Interview with Isela Gutiérrez-Gunter

Interviewee: Isela Gutiérrez-Gunter (Democracy North Carolina’s Associate Research Director)

Interviewers: Haley Hickey and Jesús Hidalgo

Date: March 31, 2016

Venue: Democracy North Carolina (1821 Green St, Durham, NC 27705).

Videographer: David Mayer

Transcript: 

4:15 PM: (0:00) Set up Noises  

01:48

Haley Hickey: Perfect, well thank you so much for agreeing to sit down with us, I know you’re in a totally different world right now but I’m so glad you could come back here with us. We’re just going to have quite a few questions we have for you. Mostly on your research, like we mentioned in the email, but Jesus, do you want to start?

02:09 

Jesús Hidalgo: So we were reading a bit about you and your work here, especially as a person in charge of the research, so could you tell us about that part of your work here at Democracy NC?

Isela Gutiérrez-Gunter: I’m the Associate Research Director, so I share the research work with our Executive Director, Bob Hall, and I work on research policy for our organization. Specifically since I’ve been here in that role since 2013 I’ve really focused on researching the impact of the new laws passed by the general assembly and the sweeping overall of the election laws passed in 2013 looking at the implementation of the laws, so from a policy lens keeping an eye on the administrative policy developed by that state board of elections and how its being influenced at the county level. And then trying to measure the impact of the new laws. And in 2012, when I was here, I also did some research on the growing Latino population electorate in North Carolina.

JH: And so regarding that, what is your major focus right now? We saw a lot of tools and things outside. Regarding what is at stake right now we the elections, what is the main focus of Democracy NC right now?

IG: Well we both do policy and research work and do organizing and outreach work and help with education work and do the the whole spectrum of that kind of work. So, we are working on trying to get people to vote, trying to get them to understand the law and the changes to the law from the perspective of the voter. And then, all the materials, the wallet cards, information on your rights and then we’re all doing organizing, organizing in churches. We recently just finished up a major poll monitor effort where we had over 600 poll monitors in the field across the state who were out at different polling places helping voters and directing them to the voter election protection outline that helps answers their questions. So right, now, really, this is what we do- we work through churches, non-profits, to try to get out the word about voting, elections, and especially in this times period, the changes to the laws to voters. We really try to reach historically disenfranchised populations, which in North Carolina means African Americans. And that is increasing, but as the state is changing demographically we’re seeing a lot more folks – Latinos and Asian Americans too who in NC are primarily immigrant populations who might need more information about voting. So, our focuses are broad.

05:13

HH: In Silenced Voters, you and I believe it was Bob Hall- and other nonprofits you’re talk about how provisional voting was the only change that can be captured with research the representation of unsuccessful voters, really just a pocket of that. Of the other four changes to the laws, what do you think might have the potential to silence voters the most?

IG: So, we believe that the change of out of precinct voting, elimination of same day registration in particular those two will result in the disenfranchisement of lots of voters, same day registration especially. Out of precinct voting is really difficult on election day, that’s when it begins difficult. The loss of same day registration is huge because early voting period of 10 days now is a long time when we had before register and vote. Lots of folks don’t realize the voting restrictions that exist. They don’t know they need to be registered in their county of residence ahead of time, they don’t realize they need to re register when they move from county to county. There’s just the people often check to see if the registration is current, they might not know what their polling place is, they might think that they’re registered at their DMV but their registration didn’t go through and they didn’t know until they show up and they’re not registered. So we saw a lot of that in 2014 when we didn’t have same day registration. So I’d say those two were the biggest hurdles. The loss of SDR is major. Just because people have a lot of things going on in their lives and its easy to place a lot of the responsibility on the individual voter, saying “you should have known, you should have looked, you should have checked. Why didn’t you know? This is your right, this is your democracy, this is your job, this is a citizen of the country” But the reality is that people are busy and our election laws are complicated. So I’d say those two are the most damaging, followed by voter ID. Voter ID provisions, limited number of ids that are acceptable. That’s the real, I mean that is the real challenge to voters particularly out of state students who are here who have the right to vote in their campus community and other people who are out of state transplants. As the law was originally written, before it was changed this summer, anyone who’s ID was expired, in particular who didn’t have the ID you would have been disenfranchised period. But this summer, The Republican General Assembly changed the law to expand so you can have ID that’s four years expired from the state of NC and you have the option to vote a reasonable impediment ballot. So that softened the voter ID law and we have yet to see how that is going to affect voters in the Primary 2016 and that’s a part what our poll monitoring project was about, trying to figure out how voters who were affected when they went to go vote with the voter ID in place and with the Reasonable Impediment in place. Then I think probably the other aspects of the law.

