Original subtitles

[tense music]

[indistinct chatter]

[Karen]

My grandma raised me up and my sister up to vote.

You know, when we turned 18, that was our right.

-[Karen chuckling] -How are you?

Please take it easy. Bye-bye.

[overlapping dialogue]

[Karen]

'cause I got to re-register

'cause I'm... I'm nowhere in the system.

They're not making it easy at all.

It's... It's tiresome. Yeah.

[Michael]

It's about time we turned the lights on in the kitchen,

and started cleaning the cockroaches out of here.

When I found out, um, that I was purged off the rolls,

I was highly upset about it.

'Cause I, like I said, I mean, I grew up seeing my family vote,

I know it's my God-given right today to vote,

and I wanna vote.

The challenge we have

with the average voter suppression issue

is that it's happening to people

we don't pay attention to every day.

And for the average citizen, it's not top of mind

because it isn't as sexy, it isn't as violent,

it isn't as present,

but it can be the most insidious danger to our democracy.

The Board found probable cause to go forward

on a total of 3,564 voter registration challenges.

All of which were submitted by Mr. Michael Hyers.

"Yariza Vergos, Robin Brunns,

Christopher Carmichael, Tina Carmichael,

Justin Christopher Carter."

[overlapping dialogue]

[NC BOE Chair] Again, that's 3,564

of those challenges

the Board found probable cause on to go forward.

This is a big, you know, big win really,

as far as the numbers go.

I mean, good golly.

-This meeting is adjourned. -[clanks]

[upbeat music]

[Jeffrey] I'm Jeffrey Wright.

My grandfather, born in 1904,

was an oysterman on Virginia's Chesapeake Bay.

And he instilled in every one of his children

and his grandchildren the importance of the vote.

Yes, I'm an actor.

But also, more importantly, an American,

a citizen, a voter.

And I'm about to tell you a scary story

about how the core tenet of our democracy,

one person, one vote,

is under attack.

[Jeffrey] Today, American citizens

are being wrongly purged from voter rolls.

Others, intimidated not to vote.

Meanwhile, state after state

has passed new voter restriction laws

making it harder for all of us to vote.

How did this happen?

And what's the justification for this takedown

of America's democracy?

Well, this scary story starts in Chicago

-on a mild November night. -[sirens blare]

[Jeffrey] The year is 2008.

All right. Let's do this thing.

Everybody ready?

[announcer]Ladies and gentlemen.

The next first family of the United States of America.

[crowd cheering]

[Barack] We have never been a collection

of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

[crowd cheering]

The election of Barack Obama

most certainly can't be left out of this story.

That absolutely was a turning point.

[Barack] If there is anyone out there,

who still questions the power of our democracy,

tonight is your answer.

[Mark] That election was such a big moment,

it seemed there was this demographic tide,

and destiny had kind of taken over for Democrats.

And that,

you know, we were gonna see Democratic majorities

and presidents into the foreseeable future.

Because of what we did on this day,

in this election,

change has come to America.

[crowd cheering]

Barack Obama, he said,

"I'm gonna turn red states blue."

He said, "I will compete in Florida.

I'm gonna compete here in the South,

Virginia and North Carolina.

I will have the audacity

to challenge the Republican foundation

in Ohio and Indiana.

And guess what? The Latino population

is growing out here,

it is the future of the Democratic Party.

I will not only contest for it, I will win it."

Whites in this country have voted Republican

in every election since 1968.

And for the, at least since 2000,

all of the major minority groups,

Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, have voted Democratic.

[Steve] The day is very, very clear here.

If you are losing the vast majority

of Hispanic voters,

and if Hispanic voters are the fastest-growing

demographic in your country,

and you can't appeal to them,

you lose.

This is... This is very simple.

You lose.

The 2008 election was the first election

in which people of color were over a quarter

of the eligible electorate.

[Dale] African Americans turned out at record numbers.

[John] This is a historic election.

And I recognize the special significance it has

for African Americans,

and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

[Myrna] We did start seeing some major backlashes

against, um, the expansion of the rights to vote

after, um, President Obama came into power.

Um, I think it has to do with the...

with changing demographics

with people having anxiety over the browning of America.

'08 was the beginning of the whole demographic tide.

The first election where we could see

the demographics impacting.

[Chris] And if we continue to underperform

in this multi-racial world that is going to be America,

the white voters are going to be a clear minority.

The Republican Party will cease to exist.

The future looked pretty daunting

for Republicans at that time.

And so, there were those like me who said, you know,

we just have to a better job

of being compassionate conservatives,

of expanding our ranks.

[Mark] But there were others that took a route

where we kinda go down the road of figuring out

how you turn out more of your people

and less of the other guys.

The road many Republican leaders chose

amounts to what we'll call

"The Voter Suppression Playbook."

Since 2010,

they've created a number of plays or strategies

to counter the rising demographic tide

of non-white voters

and to discourage younger voters.

[Jeffrey] The first play was codenamed,

Project RedMap.

The concept was to leverage true national dollars

from national donors on the Republican side,

and invest them in state races,

state legislative races,

in a way that had never been done before.

[Jeffrey] In 2010,

RedMap sought to change almost 20 legislative bodies

to Republican control.

To fund that, Chris Jankowski

and the Republican State Leadership Committee

recruited the Kochs, the billionaire brothers,

with their own political action group,

Americans for Prosperity.

[Jane] There are about 400

very wealthy individuals now

who are allied with Charles and David Koch

in a kind of a rich people's political movement.

They looked at the 2008 election as a catastrophe.

[Jeffrey] With some $30 million in funding,

RedMap launched a blitzkrieg of attack ads

targeting Democrats running for state legislatures.

[reporter 1]Americans for Prosperity

is responsible for the content of this advertising.

And the 2010 elections really showed that

uh, you couldn't compete with all this outside money

flooding into these races,

uh, that could carry the day, and in some of these races,

it was over $200,000 in attack ad money

that just flooded into a race

that before had never seen more than $50,000 per candidate.

[Kromm] And Operation RedMap was looking at,

what are the states that we need to win the state legislatures,

and take control of state politics,

North Carolina was at the top of the list.

North Carolina is the true battleground.

Democrats have the edge in terms of voter registration,

followed by Republicans,

and then Independents

are the fastest-growing group of the electorate.

[indistinct chatter]

[Margaret] In the summer of 1999,

my children are almost out of the house,

and I had always been in politics,

in other people's campaigns.

My grandfather was Speaker of the House

many, many years ago here in North Carolina.

And I thought,

"That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna run for the House,"

and I did, and I was elected.

