Voting in Times of Crisis: Youth, Voting Machines & Civic Duty | BRIght & Early, BRI’s Web Series

0:03 hello young people of the internet welcome to another episode of the Bill of Rights Institute bright and early history and civics web series where we’re talking about current events and how they relate to historical content and context and some activities for you to do at home or with your small community that you’re in right now so with me I have my colleagues as always

0:24 Gary and Kirk hi guys so as we start off every episode how are you doing what’s been going on you know it’s getting a little bit a little more used to being home still don’t know what the future will bring but I’m I’m increasingly

0:45 eager to look at the news in terms of what what will happen in the future you know rather than at first it was like what’s happening now and I’m starting to get the idea of what’s happening now so it’s more what what do I think is going to happen and that’s been really intriguing how about you yeah no I’m with you there Gary I feel like we’re we’re getting to a point where we kind

1:06 of know our boundaries a little bit more right and we’re kind of more certain about what is uncertain if that makes sense and now within that uncertainty starting to think a little bit about okay well what’s the next phase of this gonna look like how are we all going to respond and and what are things gonna look like on the other side of this this crisis right and I think one of the

1:27 things that that I noticed this week was there were some big projections about the nature of American democracy and that struck me because as you all know we’re bunch of civics and history nerds and when people start making big predictions about what’s gonna happen with our democracy I start to pay attention pretty closely to big things

1:48 that happened where Bernie Sanders ended his presidential campaign which meant that Joe Biden is gonna very likely be the nominee for the presidential election that’s happening in November and then the other thing that happened is the state of Wisconsin held its primary even though the state was under

2:10 a stay at home order and so there was a lot of question and contention and kind of a of commentary on what that meant and how you proceed with elections in the current crisis and critical moments in American history and so that was something we all were kind of chatting about we wanted to talk with you young people about as well because there a lot

2:31 of implications and it’s a little hard and people start making these big claims about the nature of democracy paul krugman if you don’t know as a columnist in new york times he often makes big claims but this one in particular you know that’s shocking and maybe a little scary and so we wanted to talk about

2:51 kind of what is this what is the history of elections in crisis and and and how can we think about these and and even as a young person what’s your role as we’re thinking about how these things are all changing very rapidly so Kirk you put together a little something for us the history of elections in crisis so I

3:13 think what’s become evidently clear at this point is that I like history and you know one one reason I like history particularly these times is that I can look back and find things that are somewhat similar or at least a similar kind of thing to what’s going on and that can help in at least it comforts me to know that there’s a little bit of context so we’ve gone through these

3:33 things before and that our democracy and our democratic process continues to function so I thought I would just touch on a couple different elections that I’ve been thinking about now that these elections are really similar to what’s going on now but only in the sense that they are moments that were very uncertain that Americans before us have

3:53 lived through and that they had elections so I picked a few out here 1860 in 1864 are around the Civil War so lots of sectional tension questions big questions are being asked to the country 1876 comes immediately after that that’s dealing with reconstruction a president had just been impeached and there was I

4:14 pointed out here on this slide there was 81 point eight percent voter turnout which is pretty incredible people were very interested in the direction the country went and it came down to a very split kind of decision so if you have some time look into that election it’s really interesting and then three elections 30 to 40 and 44 have to deal with the Great

4:34 Depression as well as the Second World War and then finally I just highlighted here 1968 because it was in the midst of a lot of internal political turmoil there was turmoil at the Democratic National Convention famously riots and protests but across the country there’s a lot of uncertainty and we still had a presidential election we still had elections that we went through sorted

4:57 such as quickly on 1860 because it was a moment of sectional tension so the south and the north were at odds with one another and that turned into four presidential candidates you have Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin I think Hannibal Hamlin’s name is a great trivia fact if you ever want to surprise your your you know friends and family who was Abraham Lincoln’s first

5:17 vice president he’s an interesting guy he’s from Maine but worth checking out in his own right but then you had the southern Democratic Party in the Democratic Party so the southern dem and the Democrats had two conventions that year the first one they couldn’t come to a decision they split over the issue of popular sovereignty which is the idea that individual states would be able to choose whether or not they kept slavery