JH: I think you mentioned the straight party ticket repeal somewhere- could that be true?

IG: I think what we’ve seen with the elimination of the straight party ticket is that some harm to the down ballot races. So, typically when go vote, as you know, at the top of the ballot you have your presidential, gubernatorial, your big races, Then as you get lower down the ballot you have your smaller races: county commissioner, sometimes your judges, and so the partisan down ballot races were really effective for the elimination straight ballot tickets. And we don’t know how people vote, who votes straight party ticket and who doesn’t, but the data indicates there are more straight party voting that occurs in precincts that are predominantly people of color so its an easy shortcut when you don’t have time or you aren’t 100% sure who these people are but you want to hit one button and keep it going [laughs] or maybe you aren’t familiar with scantrons, because when I was in school and we used scantrons for everything, but not everyone is my age [chuckles] so takes a long time to fill out all those little bubbles so the straight ticket voting option can be helpful for voters who are of low literacy or find the scantron challenging or just want to make it quick.

 

10:39

[Technical checking by David]

11:03

IG: I would say in terms of disenfranchisement that the straight party ticket doesn’t disenfranchise anybody because you’re still going to the polls and voting.

JH: I see exactly, is this an issue where you have to wait—

IG: Its a mechanism of voting, as opposed to a barrier to not being able to vote, just lines

JH: Is this an issue where you are waiting in line for three hours and you realize you are running out of time and you have to cross and cross and cross all the—

IG: Right, and the other laws that are in place like that, the elimination out of precinct voting, elimination of voter ID all add time to the voting experience and discouragement as you saw in the Voter’s Report. So the lines get longer, the people getting turned away get higher, and potentially the fallout is large and very difficult to measure.

11:59

JH: Going back to the photo ID issue, we were actually surprised by the number of people your poll monitors and the number of people who were asked for ID for 2016 was as high as 2016 was as 72 percent. The rate of people who were actually asked for photo ID was higher than before according to one of the polls.

HH: I think it who was not asked.

JH: Sorry, sorry

IG: In 2016?

HH: For the 2016 election, so the number of people who were not asked if they had the correct ID or if they were aware of the new ID laws in 2014 for the upcoming election

IG: Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah

HH: I think 72 percent was coming from Alamance County, one particular precinct but that’s remarkably high. Do you know if voter education has improved, especially I know you guys had a lot of suggestions in your report if they have taken any into account?

IG: I think that state board of election – I know that the state has put a lot of money this year for the education about voter ID law. There are radio ads, TV ads, billboards, they’ve produced some very high quality TV spots, really professionally done, really good messaging, lots of different people represented so but its tough to get all the nuances of the ID law into the 30 seconds 1 minute long spots and billboards so I would say that a lot of effort – I mean a lot of money has gone into education. The state board of election has an outreach team of about four staff who tries to go around the state and hold different community events. The challenge of this entire voter education effort that’s happening and was happening in 2014, 2015, leading up to this year you don’t have the same voters for presidential years often as you do for midterm years. For presidential years, that is the big event. Everyone wants to come out and vote for the president. Everyone knows who the president is. Not everyone knows who the governor is even or often who their county commissioners are but everyone knows who the President is. And as we’re seeing now, its all over the media, talked about constantly. The midterm elections are significantly less sexy. You know, there are always their polls showing how everyone hates congress. Who wants to go vote for Congress? No one every does. [Laughs] And in state legislature, another sort of more complicated, often less appealing and interesting to frequent voters than the big show. So, in 2016 we will see thousands of voters who will turn out who did not turn out in 2014, certainly did not come out in 2015. Also a high rate of – you know – immigration into NC, even in the country, in country migration. We’re going to see a lot of voters who are new to NC and who might not know about the voter ID law. They might know there is photo ID and might think they have the right photo ID and then they show up and realize they don’t have the right photo ID. So I think that the challenge is that you’re just going to be seeing new voters, different voters, and as we mentioned in the report, there is a lot of variation from precinct to precinct and county and county. While the state has made quite an effort, the entire election process is very decentralized so the state of NC does not fund elections. Counties fund elections. So the state of NC, state board of elections they have their own staff that do their own work, but there’s no money that siphoned down to the counties for running elections. So if you live in a big county, like Durham or Wake, then you will have a well funded election system. If you live in a small county with a small tax base, you will have a not as well funded election system. So that means you’re going to see that variation and so I think that attempts have been made to standardize training and to make sure voters know – main information has gone out- but its a big challenge to really make sure that people know when the laws are and that when they show up to vote they have the right ID.