[Margaret] In these tough times,

my priority is doing what I can

to help families deal with rising costs.

[presenter] Margaret Dickson.Fighting for our priorities.

[Jeffrey] In 2010,

North Carolina's Margaret Dickson

sought re-election as a state senator.

She ended up caught in RedMap's crosshairs.

[Margaret] I had not heard of the RedMap plan at the time.

I did not see it coming,

and I don't think any of my former colleagues

saw it coming either.

[female voice] Incumbent Senator Margaret Dickson.

Who does she really care about?

Using her public office to help companies she owned.

Special deals, insider trading, no bid state contracts,

all for her own gain.

The hooker ad portrayed me

as a prostitute.

[Margaret] So that was pretty shocking.

When the ads came out,

I had women come to me crying

at the portrayal of a woman candidate in that light.

[Chris] We took some artistic license.

You can take a set of facts,

and then tell a story that fits your...

your narrative.

[Jeffrey] And the RedMapnarrative worked amazingly well.

Democrats across the nation took a big hit

in yesterday's midterm elections,

and the same thing is being felt right here in Indiana.

The state Republicans overtook the statehouse,

and the state senate.

There is a complete swing

from a Democratic to a Republican majority.

We set a record

for any political party in American history

in the gain of state legislative seats.

[Chris] We gained over 700 seats in one election.

[Margaret] And the North Carolina Senate

on Election Day,

the senate was composed of 30 Democrats

and 20 Republicans.

The next day,

it was 31 Republicans and 19 Democrats.

The only word you can use for that is just "tsunami."

We did what we needed to do in 2010,

which was take dominant Republican control

at the state level.

[Jeffrey] RedMap focused on the 2010 elections

because in 2011,

many state legislators would redraw

their voting districts based on the 2010 census.

Something that happens every ten years.

So partisan redistricting,

also called gerrymandering, became the next play.

And whoever gerrymanders usually wins.

[upbeat music]

Gerrymandering involves primarily two different methods

of, uh, dealing with voters of the opposite party.

[Gerald] You can pack voters into districts,

or you can crack them into districts

to make them ineffective.

[Matt] Texas is as good an example

of packing and cracking as anywhere in the country,

particularly the Dallas-Fort Worth area,

if you look at the map that was originally drawn

and approved by the Republicans in 2011.

Why would this district from the North

that's controlled by Anglos up here in the suburban country,

why would it come in to Tarrant County like this?

Well, it's because they came in

and they picked up Latino voters.

And you see that they just very carefully pick up

this big group of Latino voters

then come back and pick up another group

of Hispanic voters like that.

This is a classic cracking of Latino voters.

"Cracking" is taking the people of color

and cracking them into as many districts as possible

where their vote won't make a difference.

"Packing" is putting as many African Americans

or Hispanics into as fewer districts as possible.

This shows district uh, 30,

which is this packed district.

Well, to get a sense of how packed that district is,

we're going to shade both

African Americans and Hispanics together.

So the black plus Hispanic population,

then in purple, you start to see what's going on.

You've got a district here

that virtually doesn't have anything in it except purple.

A classic way of undermining minority voting strength.

If you favor one side over the other,

you can clearly take a right turn on Maple Street

and a left turn on Mulberry Street

and have a partisan impact.

This is also an opportunity for the maximum mischief

in the, uh, line drawing.

The Republicans, they were able to draw

unbelievably precise districts that maximize partisan advantage

where you can have a state

where the state is relatively even

between the Democrats and the Republicans,

and yet the Republicans may win two-thirds or three quarters

of the congressional districts.

[Ron] And that's what we're seeing

as a result of the redistricting in many states in 2010.

The party in power really decides

who's going to stay in power.

And that's not real democracy,

and that's what we have in way too many states

in our country right now.

People feel that their vote doesn't count,

and gerrymandering makes sure

that they feel like their vote doesn't count.

'Cause what happens is,

you get pushed into a district

that is completely safe for one party or the other,

and if it's completely safe, why vote?

[Jeffrey]Now with their majorities

secured by gerrymandering.

Many RedMap Republican legislators

executed the next power play.

Passing harsh, new voter restriction laws.

What you see is a outcropping

across the country of bills in state legislatures

that are dominated by Republicans.

Bills that require new kinds of hurdles

that voters have to leap over in order to be able to vote.

[light music]

[Jeffrey] In 2011,

Wisconsin, a RedMap state,

debated a new voter ID law.

The law mandated that those without an acceptable ID,

like a state driver's license,

would need a birth certificate or passport,

Social Security number,

and proof of state residency to vote or register to vote.

In short, more hurdles, more bureaucracy,

make it harder to vote.

[state legislator] The clerk will read the bill.

"Senate Bill 7 relating to requiring certain identification

in order to vote at a polling place

or obtain in absentee ballot verification

of the address of the electors,

absentee voting procedure in certain residential care

apartment complexes, and adult family homes,

identification cards issued

by the Department of Transportation..."

[Todd] I got involved when I was very young.

My granddad was a Republican,

so I was like, "I'll be a Republican."

And you felt it was kind of like this family.

So for me, I think it was a sense of belonging,

a sense of, "Hey, I'm working for something."

[Jeffrey] In 2011, Todd Allbaugh was a Republican staffer.

He had a front row seat

on the passage of Wisconsin's voter ID law.

The chair of the Senate Election Committee at the time,

stood up and kind of hit her finger on the...

on the counter, and she said,

"Look! We gotta start thinking about what this is gonna mean

if this passes to neighborhoods around Milwaukee

and the college campuses!"

What Senator Lazich was referring is,

"Hey, if we can suppress the college vote,

and if we can suppress the minority vote in Milwaukee,

this is a pretty good leg up on any future elections."

[Lena Taylor] Today, this is not a voter ID bill.

This is voter suppression,

it's voter disenfranchisement,

this is voter confusion,

this is voter restriction.

This is a voter discouragement bill.

The term "voter suppression" was never used in the room,

but everybody got the idea of what was being said.

[Todd] Just so you could see it on some of these senators,

uh, the light in their eye, they got it.

Because there are only so many white,

straight, old men left.

So the only way to win is to scare the shit out of people,

and to suppress the vote.

And I saw it firsthand.

I think the vast majority of our citizens wanna make sure

that their vote is a legal vote,

and that all the votes out there are legal votes,

because one fraudulent vote cancels out a legal vote.

And so I went to Facebook and said,

this is why I left the Republican Party.

So there are all kinds of forms of ID

that were permissible prior to these voter ID laws.