5:38 or not and the Southern Democrats went one way the Democrats went the other way then you had this constitution party which was the former party of the Whigs which is a funny name but the southern Whigs were in coalition with the north and had concerns about the extension of slavery but ultimately didn’t favor secession so they formed their own party

5:59 so these four parties all in tension with one another and the result is the election of 1860 where Abraham Lincoln wins thirty nine point eight percent of the vote which isn’t a whole lot if you think about it but he won a hundred eighty electoral votes which secured for him the presidency so thirty nine percent of the popular vote and then 181 electoral votes 180 electoral votes running

6:20 natural events but super high turnout again so eighty one point two percent voter turnout which is really that’s wild really high but that popular vote number is really interesting Carly because what happens immediately after this which is the country ruptures it splits right in the south southern states secede and then we enter into a period of Civil War which

6:41 is those catastrophic conflicts in our nation’s history and in the midst of that war we had a presidential election I’m attending the note the Confederate government didn’t have a national election but the North did in 1864 Abraham Lincoln found himself running against his former head general and George B McClellan and this election was

7:02 very contentious and Lincoln was not looking very good in the polls McClellan McClellan was in favor of the war but the Democratic Party itself was running on a peace platform they thought that they’d been enough death and suffering and they wanted to make peace with the south but Lincoln was sticking with the idea of pursuing the war to its end and in that election there was a big moment

7:24 called what’s now referred to in political circles as an October Surprise Sherman wins Atlanta and sends Lincoln this famous telegram that says Atlanta is ours and fairly won and that really swung the election in Lincoln’s favor but up until the actual election it was very much in doubt whether or not Lincoln would continue to be President again you have a really high voter

7:44 turnout which is interesting seventy three point eight percent the other interesting thing about this election is that southern states weren’t counted because they weren’t they were in rebellion right so all the areas that were occupied by Union troops and could put on election were able to vote but Lincoln secures the presidency and then just really quickly another one because it was more of an economic situation the

8:06 election of 1932 between Herbert Hoover and Franklin D Roosevelt the stock bargain had crashed in 1929 in the ensuing economic depression there was high unemployment people were frustrated with the way the Hoover administration dealing with it and so you get really a landslide in favor of FDR and I think

8:26 this is interesting Hoover won thirty nine point seven percent of the popular vote in the previous election in 1928 he had had fifty-eight percent of the popular vote so there’s a huge decline there that shows what happens when American people are thinking about who it is that they want leading them and when they get frustrated with who’s in charge and I

8:46 was good touch on the wartime election same kind of thing happens I think sometimes in wartime Americans want to cling to whoever’s in charge if they’re happy with the way that are going in here we saw FDR win a very significant majority of electoral votes in a fairly significant majority the popular vote even though this was one of his closer elections but I think what’s important

9:07 through all of this is through these momentous moments both at the beginning of crises with 1860 in 1932 and then in the midst of them in 19 and 1864 1944 you see the American people holding accountable their elected officials these are course national elections but also at the state and local level all these elections are happening and it’s a

9:27 way for us to continue to have a voice in how it is that our leadership is addressing these crises which i think is a critical and important thing you know we’ve talked a couple weeks ago we were talking about private citizens stepping up and volunteering and all the wonderful beautiful work our health care workers are doing and all that is incredibly important as important are

9:49 our political leaders who are guiding our policies and setting setting out how it is that we as a collective community are addressing these things and so this process of voting I think is incredibly popular and as we can see from these elections and I encourage you to look at the others I highlight or any others and the other electives that you think are interesting from this perspective it

10:09 shows that we as the American people can still come together have our voices heard in a process that’s that’s trusted and that ultimately results in us continuing to have a stable government which which benefits all of us so let me get this straight so so there have been moments of crisis in the United States like big moments of crisis right I mean

10:29 they’re not it goes beyond you know regional crises they’re the these were national crises that were happening and the elections and the election process did not change has never been altered or or postponed in our history right so

10:52 it’s like been continuously we’ve been able to have these elections right throughout history there’s never been a time no matter what’s been going on in our to almost 250 years of history that that election just haven’t happened or have been significantly postponed we continue to have them no matter what because it’s such a bedrock of what we