17:20

JH: And in that sense, this lack of knowledge, this lack of education, what group do you think would be more susceptible to be silenced because of this lack of knowledge?

IG: And people who are transient so that includes, young people, but also low income people. So if I get a mailing from the state board of elections and I don’t live at that address anymore, because I’ve moved, for financial reasons or because I just move a lot, then I don’t get the mailing and I don’t know what’s going on. So those are the two – people of color tend to fall into both categories. The millennial generation is more diverse than previous generations, young people are transient. I’m not particularly young- I’m 36- but I’ve moved a lot and had a lot of different addresses in my life. Mailing is not the most effective way to always get information to me. And then people who are low income and are moving from place to place. There was a study done by the Harper Foundation last year that suggested that African American women rates of eviction were similar to African American men’s rates of incarceration. So when you think about people – where people live. That’s where you’re registered, at your address. How you might get information and your voter registration is tied to your physical address. You can imagine that eviction or moving from place to place is happening at these very high rates in certain populations then that means that illustrates the importance of things like the flexibility of registration (same day registration provided). Not having your vote tied to your ID necessarily because you might have moved from place to place and the importance of making sure your poll workers are very well educated because you might not be able to get the information to the person at this address. But when they come to vote that’s the moment of truth. So if you’re poll workers and precinct officials really know what’s going on and can reliably transmit that information and understand complicated elections laws as they’re shifting that makes a big difference.

19:53

JH: Just a follow up on that: Have you personally been affected by your change of address here in NC?

IG: I have not personally been affected because I know the election laws because I’m an election law nerd and I have a masters degree and I read my fine print but well for a moment I was an inactive voter but I reregistered and I know what that means and knew it wasn’t that big of a deal.

 

20:29

HH: So, certain groups, for example you mentioned registered Latino voters in your Snapshot, are more proportionally spread across rural counties so that could potentially make day of voting issues like you’re talking about more impactful. Have you found rural populations to be affected more by this day of voting changes?

IG: We have found that its harder to analyze because its easier for us to get – because the research question is how to measure people who don’t vote so you’re measuring something thats not present. That’s why the provisional ballots are so valuable because you know that these people showed up, there’s documentation that they tried to vote and it didn’t work out. Our poll monitoring project is a way of documenting what’s happening at the polls and trying to see people leave, talk to them as they leave. So “why are you leaving” “what’s going on” or they somehow registered. “I’m not even going to vote, I don’t have time” Its- in a less populated, less dense area, its tougher to get volunteers to go out and stand and do this non partisan work. You know, we’re not stumping for any candidates, which is a lot of the people you have even in rural areas. From a research perspective, — that’s what I would say. Some of the more egregious, we found as you found in the report, that some poll workers in rural areas had well I shouldn’t say that.

22:48

JH: And we read about your project on getting voter IDs and how difficult it was, especially for the two interns who were the sort of guinea pigs in the summer of 2014. So we were wondering how this actually affects the Latino voters, does it actually affect them? Have you found results in your research about the difficulties for Latinos getting IDs?

IG: Latinos in NC not necessarily. The challenge around Latino voters around ID and the ID law and ID policy would be around name. Most- many Latino population in NC is primarily an immigrant population. So I’m originally from Las Vegas, I lived in Texas, I’ve lived in California, these are states that have populations that people who are third and fourth generations from the US, right? Or on top of immigrant populations, so you’ve got lots of difficult folks. A very diverse group of Latinos. Here in NC, you mostly have an immigrant population. So people who have are using their two last names like in Latin American using their maternal and paternal last name which is often different from the US where we use our paternal last name. So what happens to your name gets very confusing, so which name appears on your voter registration, which name appears on your ID, which name appears on your naturalization certificate, birth certificate, so all of that can get confusing with Latino voters around the ID issue. For Latino voters who are – so there’s- what was your question again? Whether Latino makes it harder?