Now these voter ID laws are premised on the idea

of creating a form of identification

that is going to require voters

to go through hoops in order to get it.

Now what kind of voters am I talking about?

[Sherrilyn] The average middle class voter will say,

"I have a driver's license"

or "I have a passport."

As many as 90 percent of registered voters

have one of those forms of ID. It's in their pocket.

And they think, "What's the big deal?"

[Dale] But, here's the thing,

90 percent of people have it,

that means that 10 percent of people don't.

[Sherrilyn] If you live in rural places,

and you have to drive,

and these motor vehicle offices are few and far between.

And they're not open on the weekend,

and they're not open in the evenings,

and when you get there,

then you've got to have the underlying identification

that would allow them to give you

the ID that you need to vote.

For example, that you have to have a birth certificate.

Well, some of us have our birth certificate,

and some of us don't.

Some of us wouldn't know how to get it.

So it may cost you $15 to get the birth certificate.

So you have to now add the travel cost,

the time off work, the $15,

all to get the voter ID.

So that you can exercise this right

that the Supreme Court in 1886 said

was preservative of all rights, the right to vote.

The Supreme Court in 1966 said

that a poll tax of $1.50 is unconstitutional,

and if that's the case,

then our view is no one should have to pay 10, 20,

or 40 dollars to get a card, so that they can vote.

If we could put ID easily into the hands of every voter

in our country,

then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

But the reality is,

that getting access to government issued ID today

requires jumping through a lot of hoops and hurdles.

And there's one thing that I think

is really worth pointing out

and that's having an ID,

and having an ID to vote in Wisconsin,

are very different things.

[tranquil music]

My name's Molly, if you haven't met me.

What I can do is get you everything

that you need to vote.

Vote Riders is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization,

and really focused primarily on voter ID.

[Molly] We're going to make sure everybody can vote.

...so we can get you an ID from Wisconsin, too,

'cause you need one of those when you go and vote.

[Molly] I grew up in a household

where we're encouraged to be civically active and to vote.

And if somebody needs help

exercising their fundamental right to vote,

we should all be stopping what we're doing,

and figuring out what we can do

as a society to make that better.

Because this is about you, you know?

This is about the voters, you know?

And the people who are impacted, I can vote,

but, you know, you can't.

And then, um, I also wanted to talk about

when you wanted to go back to the DMV.

Oh, now that they wanna give the ID now.

Zack is one of the voters that I actually met here,

at First United Methodist Church,

doing regular community outreach.

[Zack] I didn't think it would take all this

to get, uh, ID to vote.

When President Obama got elected, I voted then,

so ever since then,

I've been trying to vote in every election.

[Molly] Zack had a paystub,

he had his Social Security card,

but he didn't have a birth certificate.

I want you to hold on to these again.

-Okay, hang on. -Okay.

[Zack] And we went to the DMV,

and they still told me I needed my birth certificate.

I felt like I had all the right information.

They were trying to just

have me go around the ringer, just for a birth certificate.

Voter ID laws impact certain demographics.

They impact low-income voters, they impact voters of color.

They impact first-time voters, and voters new to Wisconsin.

They impact students, they impact older voters,

who no longer have a driver's license.

[Molly] Here, they make it very difficult to vote.

And based on the legislatures, own admission and testimony

in federal court that doesn't seem to be a mistake.

The court heard evidence and concluded

that there were 300,000 registered voters

in the state of Wisconsin

who lacked one of the forms of ID

that is acceptable under the law.

[Zack] They're trying to make it where only

the rich vote for the rich.

I thought it was going to be simple, but it wasn't.

The studies are very, very consistent.

That, um, barriers

that you put in front of the ballot box

are going to stop some people from voting.

[Jeffrey] The true objectiveof voter ID laws in Wisconsin

and other states was clear to the politicians

passing these laws.

[Jim]It's something we're working on

all over the country

because in the states

where they do have voter ID laws,

you've seen actually elections

begin to change towards

more conservative candidates.

Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney

to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.

Republicans since 1984

in the presidential races have not been able

to win in Wisconsin.

-Why would it be any different? -And now we have photo ID.

And I think photo ID is gonna

make a little bit of difference as well.

The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.

If it hurts a bunch of college kids

that's too lazy to get up off their bohunkus and,

and go get a photo ID,

-so be it. -Right, right.

If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks

that want the government to give them everything, so be it.

And it just so happens that a lot of those people...

vote Democrat.

Gee.

It's astonishing, actually, you know,

50 years plus after the Voting Rights Act was passed

that we still have to do

voting rights enforcement and protection.

I speak tonight for the dignity of man,

and the destiny of democracy.

I will send to Congress a law designed

to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote.

[crowd applauding]

[Waldman] You know, the Voting Rights Act shook up politics.

Within weeks of the Voting Rights Act becoming law,

black voters were being registered by the thousands

in the South.

And within a few years,

their voter participation rates

were nearly the same as white voters.

[light music]

[Jeffrey] After 2010,

many RedMap states enacted Voter Restriction laws.

However, the 1965 Voting Rights Act

prevented most southern states from following suit.

The act required that those states

seek approval or pre-clearance,

from the US Department of Justice

in order to change their voting laws.

Well, this was a problem

since the South is key to Republican success.

So, some of the same conservative groups

that fueled RedMap now funded a Supreme Court Challenge

to the Voting Rights Act.

The goal? Do away with the pre-clearance requirement.

The case was called, Shelby Country versus Holder.

[upbeat music]

[reporter 2] First though, a landmark day

for the Supreme Court as it struck down a key section

of the landmark Voting Rights Act,

that was created to prevent discrimination

at polling places.

[Sherrilyn] This is a critical day

for Democratic participation in America.

This decision by the court is a game changer

and leaves virtually unprotected minority voters

in communities all over this country.

When we think something like voting rights

is something everybody believes,

and that progress only goes in one direction.

We've seen sudden reverses,

we've seen that history can go in the wrong direction.

I mean, the ink wasn't even dry on the opinion,

and the next thing you know,

the states raced to the clerk's offices

with legislation that would do harm to peoples' right to vote.

[Gerald] Soon as the Shelby decision was announced,

North Carolina legislative leaders said,

"Now we can go for the full bill."

And the full bill

was the monster vote suppression bill.

So what do we have?

We have 53 pages.

[Ellie] Fifty-three pages,

about reducing access and subtracting options,

making it harder for people to vote.

There's a care that's exercised, right?

Around the creation of these laws.

And in North Carolina,

the Republicans ask for information.

[Sherrilyn] They identified those ways of voting

that were more likely to be accessed

by the African American community,

and those were the ones that they outlawed

in that omnibus law.

