- Whenever you see a concentration
of voters of color, you will see voter suppression.
Any time that you restrict access
is a form of voter suppression.
Voter suppression is absolutely real.
My work that I've been doing as a voting rights activist
for the last 2 and 1/2 decades.
I am seeing, actually, voting suppression be intensified
in the last ten years.
We've been on the road for 25 days.
We're on the We Got Power bus tour.
We've been going to 15 states around the country,
connecting with Black voters to do a couple of things.
Our goal is to always go around, spread a little love,
and build some power.
Voter suppression is like a shape-shifter.
It takes many, many different forms.
And so when we see it, we have to call it out,
and we have to bring correction on it.
Texas is literally exhibit A when it comes to voter
suppression in our country.
This is a state that has a long track record of working
to suppress the rights and the voices
of Black and brown voters.
We're here seven days a week to help voters who are trying
to overcome those kinds of obstacles that
might stand in the way of their ability
to cast an absentee ballot.
In some parts of our country like Georgia,
officials have used this as a tactic
to disqualify and reject ballots cast by eligible voters.
The problem is that election officials are not experts
at conducting signature match verification
and the methodologies they use would never stand up,
not one day, in court.
In Rock Hill, South Carolina, about a week and a half
ago, there was an elderly man that walked up to me and said,
my wife who is infirm and I take care of her,
we have been voting for over 50 years.
And we submitted her ballot and they're saying
that her ballot is rejected.
And I don't know what to do.
And I said, well, what did they say?
He was like, well, they said that the envelope was damaged.
Because the envelope was damaged,
they rejected the ballot.
All of those nuances are small attempts
to prevent certain people's votes from being counted.
It's like a death by a thousand cuts.
What is the thinking behind creating
only one opportunity for people to literally
drop off their ballot?
I can tell you what it is.
It is voter suppression.
It has a disproportional impact on working-class people.
Getting photo ID just to vote may mean having to track down
your birth certificate, go down to a local governmental agency
office, wait for hours, and navigate
all of that bureaucracy just to get the right to vote.
While there is voter suppression,
what gives me hope is that I am seeing people standing--
willing to stand in line.
They're bringing their chairs out.
They're bringing their snacks out.
They're standing in line two, three, four hours.
While it doesn't make me happy that they have to do that,
the fact that their resiliency and their commitment,
that they're determined to vote.
I think where we see that there's
a lot of voter suppression, we also
have to share the narrative.
That there's a lot of resistance and that people
are, in fact, rising up.
And they're letting their voices be heard.