JH: Exactly, in general it is difficult to get an ID for voters. But has your research found any specific results about how this affects the Latino community?

IG: We haven’t but I will say that the Latino community in NC is reticent to come forward with problems. So, we – I’ve gotten – even in 2014 we got calls from voters who felt like they were being discriminated against at the polls – Latino Voters. But when we went to follow up with them, they didn’t want to talk to us again. They’re living in small communities where they felt anxious about how they would be treated if they were to speak out too much. We have found the elimination of same day- we had one voter – this is not an ID issue, but it was question of registration. The loss of SDR meant that all adminstrative- the other problems with registration- administrative problems became more important because you didn’t have the safety net of same day registration. So Ms. Neherra naturalized and went to the DMV to register, she was very excited to vote in the US for the first time. The DMV didn’t process her registration in time and she went to vote for early voting and she could not vote because she was not registered. If we had had SDR in 2014, she could have registered then and voted. So this specific challenges for Latinos, I would say it is hard to get a handle on because the popualation is small and in rural areas where their- people may not want – there are also a lot of mixed status families (so one person who is a citizen, one person who is a resident, some people who are undocumented all in one family). So if you draw a lot of attention to yourself, you know, say i’m the citizen in the family but I’ve got three siblings who are undocumented, then when I make a big fuss- what if everyone starts looking at my family and they find out- I could put my entire family at risk by speaking out. So I think that particular demographics and populations in NC make it a little challenging to measure the impact. Whereas in other states, like TX, the case with voter ID, where you got a lot of Latinos who are citizens and have lived in that area for years and years and years its easier to show the disenfranchisement of Latinos there. Its a much larger voting law and many citizens. Here its a very small population with the capacity to sway elections if people voted en mass but its a newer population and a more- a population that is – I don’t want to say fragile- but who their connection to the rest of the state and to the government and civil society is [laughs] not… its dynamic [laughs].

28:27

JH: So would you say its an issue where race and class and nationality all comes together? Are they separate issues? How do you describe this issue?

IG: I would say race, class and citizenship. So in terms of Voter IDs in Latinos, you mean, specifically? I think voting and Latinos – taking it beyond the ID question. You’ve got a younger. And then policy questions, that’s the other thing that’s happening here in NC. So you’ve got a younger population in terms of age. Latinos as you saw in our report, are younger. They are just younger voters than voters of other races. And a younger population in terms of how long people have been in state. And so that means that the policies that have effected them have been the policies of the last 20 years, the secure communities policies. So you’ve got, post 9/11 Immigration Policies, you’ve these super- programs, you’ve got detention and [laughs] – I’m sorry- the detention and the deportation and people being deported en mass and families being split up and this dreamer movement that’s grown. So the Southeast is again this really dynamic place for Latinos. Its very different from the Southwest, which is where I grew up. Because people’s relationship to the government and law enforcement is just scary. These families are being broken up so if you are a citizen who do you vote for that doesn’t deport your family? What’s your experience in school? When you’re in civics class is your accent being mocked? Is the teacher who is teaching you the same teacher who allows the others students to mock you? Is the principal, the administrators of the school someone who sticks up for your rights and enables your parents to attend the PTA meeting and understand what’s going on? Is there translation? What’s your experience as a young person growing up in NC? Why would you vote? Because does this country even want you here? I mean you’re here, you’re a citizen, maybe you were born here, but do they want you and your family here in this state? I think that’s the issue. And then there’s questions of language access. Now that the Voting Rights Act has been defanged with the elimination of precleareance, there is no- the language mandate for states to really take a close look at how they’re treating voters has been eliminated, really, but even so, NC doesn’t have the population levels that would require that would required, even under Protection 5, that would have required Spanish ballots or Spanish language assistance at the polls. And so if you’re a monolingual Spanish speaker who is a citizen and you want to go vote and you want to take your child, or friend or family member with you to go vote, you have legally you can do that. But what if you get there and your poll worker is very suspcious, they’re like “who is this person, why are they helping you vote” I feel confused and conflicted. How do you assert your right to assistance at the polls. So just the voting experience for Latinos is complicated, complicated by where they live, who they are, and being in NC in this new and different community and then just the policy landscape around immigration and I will say though then the Triangle we have a whole other thing going on which is Latinos who are middle class or upper class who come from latin America who are working and living here and going to University here. And that’s something totally different from what you have in rural areas. And then you got in country migration like Chicanos like me – maybe not Chicanos- people who are second generation, third generations who are citizens, who grew up here, who are in the military or just moving to NC so when it comes to Latino outreach and you’re talking about Latino electorate its just super diverse. When we’re doing outreach we just have to be careful we’re not assuming we’re dealing with monolingual Spanish speakers exclusively. Because I’m an English dominant Latina and so we don’t want all our materials about voting and talking about voting and Latinos to be exclusively in Spanish and make assumptions.