Legislators asked for the demographics.

And when the Republican Party received the information

that the highest percentage,

something like 70 percent of African Americans

used the first week of early voting

that's what they cut.

Every decision they made,

they made it after they knew the impact it would have

on African Americans, Latinos,

uh, people of color, and poor people.

Some Republicans have admitted that.

That this was a way to make it a little bit tougher

on, um, Democratic voters.

[gospel music playing]

[William] For a moment, I wanna have

a grown-up conversation about racism.

You see, racism is not just about

somebody calling you the n-word.

[indistinct chatter]

[William] Most modern-day racists

are too smart for that anyhow.

Racism is about policy.

[crowd murmuring]

[William] Racism is about the ability

to take your prejudice and implement policy.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

[William] Since 2008, we've seen an all-out effort...

[crowd murmuring]

...by extremists,

in suits and ties,

who sit in political seats,

working to abridge

and deny the right to vote.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

[William] I have 500 years of ministry

in my family on my father's side.

So when I decided to go to college,

I picked the school that had no courses in religion.

'Cause I didn't want to go in the ministry.

I wanted to go to law school, and that was my intention.

But I had a very spiritual experience in 1984.

I, um, accepted the call to ministry.

But it's always been from the beginning,

I don't know any way to be Christian

without being involved in Justice.

[Gerald] What Reverend Barber and other leaders

in North Carolina did,

following the enactment of these vote suppression laws,

um, I think had a big impact in a positive way.

They do not want the people to vote.

Reverend Barber was really

at a time where I think many people were demoralized,

really being a strong voice saying,

"These are fundamental issues that we're going to fight for."

[crowd cheering]

And when you had waves and waves of people

at the legislature every week...

[indistinct chatter]

...willing to be arrested.

♪ I shall not ♪

♪ I shall not be moved ♪

♪ Like a tree ♪

♪ Standing by the water ♪

♪ I shall not be moved ♪

[Kromm] That was a real sign

that they weren't gonna let voting rights

be given up without a fight.

[William] Nearly 1,200 peoplewent to jail.

I was arrested here about six times.

And I like to connect it,

because voting rights is not just a black issue.

Black and white, Republicans and Democrats

joined us in getting arrested.

♪ Oh, come on, come on ♪

♪ Don't you wanna go? ♪

[crowd applauding]

"I am Rosanell Eaton,

92 years old."

[crowd cheering]

"I am before you today

to speak on voting rights.

I am fed up!

And fired up!"

-I said fed up! -[crowd] Fed up!

-Fired up! -[crowd] Fired up!

-Fed up! -[crowd] Fed up!

-Fired up! -[crowd] Fired up!

[Rosanell] Thank you so very much.

[crowd cheering]

[William] And so we had this ritual

that at the end of the rally,

everybody that was going in to be arrested would line up.

So I saw Ms. Eaton going in the line.

With her walker.

I was raised in the South,

so I'm taught respect my elders and care for them.

I said, "Ms. Rosanell, you don't have to do this.

You can sit this one out, we got it."

She said, "You back up, I got this."

And she led about 150 people

who all got arrested that day.

[crowd applauding]

[William] Rosanell walkedwith Dr. King.

Dr. King encouraged her and inspired her.

She's registered thousands of people to vote in her life.

She's faced the Klan.

She wasn't always non-violent, because she had seen the Klan

burn crosses in front of her yard.

[Armenta] I remember her standing at the...

kitchen counter one day,

and all of a sudden, I heard her say,

"I didn't ever think

I would have to go through this again,

before I got in the grave."

And I knew she was dead serious.

Because she thought certain battles were already fought.

[indistinct chatter]

To justify new voter restriction laws

like North Carolina's HB 589,

politicians needed a cover, a compelling reason

to fix an election system that wasn't broken.

This helped give rise to the so-called

Voter Integrity Movement,

which took off after Obama's 2008 election.

[upbeat music]

If you care about voter fraud, gentlemen,

we're fighting it. We could use your help.

-[man 1] Thanks. -If you care about voter fraud,

we're fighting it. We could use your help.

If you care about voter fraud, gentlemen,

we could use your help.

-[man 2] Thanks. -Thank you.

[woman 2] I know a girl who votes eight times

and has a million dollars in the bank

and, uh...

is on food stamps and gets everything for free,

-including college. -[sighs]

How do you know she votes eight times?

Because we know her.

She does.

Would you call me later?

-[woman 2] Yes. -After the election?

[Jay] Before I launchedthe Voter Integrity Project,

I was a military officer,

a retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force.

I became worried that

this is a fragile system that depends on people.

People being fair and honest.

If you're worried about voter fraud,

here's how we're fighting it tomorrow.

We could use your help.

[Jay] They're hiding something,

and we're on to them.

And that's, uh...

The only question is not how many... It's...

You know, we know they're doing it.

The question is, how big a deal is it?

Are they really trying to steal an entire nation?

Are they really trying to rig elections

in so many states

that they can determine the outcome of the presidency.

And a lot of people are going through life with blinders on,

or like I used to tell people,

it's called the toilet paper tube syndrome.

You got toilet paper tubes in front of your eyes,

and all you see is that little bit of world

right out in front of you through the toilet paper tubes.

You don't see what else's going on out here.

So if you're looking right here

and you're not looking for voter fraud,

you won't see voter fraud.

Republicans saw an opportunity,

saw an opportunity where

they could go into states,

and build this notion of voter fraud,

get people scared about it,

scared enough that they would create new laws

that would heighten the threshold to qualify to vote

and make that qualification so difficult

that it would suppress voters,

and not coincidentally people who would vote against them.

[Mark] It's just a very well-organized,

well-staffed, well-resourced operation,

that once they get an idea,

they can spread it like a dandelion.

All we're trying to do is protect voter integrity.

We ought to protect election integrity.

-Voter integrity... -...is at stake.

How can you be against election integrity?

There's, uh, a lot of people around the country

that use the slogan...

We need to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

We want to make it easy to vote...

It's very easy to vote,

-and we also... -We also believe

it should be hard to cheat.

We try to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

Because every time a non-citizen votes,

it cancels out the vote of a US citizen.

Every non-citizen who votes...

...cancels out a legally cast ballot.

"Every time voter fraud occurs,

it cancels out the vote of a lawful citizen

and undermines democracy."

We can't let that happen.

You didn't have all this talk about fraud

until all of a sudden, African Americans

and Latinos began to vote in record numbers.

[Richard] I've called some of the people

who advanced these arguments without good evidence.