11:12 do as Americans as a Democratic Republic that that it is so sacred that it would be unprecedented for us to alter them significantly now in the case of New York City they are talking right now about changing the date of some of the primary elections because of just the

11:33 nature of what’s happening in New York City right now but that wouldn’t be like the national election were still pretty secure that the national election is going to go forward as expected as far as I’m aware and and I think you know that that you know 1860 I think is a good example that I mean in 1860 there the debate was about slavery right and

11:55 it was about what the country was going to do about slavery and that was a a time when the American people had to make a choice about the direction that was going to go and ultimately it was it was it conflict followed that election but the election itself went forward and

12:16 then even within that as the Union was fighting in prosecuting a war to end that institution and bring the country back together and preserve the Union it continued on that track and there wasn’t there wasn’t you know even as Lincoln was taking extreme measures like the suspension of habeas corpus in fact Lincoln suspended Maryland’s legislature

12:38 at one point and told them they couldn’t meet you know there there was momentous things that were taking place and yet the national election moved forward and in my mind that that gives me hope that in this crisis we’ll also be able to move forward because when America is faced with with challenging times and challenging questions I think we can find innovative ways to continue

13:00 continue on speaking of innovations the so one of the things that again states like Wisconsin and Minnesota and New York are talking about is trying to move towards mail-in ballots that everyone is mailed a ballot and they’re able to submit that way there are some concerns about mail-in ballots that are that are real

13:21 we voter fraud or voter access or or just being able to legitimize that the people voting actually voted the way they did five throughout our history we’ve had lots of different ways that we voted and Gary’s put together some some slides to kind of get us talking about all the different ways we have voted in the US so that can put this moment in kind of

13:42 perspective yeah absolutely you know as we talk about things how much we get excited about history you know civics itself is something I get really jazzed about like the mechanics of just how we do things and so to both of your points this idea that there is this importance whether or not something tumultuously

14:05 you know it’s a fundamental part of who we are but then also started off what you were talking about Rachel where you know how do you deal with it in situations you showed us the people lining up and and with all the distancing happening you know are they still physically showing up how are we gonna deal with all of this so for our students out there whether or

14:26 not you currently are of voting age or are eligible to vote it’s really important to to think what is important about voting and then how do we do it and so that was that was sort of what I was contemplating so I was I was looking through sort of our ideas of how we have voted over time and it really is it’s a

14:50 question of what’s important right and what’s important is an eligible voter in the United States has their voice heard and we have talked about this in terms of it’s not like you get millions of people all descending in one place we have electors we have a system where their voice goes to an elector and then

15:12 those electors in the Electoral College move on and cast their votes and eventually we have a president let’s say on the National the National Forum so so just going back your voice needs to be heard if you can be eligible to do it well before the Revolutionary War that’s exactly how it happened you would have

15:34 large groups of people at fools or gatherings and you would just call out I vote for this versus anything and you know sort of like a like you would in a classroom right that if you’re taking a vocal vote that’s good in some ways but there’s some limitations to that one in large numbers really tough to come out all of those

15:54 votes verbally and then to there’s that question of you do do you want your your vote to be out there in public right is there something about that that’s important so so eventually after the Revolutionary War in early America of course that let’s start happening where at first you’d have candidates name and people would sign their names under the

16:14 ballots and then as populations grew and just the complexity of it there would be printed ballots early on the printed ballots would be given out by the parties that told you all the officials that were going to be running those eventually got condensed to kind of one ballots in your area that showed you the different parties and everybody that was

16:35 running and then that question started coming about in the nineteenth century of you know do we how public do we make this do we put it in a box to you that we had the vest pocket ballots so you would you know people would say look I say oh I’m going to vote for right now I’m gonna put it in my pocket and then we’ll see what happens with the numbers and then by 1892 more and more written

16:58 secret ballots start coming around by 1920 you see the the leper machines that’s actually what I was young I remember the lever machines where you would pick people put little levers and then you would you know that exciting moment where you pulled a big red bar and then it would you know tally your votes it’s it’s an early form of a computer showing your age my age exactly

17:25 but then eventually those led to punch cards by 1965 right and and that lasted a really long time so there are cards that you know literally punch holes in them and then the Voting Rights Act of 1975 and then by mm you know these punch cards came into question during during

