear of the power.
For something to be denied for so long,
it was hard to believe it was real.
And where my grandfather was excited about it,
she was just filled with trepidation and shame
that she didn't want to risk it
just in case this time it was also a lie.
-It's unbelievable when you hear those stories
and it's, you know, here we are today,
and there's voter suppression still today.
I mean, we saw this happen in Georgia.
It was insane.
And people are waiting outside during a pandemic.
And you go, "What the heck is going on?"
How do we stop this?
-Well, the first thing is that if you want to
dismantle a system, you got to understand it.
-Yeah. -And you know what
my grandmother wanted me to understand,
what I want folks to understand is that the age of,
you know, guns and dogs and hoses
being the barrier to voting is gone.
Today it's labyrinthine administrative rules.
It's having to know based on the day you move to a new state
how many days you have until you can get registered.
It's being able to register to vote
and not have your application thrown out
because someone didn't know how to spell your last name
and wouldn't ask.
But it's also about having a polling place shut down,
which is part of what happened in Georgia.
We had one polling location that had to serve 16,000 people
in a single day with the same number of machines
they used to have when they were serving only a few thousand.
And so it's understanding that it's complex now,
that it's designed to look like user error.
It's designed to look like just bureaucracy.
And it's designed to make you doubt
that you didn't make the mistake.
And that's what's so insidious about it.
We no longer treat voter suppression
as the responsibility
of those who are in charge of elections.
We blame each other instead of blaming the system
and blaming the people responsible
for making the system so hard.
-You also talk in the book about
how important the census is as well.
-So the census is that -- you know, it seems like
this annoying, intrusive, statistical thing
that happens every 10 years. -Yeah.
-Most of us respond just because we believe the red letters
saying this is a federal crime if you don't reply.
But too often, the people who most need to be seen
are afraid of it.
And unfortunately, in this administration,
Donald Trump has been very intentional
about trying to scare people out of
completing the census or underfunding it.
And it's based on an analysis that they got from a gentleman
named Thomas Hofeller, who said that if you can get people
not to participate in the census,
especially communities of color,
the nation would look more Republican and white.
And that's just not who we are.
Those communities that are being overlooked now,
that are suffering now,
it's because they were discounted 10 years ago.
But it's also political power.
The districts that get drawn for elections
are drawn based on these numbers.
And if you aren't counted, you are counted out for 10 years.
-10 years. -And 10 years.
And that's a long time to go, to be ignored by those
who are responsible for making choices on your behalf.
-Stacey, you're on the short list
of a possible VP running mate for Joe Biden.
Obviously, you can't speak much about that,
but if that does happen, who is your first call?
-Oh, my mom and dad.
-Really?
I mean, they got to be so proud with everything you're doing.
-I said mom first because she's the most likely to answer
the phone when I call,
but she'll call Daddy over to listen.
-Oh, yeah. My mom was like that too, yeah.
My dad wouldn't even go near the phone.
That was her thing, and she would get on
and she would just talk and talk.
I could put the phone down, walk down the block,
come back, and we're still mid-conversation.
But I love that that would be your first call.
Thank you so much for coming on our show.
I really appreciate it.
And I hope to talk to you in the future.
-Thank you so much. I truly am honored to be here.