Members of the fraudulent fraud squad,

and they go around making claims that voter fraud is rampant,

without good evidence to support it.

[stutters] So, and what's the end game?

The end game is passing new restrictive voting laws.

I'm Kris Kobach.

In order for we, the people, to take our country back,

we need to have fair elections.

I will stop voter fraud in Kansas.

[Kris] We need to requirephoto ID when people vote.

[ad narrator]Every state needs a Kris Kobach.

You know, our campaign had an undeniable,

unmistakable message,

"Stop voter fraud!"

[interviewer] Could youplease define voter fraud?

[Kris] When people say voter fraud,

it's really... it encompasses

a large number of potential crimes.

You might be a person who's not a US citizen registering.

Then there's crimes on election day,

which include things like double voting,

voting in more than one state.

Voting under someone else's name.

Voting a fictitious identity.

The fictitious identity problem, you know,

is significant in some states.

Actually, voter fraud is substantial in Kansas.

[stuttering] But here... So that...

The, um, the cases we've prosecuted

are just in the last two years,

using a very small legal staff.

We haven't prosecuted all the cases that we could have

if we had more attorneys,

and we haven't prosecuted all of the many cases

that we will never discover.

There is no belief in actual voter fraud.

What there is, is an attempt to restrict voter access

that is using the specter of voter fraud,

which is hard to prove because it doesn't exist,

so you can pretend that the reason no one knows

about this is because it's been so effective.

[Stacey] So you create this boogie man

that can only be disapproved by another boogie man.

So I looked into how fraud of various kinds occurs,

and in particular, I focused in on one kind of voter fraud,

pretending to be somebody else

when you walk into a polling place.

I started the study in 2000,

went through 2014.

[Justin] Out of a billion ballots cast,

I found, at the time, 31 incidents.

Credible, raising a hand, somebody has pretended

to be somebody else at the polling place.

When you dig in,

when you actually look incident by incident,

a lot of the allegations vanish.

Another analysis found that out of 197 million votes cast

for federal elections between 2002 and 2005,

only 40 voters, out of 197 million,

were indicted for fraud.

As a percentage,

that is 0.00002%.

That's not a lot.

[crowd laughing]

Most voter fraud allegations are driven by,

what some might term, untruths.

Others, less generously, call them

"the big lie."

President Trump again, this week,

suggested in a meeting with senators

that thousands of illegal voters

were bussed from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

I can tell you that this issue

of bussing voters into New Hampshire is widely known.

It's very real, it's very serious.

This morning, on this show, is not the venue for me

to lay out all the evidence.

Joining me now, is someone who knows New Hampshire politics

very, very well, a Republican who ran the state's party

over the last decade, Fergus Cullen.

You, sir, on Twitter, are offering $1,000

to anyone who can prove

what Stephen Miller was claiming,

do you have any takers?

Uh, so far, shockingly,

no one has been able to come up with any evidence,

no pictures of one of these magic buses,

delivering hundreds, if not thousands,

of people from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

No one has any evidence at all.

[Jay] You know the busses are red meat to some activists.

I got a call from somebody going,

"Hey, there's buses!"

They urged me and begged me to get over here

as fast as I could to check it out.

But, I don't see any buses.

And in New Hampshire, I've seen it.

-I've seen busloads of people-- -Again, I mean, this is...

This is what we keep coming back to.

Yeah, based on what I've seen

with my own eyes, busloads of people coming in,

whether they're illegal,

meaning they came into the country illegally,

-or they're illegal voters. -Voting double.

-You saw that? -Well, I know Josh has seen it.

-Yeah, and I've seen it too. -Josh, did you see busloads

and busloads of people coming in

-from somewhere else? -I wouldn't characterize it

as busloads and busloads.

[reporter 3] Even though, are you sticking with your...

that you've seen busloads, or no?

I... I have seen busloads.

I... I, yeah, I guess I can't cite the... the busloads

that I've seen and where I've seen them and stuff,

on television, I've seen it.

Something significant shifted in America

over the last decade or so.

[Mark] And it's pretty simple.

It shifted from people thinking there was opportunity

to thinking that opportunity was being taken away from them.

That "others,"

you define that however you want,

are coming across the borders or from wherever,

and they are changing our way of life.

In one place, I can lay that blame is to say

people are stealing elections,

those other people, that other party,

those people that are trying to take stuff away from me

are doing it illegally.

'Cause people don't wanna say it's, you know...

People don't wanna admit that life changes.

[crowd] Trump! Trump! Trump!

[Trump] What a great place, thank you very much.

So we have thousands of people outside

trying to get in, but we should start.

-Do we agree? -[crowd cheers]

[Jay] We're fighting vote fraud if you are interested in that.

Of course, we are worried about vote fraud.

-[Jay] Yeah, I am too. -We're worried about vote fraud

-in North Carolina. -Read that.

But people will.

They'll vote many times.

Somebody coming up and voting 15 times for Hillary.

[crowd clamoring]

[woman 3] I think he's gonna win.

Unless, the only way she's gonna win

-is if she steals the election. -That's what I'm afraid of too.

Which is why you need to read that,

and decide if you wanna fight vote fraud,

if you care about it.

And I will not tell you

-to vote 15 times. -[crowd cheering]

You won't vote 15 times.

[Jeffrey]In 2016, for the first time,

a major party presidential candidate,

Donald Trump, and his vice-presidential

running mate, Mike Pence,

were preaching the gospel of voter fraud

and rigged elections.

Do you agree with your running mate,

Donald Trump, that, um, polling places

in this country are going to be rigged?

In recent years we've had instances,

proven instances of voter fraud, and that's why I say...

The 2016 election offered a perfect opportunity

to see how the Voter Suppression Playbook

was working in real time.

The first stop, North Carolina.

[upbeat music]

[Michael] My name is, uh, Michael Evan Hyers,

I'm a 100 percent disabled veteran,

I'm not married, I have the time,

I have the skills,

and have a desire to make sure

that every American vote is legally cast.

[Kromm] The Voting Integrity Project is interesting.

They've always had a bit of a gadfly, renegade,

vigilante voter fraud, you know, crusaders.

They claim that thousands of non-citizens

were voting in the state

where they would challenge voters

at county boards of elections.

And then they couldn't prove

that really any of those were true.

Is there anyone in the audience today

who received a notice

that if they wish their name not to be removed

from the voter rolls, they should be present?

[NC BOE Chair] Stand up then,

and give us your name, please, ma'am?

Randy Burkhead.

Okay. Okay, you, sir?

John McKeaton.

North Carolina has a provision

where a citizen can challenge the right

of another citizen to vote. It's been on the books forever.