33:07

HH: So I guess on that topic about the experience of Latino voters, “Silenced Voters” features a majority of African-American and white voter profiles. And I think the two that are featured, who are Ernesto and Micaela, are towards the end, in the appendix. Why make this choice? Or why were they featured so smally while they are a big population here?

IG: I don’t think it was a conscious choice. I think we were looking for profiles of voters that illustrated the particular topic we were looking at, like out-of-precinct voting. But the reality of who votes in North Carolina is mostly black and white voters. Latino population is growing but the population of Latino voters is not the same thing as the Latino population. So if you look at the census numbers for Latinos, you’ll see that the population here has grown by two per cent or something in the last 10 years but that’s not the voting population. So Latino voters make up just under two per cent of the entire electorate in North Carolina. That’s what I would say. And I’d say our poll monitors are mostly black and white folks and so people want to talk to people who look familiar to them. And then especially if you’re a monolingual Spanish speaker, again, language can be a barrier. And if you got two poll monitors out there who don’t speak Spanish, you are probably not going to talk with them about your voting experience. So I don’t think it was a conscious choice. It had to do with we were looking at who had the most compelling stories that related directly to those areas of the law. And if you give a copy of the report, I can look at it and give you a better answer. (Laughs)

HH: That was a good answer, thank you. Do you think that the Latino population or voter population, either one, is underrepresented in research or there’s less access to them in research?

IG: Yeah, for the reasons that I gave earlier. People are in rural areas… I’d love to do and be part of, and I would encourage folks to do this—focus groups with Latino voters and their families about voting, about democracy, about civics, about the General Assembly. Latino voting in municipal elections is low. I expect that there will be a lot of interest in 2016, in the presidential race, especially given the national conversation about immigration that is happening. Even though I’m a citizen, my father was an immigrant and so for a lot of Latino voters, immigration is, I don’t want to say it’s “the issue,” but it’s a nice bellwether. It tells you where a candidate stands on people who look like you and on your community. I think there should be more research done, I think it’s hard to have access Latino voters, language is an issue. Nationality is kind of a question, so a lot of the professional or student class that I was talking about who are in the Triangle, Latinos, might be from South America or from the Caribbean. But a lot of the people who are in rural areas might be from Central America or Mexico. So then you’ve got [people] from different countries. Imagine if an Australian came to you and was like ‘Okay, I’m here to represent your interests. We’re from English speaking colonies, so therefore, I’m probably an expert on you, and your life and who you are. You’re from totally different countries, with totally different national histories. So I think that is a bit of a challenge in some ways in terms of research and outreach to Latino voters. I’d love to see more research done on this question of Latino voters in North Carolina, young people especially—because that’s where the citizenship rates are highest—and their attachment or detachment to American democracy and voting and government.

JH: Another issue that we wanted to talk about was the reduction of the early voting period. Especially because in one of the reports, I think, if I’m not wrong, there was about 21,00 fewer voters from one election to another election that were affected because of the reduction of early voting . The reduction is from 17 days to 10 days. How does that week actually affect early voting? Has Democracy North Carolina done research on the effect of that reduction?

