Pod Save America - The Wilderness Chapter 6: Young Black Voters in Atlanta

Can Democrats keep Georgia blue? We hear from young Black voters in Atlanta about Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, Joe Biden, voting rights, and the future of democracy. Organizer Nsé Ufot, political commentator and strategist Symone Sanders, and pollster Terrance Woodbury join Jon to discuss what they had to say. New episodes of The Wilderness drop every Monday. Subscribe to The Wilderness wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple: apple.co/thewildernessSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6JfsJlD5sBhVpEQEALNw4UStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-wildernessIf you want to learn more about how you can take action in the fight for our democracy, head over to Vote Save America and New Georgia Project: https://votesaveamerica.com/midterm-madness/
https://newgeorgiaproject.org/

Duration: 58m
Broadcast on: 24 Oct 2022
Audio Format: other

[MUSIC PLAYING] We would have neighbors and churches and different communities come out. And so we tried to program the talent around the interests of people in that community and play music and have dancing and pass out food and water. And party at the polls is like a fully nonpartisan program. We're not pushing any agendas. We don't connect to any specific candidates. For me, it's really just the culture and the action of voting. Let's hang out together. Let's party together. And if we happen to have to stand in line for two hours, we have this great vibe, you know? Which is why that line criminalization within SB 202 was such a huge blow. But we're still trying to navigate that even beyond some of the limitations that we have. Tiffany, Mackie, and John Agrant are organizers with the New Georgia Project, which helped register and turn out tens of thousands of mostly Black, Brown, and Young voters in the last election. This year, Tiffany says their work has been a lot harder because Governor Brian Kemp and the Republican state legislature passed a law known as SB 202. If I could describe voter suppression, it is subtle and not subtle all at the same time. So what that bill has done is limit drop boxes in certain communities. So that puts more pressure, of course, on election day, where we have those long lines at the polling precinct. So we serve as a presence at those precincts to one offer them information. But we also have to follow SB 202. We have to do that outside of 150 feet from the precinct. We can't pass out water within those parameters. Otherwise, we could be arrested, and so can the voter that we're trying to give that water to. - I'm going to be fully transparent and honest with you. Like, I had no idea that voter suppression was this insane. In Georgia, like, I am a green card holder, so I can't vote until I'm naturalized. We have to get out. There's these things that'll block the roads. And then a lot of the voters could no longer go to the precinct that they used to vote at. They'll do these things to stop people. It was really eye-opening for me personally. Another person on my team is from London, also Black.

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