[Jay] Who else is gonna know who is registered to vote,

unless another citizen does it?

Some of the laws that wind up being discriminatory today,

had discriminatory intent

when they were first written in early 1900s

as part of the Jim Crow laws.

[Michael] For example, voter purging laws

to cleanse the rolls.

[Kromm] And this was typically used

in the Jim Crow era by whites who were trying to prevent

newly enfranchised African Americans

from having access to the ballot box.

Michael's methodology involves finding voters

that the state identified as inactive.

[Michael] These people havemissed two federal elections,

so they were listed as inactive.

And I started sending letters to these inactive voters

on the Cumberland County voter rolls.

[Jay] The ones that came back marked by the post office

as undeliverable are considered evidence

that the voter no longer resides at that address.

And Mike challenged those voters.

[Jeffrey] Voter challengeenvelopes were marked,

"Do not forward."

If a resident moves in the district,

even across the street,

he or she will not receive the notice their registration

is being challenged,

or even know to come to the Board of Elections hearing

to contest the challenge.

Now let's move on to Mr. John Lamon McKeaton Jr.

[Michael] Some people have the knack

of spotting anomalies.

It's kinda like seeing a lump of coal

in a bale of cotton.

It... It'll just pop right out at you.

Let me just ask you what do you want

this board to know concerning your place of residence.

Uh, I do live, have lived, at 7790 Stone Court Road.

-You said, "7790." -[John] Mm-hm.

[NC BOE Chair] This says, "7770."

[Michael] Is there a possibility that people got struck

from the rolls mistakenly

because the post office did not appropriately deliver the mail?

There's still... There is a small,

small possibility on that.

[NC BOE Chair] Do you solemnly swear

that the testimony you are about to give

concerning this matter shall be the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

-so help you God? -[Janice] I do.

All the evidence shows

that when someone is purged from the rolls,

it's extremely unlikely that they're going to re-register.

It's hard to get them to re-register.

And I worry that it will diminish

the will to participate in the political process.

And the danger is,

if states use unreliable information

to take voters off the rolls.

[Dale] And if they do not give voters adequate notice

and an opportunity to contest their removal,

then we could have a situation where hundreds

or ever thousands of legitimate voters

are being taken off of the rolls without their knowledge.

[tense music]

[Jeffrey] To reverse Mike Hyers' and Jay Delancy's voter purge,

as well as purges in other North Carolina counties,

Reverend Barber and the NAACP

asked the federal court to intervene.

[William] Good morning.

Persons were engaging in an attempt

to get voters purged, especially African Americans.

We are fighting this, we believe,

and we hope the courts will agree with us,

and we will have an immediate temporary restraining order.

Reverend Barber, huh.

That guy's made a name for himself.

[laughs]

I congratulate him on a well-funded...

Uh, he has a lot of,

a lot of out of state funding money.

And, um, he knows how to play that race card

better than anybody I've seen in,

really since the heyday of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton,

he has played that race card so well.

The NAACP filed a voter suppression lawsuit

against the North Carolina Board of Elections,

and today, they won that case

with a federal judge declaring that all the voters purged

from the voting rolls must be reinstated.

The NAACP in North Carolina,

they filed a lawsuit in federal court,

uh, and actually, they went judge shopping.

They found a...

Uh, they found a black female judge

that they can influence, uh, emotionally

in my... in my opinion,

and not so humble opinion at that.

[William] Those of us who are the descendants

of people who had their cars blown up

outside of churches right here in North Carolina,

when they were inside the church organizing for voting rights.

When you come from that kind of lineage,

you're not gonna allow some loudmouthed bigot...

to intimidate you.

[Jay] The courts have said, you know,

you can't do any of this kind of stuff in the last 90 days.

They're gonna put all these names back on the roll.

We had a guy who worked for two years

and got over 6,000 names removed in Cumberland County.

And they claimed that we were targeting blacks.

I would be glad to get drug into federal court.

'Cause that would give me the opportunity to expose

the problems that we have in this state.

I get three hots and a cot and full medical care

if I go to jail.

Except how are you gonna put me in jail

for following the law?

The next stop, Rock Springs, Texas.

Here, a local sheriff seemed to be practicing

an old-fashioned, but effective voter suppression technique,

voter intimidation.

[upbeat music]

The whole idea is to make voting seem

like a dangerous proposition.

[Matt] That it's something that might get you in trouble.

And again, what that does is over a period of time,

it insulates Republicans against the effect

of African-American and Hispanic population growth.

[chickens clucking]

[Gerald] In Edwards County Texas,

we had received reports

that the local sheriff who's connected

to the militia movement

and who prides herself on being, you know,

this tough cowgirl sheriff,

she had actually engaged personally

in efforts to intimidate voters.

[Pam] The issue of voter fraud has been very prevalent

since I've been here.

They're tired of, "You see it, you know it,

everybody around you knows it,

why isn't someone doing something about it?"

-[Pam] Who's 814? -Frank Conservio.

[Pam] 814, how long has he been here?

[man 3] He's been here since the first of the month.

-Since the first of the month? -[man 3] Yeah.

[Jon] The sheriff has alleged people voting incorrectly,

that have not.

She has threatened to investigate people

for illegal voting, they have not.

She has someone in jail now.

I'm not guilty of nothing

'cause I did the right thing as I went to go do it, I asked.

[Jon] The gentlemanis under arrest for voter fraud

and voter impersonation.

He's accused of impersonating his grandfather.

There's no way a 40-year-old man is going to be mistaken

for someone who's almost 100 years old.

[Pam] In the first case,

he went to prison for delivery of a controlled substance.

But once he was on parole,

he pretty much knew he wasn't supposed to vote.

It was just probably, "Catch me if you can,"

or "Ha-ha-ha."

I don't really know the motive behind it.

I guess maybe, one day, he'll tell us.

But at this point, he's just kind of

trying to play the victim.

I do feel that it was a mistake that was done

by the ladies working the poll

in not actually comparing the date of birth.

The date is clearly stated

on the registered list as 8/9/1915.

Now Manuel was on parole, he should not have voted.

[Jon] But the election officials shouldn't have

allowed it either.

He asked if he could vote.

That tells me that he didn't know

if he could or not.

[Mindy] The intimidation comes in the arrest itself.

Him sitting in jail

would send a very strong message to a lot of people,

and intimidate a lot of people

as to not to go out and vote.

[lock buzzes]

[leg cuffs rattling]

The sheriff, she has been diligently trying

to root... root out the corruption

ever since she took office over here.