IG: No, we haven’t done specific research on the effect of the reduction. There has been a lot of research done by the lawyers who are working on the case. That’s where the bulk of the research on the effect of the reduction of the early voting case has occurred. What is true about the reduction is that the first week that is eliminated also eliminated a Sunday. It eliminated a weekend. You got one full weekend—Saturday and Sunday—, and one Saturday now in the early voting period. So before you had more weekends and an extra Sunday, and that was the traditional Sunday for Souls to the Polls, for African American churches to do their Souls to the Polls efforts, their marches to polling places or any other kind of targeted voting on that day. That is the real loss there and just the loss of flexibility. A real long early voting period means you have a lot of time to go vote. What you have seen is, we haven’t seen a reduction in the number of people who are voting early in North Carolina. That hasn’t happened. But what we have seen are a lot of really long lines and that could be attributed to… Election officials are saying, “Well, people are waiting until last minute, why aren’t you coming sooner?” They are probably all coming at the same time because that’s when things work out.

They probably are not coming sooner because they have other things going on so a longer early period that includes more weekends just gives people more flexibility.

And the argument by the General Assembly was that this will actually make voting more accessible because they have to cram the same amount of hours in such a shorter period of time. And a lot of candidates are applying for waivers and have to wait to receive waivers, so that hasn’t totally panned out.

HH: So going back in time a little bit, in the 2014 Democracy NC Annual Report, we found that 14,000 Latino voters who got a special mailing from you, El Pueblo, and NALEO…

IG: NALEO.

HH: NALEO, Thank you. [You] turned out twice the rate of other Latino voters.

IG: We did!

HH: So could you talk about this cooperation and other measures that are looking to raise consciousness among Latino voters?

IG: Sure! Yeah. Really with the Latino voter report, that was the first time… Not being from North Carolina, being from the South West, I came here and I was like “There are Latino voters here! We need to be talking about them and being engaged in them and recognize their presence in the state.” So we did the Latino report. I did some outreach to these other organizations like El Pueblo. And then we started doing more concentrated work than outreach work. So we did this mailer. It was a very simple mailer and we originally wanted to do a voter guide, a specialized voter guide that would be bilingual and talk more about special issues related to Latinos, like breaking down the role of the sheriff, and the DA, and enforcement of immigration laws or the way it connected to questions of deportation. But time got short and we ended up doing the mailer. It seemed very successful. We didn’t do a scientific experiment to figure out whether our mailer was the main reason why people voted at higher rates. I don’t think it was. I think it was the topic of the 2014 election, the Senate race. The federal elections are where immigration policies are going to be decided so my thought is that there’s more interest among Latino voters in these races. So we did that mailer. We did another mailer again in 2015. We did a controlled group and we looked to see if it had the same impact. It had a positive impact but not quite as exciting. And I think we’ll do it again in 2016 and we’ll probably try to include phone banking. Also, I think that El Pueblo and NALEO are also going to try to partner with Common Cause to try to do a voter guide, so with other democracy groups. There’s ongoing interest to reach out Latino voters and really get folks again and I expect that we’ll see more of it. Did you guys see the Institute for Southern Studies? They did an article on young Latino voters in North Carolina. If you haven’t seen it, you should take a look at it. It might helpful.

44:10

JH: You guys have a project called “Souls to the Polls,” in which you prepared some materials that were distributed in churches. Could you talk a little bit about that cooperation between churches, preachers, for voting?

IG: Historically, African-American churches have been epicenters for community engagement and community work. MLK was a pastor. And SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. You have this history of the black church being just really engaged in voting issues. So Democracy North Carolina has tried to work with existing institutions. And we have partnered for years with black pastors and with the black church. And with members really. It’s really a member-driven effort to get the word out about voting and encourage folks to vote and do registration at events and do marches to the polls. And we distributed hundreds of thousands of pieces of materials through churches every year. Beyond the churches themselves, there are other networks like sororities and fraternities, another kind of specific networks that we work through that are all sort of connected to the church at the start.