17:46 the Bush v Gore time and there’s been much more move to do we make it digital you know do you fill it out and put it into a computer and all these questions um but that’s what I find really interesting is again fundamentally what matters and what fundamentally matters what is the most important thing is that voices are heard and tallied and it’s very clear so from

18:10 the very beginning from the very first election this what I’m showing here is from the annals of Congress the first Congress the first session and you can see just a little excerpt from from what they shall be say journaled for what they had just tallying that these votes went out went to electors and that process worked and lo and behold here’s

18:33 a report that our president is going to be a guy named George Washington and that John Adams is going to be vice president that’s just the way it is it worked out those are the numbers and we accepted that we’ve been doing it ever since so that’s a really interesting question that I like to have right so back to Bush v Gore and and PRI has

18:54 great resources on the the bush-gore time 2000 again if you were not alive at the time it was a huge deal about how do we know what people’s voices were right and this picture was it was a classic stock photo of this time saying what does every Americans vote that’s going

19:14 to the electors what did they intent and how do we know and so that’s the question that I would love for you to observe you’re gonna see a lot of stories about do you have to physically be in person do you have to write it down do you have to use a card should you use a computer can you mail it in ultimately what do you think is the best

19:36 way for an eligible voter voice to be heard and so you know I always like to have us observe what’s going on take a look maybe this week or this time and observe what’s the discussion about voting about the dates does that matter does that support or go against what fundamentally it has to happen and also

19:58 you’ve seen this as change over and over again throughout our history do you think how we vote is gonna change in the future and if so what methods of voting do you think would work really well because your voice is really important you if you are not already are going to be one of those voters and it’s never too early

20:19 to just be aware of how voting happens what’s going on in the process and how it happens is also going to be something you have the power to influence so it’s a really interesting time to say what do I see about the way that we vote is it fulfilling what we want it to be and what can I do about it and I think

20:40 that’s super cool so that last question is where I’m I’m my head is right so we have lots of young people who are more tuned into the news now than they probably were six months ago right paying attention to the different the different as we’ve said there’s been a lot of governor’s and mayors making

21:01 declarations so we’re much more attuned to civic life maybe you are more attuned to civic life than you were six months ago because it’s so present and and so much a part of and has such a very like powerful impact on what you’re able to do and not able to do right now so throughout history young people have to have the status of young people within

21:24 civic society and within civil society has shifted right so early on young Americans were given the Virgen their Virgen vote is what it was called and if you’re interested in a great book about kind of the history of early American young voters there’s this book called the Virgin vote by John Princeton who

21:44 out of the Smithsonian highly recommended but there’s a lot of discussion about what that first vote means and being of eligible voting age and the responsibility that comes with that and then in the 1960s and 70s with changes in culture and mostly having to

22:05 do with the with with the Vietnam War and the role of young people in society in 1971 the voting age was lowered to was lowered to 18 and then every year that there’s an election so this is this is a referendum for New Jersey on presidents for 18 year

22:26 old vote so every year the 16 year the question of whether or not a 16 year old should be able to vote comes up the idea being that whoever they’re voting for at age 16 will have or whatever whatever principles or policies they’re voting for at age 16 will have an impact on their their their taxes their job

22:48 opportunity by the time they turn 18 so that the mindset there is you want to give people who will be affected by this by the policies by the politicians and power a voice in making in choosing those those politicians and the policies in power and so there’s always like so you’ll see this every couple of years these articles about how 16 year olds

23:10 should or shouldn’t be able to vote and and it’s a regular discussion in society maybe it’s a discussion you have I’d be curious what you all think should 16 year olds be able to vote that’s an interesting question the other thing as as Kurt mentioned he would say we were saying that 80 percent was really high for voter turnout this whole period from

23:33 about 18 1840 to 1896 that 50 year period had relatively high presidential election turnout but then you’ll see that that it really does trail off into the 40s and 50s depending on whether it’s a midterm or presidential election

23:54 and then the other thing to note to note is that voter turnout by age varies dramatically so the people who turn out the most are those who are over age 60 which you hear a lot and the people who turn out the least are those youth voters right the 18 to 29 year olds I’ll