[Darrell] She already has. We've had more arrests ever.

Perhaps this might make some of the people

who are entertaining the idea of voting illegally.

It may wake 'em up and say,

"Hey, they're not gonna let me get away with it

if I get caught."

This county has the highest rate of voter fraud allegations

with the Secretary of State

and the Attorney General's office than any

of the other 254 counties in the state.

[Jon] Houston's got 10 million people in it.

We've got 1,100.

And we have a higher rate of voter fraud?

Please.

And there was one additional stop before Election Day 2016.

Jefferson City, Missouri.

Where state legislators

were debating a voter ID requirement

for the November ballot.

[upbeat music]

2006, there were only two states in the country

that had what I'd call,

a strict voter identification requirement.

And then all of a sudden, after the 2008 election,

we have a wave of laws,

unheard of, virtually,

that make it harder for people to participate,

and in almost every instance, disproportionally hit precisely

these segments of the electorate that are emerging.

So it's hard for someone like me

to look at that and think, "This is just a coincidence."

[indistinct chatter]

[Alferman] House Bill 1631 has been from the very start

about integrity in our election process here in Missouri.

Pure and simple.

House Bill 1631 is the implementation

of photo voter ID in the state of Missouri.

Implementing procedures to safeguard against fraud

helps ensures that qualified, registered voters' votes

are not diluted by unlawful activity.

-And what is that-- -[Alferman] That's what photo ID

-is trying to do. -And what is it?

[Alferman] You think protecting against fraud is a bad idea?

I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole, gentleman.

We have protections against fraud right now.

[Colona] Stop trying to confuse people

-and sensationalize an issue... -[Alferman] Gentlemen.

...to back up your point of view.

Be intellectually honest

-about what's going on. -[Alferman] Where are you coming

-from on this case? -What can you point to?

[Colona] What voter identification fraud

can you point to that's happened in the state of Missouri

that your bill would address?

[Alferman] How do you,

-without this implementation-- -[Colona] That's what we call

a non-responsive answer

because you did not respond.

That's okay, I understand.

[chuckling] I would implore the body

to think real hard about their vote on this,

and ask them to vote no. Thank you.

[house speaker] All those in favor, vote yes.

All those opposed, vote no.

Mr. Clerk, please ring the bell and open the board.

[bell ringing]

[house speaker] Mr. Clerk, please close the board

and tally the vote.

By your vote of 115 yes and 41 no,

you have sustained the gentleman's motion.

[indistinct chatter]

An so, in order to maintain political control,

in order to maintain the systems that we have

that benefit white people,

it means that we have to, as a country and as a system,

be able to keep people of color from voting,

and from their full political power.

To say that our intent is to try and disenfranchise

any individual in the state of Missouri

is completely absurd.

That is a very serious accusation

and... and a very, uh...

It's something that I don't take lightly.

[Alferman] Your vote is your own,

and it's extremely important in a democracy.

I'm just trying to put more integrity

into our voting process.

[foreboding music]

[woman 4]We're very honored to have

the Reverend Cassandra Gould with us.

[applause]

[Gould] I wear this shirt, my mom's name was Carrie.

My mom was... We...

I was born in the little town in Alabama,

47 miles from Selma.

My mother was a voter rights worker.

I really used to get sick of my mom's stories

about what it meant to be in Selma,

and how she marched,

and how she was there before Dr. King.

"Mom, I don't wanna hear about Selma anymore.

I mean, we, we, we got it made now.

We can actually go and vote."

So I thought, so I thought.

Voter restriction laws

are designed to take us back

to the time that my mother was fighting in Selma.

[Gould] It's dancing on the grave

of civil rights workers

who gave their lives, so that people could vote.

It is not just about photo ID, that is code word

for let's cut out some citizens.

And who are the legislators to get to decide

who gets to have a right that they already have?

[applause]

Let's vote no on Amendment six.

So you... you voted yes on Amendment six?

Oh, you voted no. Okay, great. Yeah.

[Jeffrey] In the summer of 2016,

while Missouri mulled the pros and cons of voter ID,

federal courts struck down or modified a number

of the more restrictive voting laws

passed after 2011.

[Scott] In anotherimportant story tonight,

North Carolina's law

requiring voters to show photo ID

was thrown out by a federal court

that said the law was designed to bar black Americans

from the polls.

This is the third time this month

that similar laws were struck down,

the others in Texas and Wisconsin.

These court decisions frustrated advocates

of voter suppression legislation.

The next play would need

to include changing the federal courts.

But that would have to wait for another day.

[sprinklers rattling]

[reporter 4]This is a Tuesday morning,

but not just any Tuesday morning, Election Day.

[reporter 5] Good morning,America, Election Day 2016.

[reporter 6] Election dayofficially starts right now.

[reporter 7] So who did you vote for?

Tough decision.

[indistinct chatter]

[Jay] If Hillary wins, I'm done, probably.

I don't know what will happen,

but it scares the crap out of me,

'cause if she wins,

I'm afraid I'll be hunted down like a dog.

[indistinct chatter]

-[machine beeps] -[woman 5] I think it took it.

Thank you, ma'am, appreciate you coming.

Thank you.

Morning. My name's Michael Hyers.

Well, you may not think so when you go back

and research my name, but I've been the...

I'm the fellow that's been filing the voter challenges.

Let's face it.

There are unscrupulous people out there.

And they could go to the polls and impersonate.

And impersonate somebody. I'll tell you what...

If I could get more people of all,

I hate to say race, 'cause we're all

-the human race. -Yeah.

But if more ethnic backgrounds involved in this,

that way, people wouldn't be taking pot shots at me.

The NAACP is hot as a pistol at me right now

claiming I'm suppressing the black vote.

They're accusing me of targeting minorities.

They're throwing mud on the wall and trying to get it to stick.

But if you're interested in getting involved, uh,

look up voterintegrityproject.com

-Okay. Well, have a good day. -Thanks. Have a wonderful day.

[cicadas chirping]

[Darrell] Right now, we're delivering

the election equipment.

You mind if we can put the tabulator right here?

Ready?

[clacking]

[Darrell] We can't let it drop.

[suspenseful music]

[Pam] Hi.

Good.

-I don't know. -You don't know?

Whatever God tells me to do, that's all it's gonna be.

[foreboding music]

[Dan] Who was the first president I voted for? Al Gore.

You see how that turned out, right?

[laughs]

-[Gould] You have your... -[Dan] Yeah, I got my documents.

[machine beeps and whirs]

[Gould] All right.

-Voting with my son. -[grunts]

-[laughs] -Yeah, first time, right?

Good stuff.