JH: Now let’s talk about you and your personal experience. You were in a typically very liberal place like Washington. Then, you were in a very typically conservative place like Texas. And now you are here. In terms of the national big picture regarding voting rights and grassroots organizations, where can you place North Carolina? Considering that you have probably both of the extremes of the experience…

IG: North Carolina is more like Texas than like Washington state. But Washington state is also a delighted state. The western part of the state, which is the most populous part of the state, is very liberal. It’s where Seattle is. And the eastern side of the state, which also has a lot of Latino population and is more rural, is more conservative. So, in Washington state, and frankly in a lot in western states—it’s true in California too—the coast is very progressive and the interior is more conservative. So I wanted to say that, to say it’s not quite that simple. But like in Texas, North Carolina currently has a General Assembly that is more conservative but its major cities are not as conservative. And right now, its major cities are trying to have more independence in terms of enacting policies that are more in line with the views of their citizens and residents. In terms of voting rights, North Carolina’s General Assembly is taking a lot of cues from the state of Texas. If you look at the voter ID law, there are many elements that mirror the Texas voter ID law. They are the two strictest voter ID laws in the country. Obviously, North Carolina and Texas are part of the similar trajectory of wanting to narrow access to voting as opposed to expand it. But North Carolina was really unique in the nation in terms of elections and infrastructure. Really, there were very few other states—I mean, Minnesota—that had as much access, that were experimenting with campaign finance in the way that we were. Even traditionally liberal states, blue states like New York, or Illinois, or Massachusetts, they didn’t have the kinds of voting access that we had. They didn’t have the kind of early voting that we had. They didn’t have the kind of same-day registration that we had. And that’s often an argument an argument that is given by folks who are not as excited about voting access. “Why does North Carolina need these laws? Other states don’t have these laws and they do fine.” But North Carolina also has this legacy of disenfranchisement. So for North Carolina to have had the kind of vibrant elections and infrastructure that it had to have these laws that allowed people to vote… Period. It was really meaningful for us to go from, our Executive Director Bob Hall said, “North Carolina was always at the very bottom of voting, of people voting, of numbers of people voting” And then after of the implementation of same-day registration in 2008, we go up to 47th or something in the country of voting, of people who are voting. Exciting shift in terms of who can vote. And when I moved here in 2012, my previous work was on criminal justice and how its policy works. So still civic right work but not officially, not democracy work in the same way. And so when I first worked with Executive Director Bob Hall in 2012, when we had same-day registration, it’s an exciting election. It was the second election with Obama and Obama had electrified voters in ways we haven’t seen in a long time. I took phone calls from people and I got, “Have I missed early voting? Can I still vote?” “Yes! You can vote.” “I haven’t registered. Can I still register?” “Yes! You can register, you can vote.” “I just moved here, and I’m wondering if I can register but I don’t have a North Carolina. Do I have to have a North Carolina ID to vote?” “No, you don’t. You can vote.” Almost every call I took in 2012, I was able to successfully tell people who wanted to vote, “You can vote.” These are people who didn’t know what the elections laws were, they hadn’t planned ahead, they didn’t know what the early voting period was, they hadn’t done registration stuff in order. But they were citizens and they could vote and they had the right to vote. And because of our election laws and because of the access that was provided, they could exercise that right regardless of whether they had prepare themselves six months in advance or not. In 2014, when I answered the election protection hotline, I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t tell people that they could vote.

HH: Obviously, this is a very partisan issue, the issue of voting. Could you talk about the major challenges Democracy North Carolina faced when trying to remain nonpartisan?

IG: The major challenge that we face is that people don’t believe that we are nonpartisan. Because the issue is so partisan. Because voter access is perceived as something that benefits democrats even though we had a reputation for calling out folks from both sides of the isle. And before the Republicans came into power in 2010, we were only calling out Democrats because they were the ones who were in power. And so the campaign finance violations that were documented were campaign finance violations by Democrats. When same-day registration was passed in 2007, they were Democrats that Democracy North Carolina had to convince to pass the law. Really, what same-day registration represents is the power of the electorate, the power of the people because without same-day registration, you know before voting starts, who your poll of people are. You know who’s eligible to vote. You know who you can move. Same-day registration means that that poll can change, that poll can shift. It represents unpredictability in elections and in democracy. And so that’s scary for anyone who is trying to win elections. If you are trying to count up exactly who is going to win or how many votes you need to win, then you don’t want that number to change and you don’t want unpredictability. But that’s not how it’s seen and that hasn’t been the tone of the effort. What’s happening in North Carolina is happening nationally. It’s what’s been truly happening in the South East. It started in 2010 with the mid-term election and all this was partisan.

Unfortunately, the Republican party seems to be the party of reducing voter access.