24:15 make that bigger for you Kirk and so I think that one of the things that we’re seeing right now that’s that can be that look that may be profound is you’re your civic engagement your awareness of what’s happening one of the effects that may happen is that you feel more

24:36 connected to civic activity and that means that you may feel more compelled to go out and vote because there’s there’s an opportunity you feel an opportunity now the thing that a bill of rights Institute we talk about all the time is that civic life is not the totality of civil life right so what you do in your civic duty or your civic

24:59 engagement is a portion of kind of what makes society good right and so in other episodes we’ve talked a lot about how businesses are coming together to support society how charities are coming together to support society how individuals are doing all these amazing things and I think it’s important in this episode that we’re talking about that are our leaders are working really

25:22 hard to make sure that they’re minimizing to the best of their ability the impact of what’s happening and whether that’s economic impacts or health impacts or whatever impact is important to their constituents they’re working hard the governors and the governor’s staff and the state legislatures and the national

25:42 legislature are putting in a lot of extra hours right now trying to make sure that Americans are as provided for as as as we’re able to be given constraints did you guys have anything more that you wanted to add no I mean I think that’s a really interesting point because I also want to stress you know

26:03 we’re really talking about voting today and it’s cool to get really jazzed about it but I did want to stay and agree with you saying this is important and if you think back to what I was saying before about the fundamental part of what democracy is all about just because you can’t vote maybe doesn’t mean you don’t

26:23 have that voice to share and I think that’s really important and like you said voting is super important and part of a lot of getting involved in society exactly yeah so I think that was a really interesting idea yeah and as we think about this moment right now right so a lot of attention is gonna be paid to the election it was already gonna be a really

26:43 contentious election and the response of whatever is gonna happen in the next three to four months is gonna really impact what happens in November November you know March seemed to last 37 weeks I don’t know I can’t even conceive of November coming but it will I’m really just looking

27:05 forward to June especially because I live in the DC area and that’s when we’ll be allowed to like get out of our houses regularly but I think that that there’s gonna be so much discussion there’s this incredible opportunity right now to start building your argument and start building your knowledge base and to start doing the

27:27 research that will let you be a really well-informed advocate for what you value yeah yeah absolutely and and you know the importance of issues that were going on before this crisis took place our are just as important right and and so continue to understand you know how how those things may be impacted

27:47 whatever you’re passionate about how that may be impacted by this crisis and in what candidates are still saying about it as well as how candidates have responded to the crisis or have commentary or criticisms of what’s going on during the crisis I mean all of that I think is it’s really important to pay attention to as will be just how it is that the election takes place so how are conventions for example gonna take place

28:09 each of the the major political parties has a convention where they name their nominees those are good you know it’s gonna be interesting to see how they how they how they held those and how the process of the American people’s voice being heard actually rings out in this election cycle absolutely and if you want to kind of see what I think was a

28:31 really really excellent example of a state leader speaking to his state if you get a chance to watch the State of the State address by minute by Minnesota governor Tim waltz it’s one of those one of those moments where I have no I mean I’ve been to Minnesota I think twice in my life not for very long I do have a lot of

28:53 friends there but it’s one of those moments where looking at the rhetoric of how someone chooses to to engage their constituents is really really interesting and so comparing and contrasting the different states and how they’re responding and what rhetoric they’re using you know Andrew Cuomo the governor of New York is using very

29:14 different rhetoric than than governor Tim Walz and so I think there’s an opportunity there to find examples and exemplars that you can use for your own life when it comes to thoughts about leadership or public speaking there’s a lot of opportunity to think about right now as giving you a lot of examples of what to do and maybe what not to do as you grow into your own into your leader

29:38 in your community so I want to say thank you for your time today and for joining us for another episode of bright and early my name’s Rachel hi Gary yeah I’m Kirk in my dog is hopper and he has a lot to say at the moment and we are here every week to talk about current events

29:58 and what it means today and what it means for history and give you some activities so please join us again let us know if you have anything that you’re thinking about any great examples of leadership or not-so-great examples of leadership that you’ve seen in your civic leaders and community and gentlemen do you have anything more to add no exactly I mean I think a theme is

30:21 we’d like to hear from you literally because that’s expressing your voice and so you know we want to hear your thoughts absolutely I will look forward to seeing you next time thank you guys see y’all soon