[calm music]

[Jay] What we're gonna try and do is have data collectors

sitting there passively collecting data

on license plate numbers.

See if we can figure out which people, if any,

are going from voting location to voting location.

The illegitimate reason would be

if someone is what we call a serial voter,

and going from location A to B to C.

Using a different name in each one.

And what we wanna know is how prevalent is this?

[Jay] You see any vote fraud? [chuckles]

Not yet.

[phone rings]

[Jay] I gotta take this. Hey, Jim.

[Jim] Have you,uh, seen any fraud?

Heard of any fraud?

[Jay] Uh, no. We've... We've have not.

No. With only... With only six data collectors,

the odds of getting someone who showed up at two locations

-are slim and none. -[Jim] Yeah.

[tense music]

[Sam] What would you say to Jay Delancy and Mike Hyers?

Um, basically, if, uh, if you had...

If you want to challenge me,

you know, please contact me first.

A challenge is a challenge,

and if I challenge you to a chess match,

I need you to play with me, you know?

At least come back, you know, show me what you got.

So, you know.

[tense music]

[ship horn wails]

Missouri becomes a voter photo ID state

with Amendment six passing with 64 percent of the vote.

[Gould] It looks like it's gonna be a loss for us.

And it's really a loss for the people.

I believe that the right to vote is sacred.

So I'm really grieved in my spirit right now.

Not a lot has turned around in Missouri

in the last 40 years,

except in the wrong direction, so...

[cicadas chirping]

[indistinct chatter]

[Pam] I won!

Pamela Elliott, Republican, 61.8 percent of the votes,

Jon Harris, Dem, with 38 percent of the votes.

Just... Just blessed, really.

[chuckles]

-All right! -[cheering]

[indistinct chatter]

[man 4] Great job! We're proud of you.

[woman laughing]

Awesome.

[cheers and applause]

[Reince] Ladies and gentlemen, the next president

of the United States, Donald Trump!

Thank you, it's been an honor. God bless.

Thank God.

[cheers and applause]

President-elect Trump has been quite active on Twitter,

and he said, "In addition to winning the electoral college

in a landslide, I won the popular vote

if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."

The President-elect is absolutely correct

when he says the number of illegal votes cast

exceeds the popular vote margin

between him and Hillary Clinton.

Our next guest, Gregg Phillips, first tweeted

the claim that three million people voted illegally.

Do you know and can you prove, right now

that three million people voted illegally?

Yes.

-Do you have the proof? -Yes.

-Will you provide it? -Yes.

-[Cuomo] Can I have it? -No.

If you look at voter registration,

you look at the dead people that are registered to vote,

you're gonna find, and we're gonna do

-an investigation on it-- -But three

-to five million illegal votes? -Well, we're going to find out.

But it could very well be that much.

After the 2016 general election,

I called all 50 Secretaries of State,

managed to reach 49 of them.

And never found more than one or two,

at tops three or four,

suspected instances of fraud.

Not proven, but suspected.

Or alleged. Uh, many states had none at all.

Recall that what curtailed

widespread voter suppression in the 2016 elections

were rulings by federal courts overturning or amending

many of the new voter restriction laws.

[Jeffrey] And now, with the Republican Senate

and White House,

Republicans could nominate and confirm

their own judges.

A new day was coming.

[upbeat music]

[man 5] Welcome, everyone, especially the nominees

and their families to today's nomination hearing.

We'll hear from four nominees to district courts.

President Trump has set a record for the most number of judges

named to the courts of any first-year president

ever in American history.

But think of 145 district judges,

that's world-changing, country-changing, USA-changing,

and we have unbelievably talented, smart,

great people being put in those slots.

And so, whatever protection

against voter suppression is coming

from the courts is going to be eroded

by the impact of this vast wave of Trump judges.

And Democrats are decades behind Republicans

in terms of recruiting and thinking about

how to control the judiciary.

[Jane] I mean, the Federalist Society

in many ways is... is...

is writing the lists of judges

for the Trump administration to pick from.

[Jane] The Federalist Societyis the creation

of billionaire right wing funders, like the Kochs.

They helped get it off the ground in the first place.

The Republicans, they have found a formula

that has allowed them to win

even though the demographics of the country are changing.

We can reassure ourselves

that those strategies can only work for so long,

but the question is for how long?

And what if so long is a very, very long time?

[Jeffrey] The Voter Suppression Playbook is complete.

It's part and parcel

of the same malevolent and dark strategy.

Cut a few voters here, a few voters there.

Discourage others from even taking the time

to cast a ballot.

In short, undermine the sacred American principle

of one person, one vote.

So just to finish up, you see what's happening,

the process is rigged.

This whole election is being rigged.

[Jeffrey] As Donald Trump has said, so many times,

"The elections are rigged."

But in a much different way than he claims.

They are rigged to stem the rising demographic tide

of non-white voters,

and to discourage younger voters.

Clearly, the Voter Suppression Playbook

is working all too well.

We need all of our institutions of power

to protect the right to vote.

We need the legislature to protect the right to vote,

we need the executive to protect the right to vote,

and we need the courts to protect the right to vote.

When you deprive people the right to vote,

the vote being the very fiber of this wonderful quilt,

we call a democracy.

[Elijah] When you begin to tear the threads away,

saying this person can't vote,

that person can't vote, the next thing you know,

you will not have a democracy.

I think our Founding Fathers were brilliant.

And I think they put in

guardrails of democracy to keep the crazy out.

Now I think we're being sorely tested,

and we're gonna see how strong those guardrails are,

uh, because they've never been tested like this.

But that's the nature of democracy,

that it does not, it's not static.

It doesn't just stay free and open

because it's a democracy.

It's because every day, you fight to keep it open.

Every day, you... you have to...

you have to put your shoulder to it.

We have to dream about the democracy

we want to have.

[Judith] We have to say, "Whose side are you on

in this fight for our robust democracy?"

People don't understand why it's so important

that this experiment we call ”the United States" continues.

Then you say, "Well, it's...

It's always been this way in my life,

so I'm sure America's gonna continue the same way."

Well, are you?

The right to vote isn't partisan.

It is an important part,

and it's, in fact, the bedrock part

of our democracy.

That people own the agency

to participate in their government.

And until we can say, without doubt,

"One nation under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all."

Until that means exactly what it says,

we are still working

toward becoming a more perfect union.

[light music]

[ominous music]

[Jeffrey] If you wanna know more

about what you can do to defend America's democracy,

go to our website, riggedthefilm.com.

I'm Jeffrey Wright. Thanks for watching.

[tranquil music]