And it hurts members of both parties. Despite the sense that same-day registration is for Democrats, early voting is for Democrats, that only Democrats don’t have IDs, it’s not true. When we answer the hotline, we take calls from any voter. All voters are affected. Any person might not have their registration up to date. The big challenge is just the partisan nature of our democracy. It’s a game of one-upmanship, really. There’s not a lot of desire to level the playing field to make it little bit democratic on either side. But we are seeing is just that there’s a real fear of the demographic changes that are happening. There’s a fear that if everyone votes, then policies will change.

JH: We have a little request for you but we didn’t want to make some assumptions so first, we wanted to how comfortable you feel with your Spanish?

IG: Oh, not that great. (Laughs)

55:38 

JH: Perfect, not a problem. Because what we wanted from you just to wrap things up was a sort of message to a young Latino voter, who is a little bit doubtful, clueless, about why his or her vote is actually significant. Because at the end of the day, the project of our class is to show the significance, the relevance of voting. So we were wondering if you could address a potential Latino listener and explain why that vote, that single vote, sometimes is seen as just one vote, but why that single vote is actually important?

IG: Yes. I have so many messages.

(Pause)

56:42

My mom taught bilingual elementary school in Las Vegas and the students that she taught would get made fun of sometimes by other students because their English wasn’t good enough. And so they wouldn’t want to learn English because they were more comfortable in Spanish. And she would say, “You have to learn English because they don’t want you to. Why do you think they don’t want you to? Because they are afraid of your power. So you have to learn English.” And I would say that. I would say, “You have to vote because it’s hard. You have to vote because no one is making it easy for you. You’re not invited to the table so it’s even more important that you come to the table.” What was I saying?… If you’re not… I have no words. (Laughs) Sorry. I would say, “You have to vote because the policies are going to be made with or without you. Laws are being made everyday at the local level, at the state level, at the federal level, in courtrooms, all around you, laws are being made. They’ll continue to be made with or without you and so you want them to be made with you. Because, “if you’re not at the table, then you’re on the menu.” Is that what it is? I think that’s what it is. So you’ve got to participate. The laws will never represent you if you don’t vote.

(Pause)

58:42

The state is changing and you’re a big part of this change. And you’ve got to participate. And I would say that your vote isn’t just for you. We talked about voting like it’s as an individual exercise. It’s your right to vote, your responsibility! You must do it! But in fact, as a young Latino voter in the state, your vote is for your community. It’s not just yours. So it’s not just yours to leave by the side, to wait aside and decide whether to do it or not. It belongs to your father and your mother and your siblings and the people who go to your church. Your vote is not just for you. So you have to cast your vote for the community because it needs you. Those are some of the things that I would say.

JH: Before wrapping things up, is there anything else you would like to add? Anything that we might have forgotten?

IG: I…

JH: Anything about the role of Democracy North Carolina in the voting process nowadays, for example?

IG: I want to return to the partisanship question. I’m trying to think what to say. When I worked on criminal justice juvenile issues in Texas, it was a real right-left effort. So you would think when it came to the question of dicarcerating juvenile offenders that you wouldn’t get a lot of attention, because it’s primarily black and brown youth who have committed non-violent offenses from the major cities. But it became an effort that lots of folks were on board. And it became about smart policies. If there are problems with a young person, what is the most successful intervention? What’s the intervention that is most cost-effective? What’s the intervention that we as a society and as a government should be investing in versus a negligible reaction? I would love to be able to be part of those kinds of conversations in North Carolina about voting? What are the voting efforts that maximize people’s access to the ballot while addressing any concerns about inaccurate voting rules? What are the measures that we can take that will help folks feel more secure in their vote? If people are really in favor of photo ID, how can we have a photo ID law that includes a wide range of IDs and that is unlimited? I would like the conversations to be new ones and to really be about good government and good policy and election access. It’s disheartening to know that this fundamental conversation about democracy, about voting, about what our voting policies are is not even occurring in our statehouse. I look forward to a time when voting rights can be less partisan in North Carolina and in the country because it’s important for our nation, it’s important for the health of our nation that democracy functions and that these conversations become about good government and the integrity of our system. And I mean that in a real way, not in a politically loaded way. It’s important to the health of the world given our power. Maybe it will happen sometime soon.

HH: Thank you so much and thank you for sitting down with us.

IG: Yeah, thank you.