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The On the Hill: Breaking Down DC podcast is a collection of sharing more about what’s happening in DC without the bias, ways for you to get involved with the US government, and interviews with friends, colleagues who can help pull back the proverbial curtain of Washington, DC. Katherine Getty, host of the OTH podcast, is a 10-year Washingtonian who lives and breathes politics.
Katherine Getty 0:01
Hi, and welcome to the on the Hill podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty. Each Thursday, I'll peel back the curtain of what happens in Washington, from breaking down current events without bias, to interviews with fellow political nerds, and even and maybe most importantly, ways for you to get involved with our US government. Welcome back to another episode of On the hill Podcast. Today we're turning our eyes from Capitol Hill to the campaign trail. As the 2024 primary election, voting heats up across the nation, you've seen IBC, New Hampshire, you're starting to hear more about presidential maybe congressional and local races, I thought it would be really important to take a step back and highlight how to register to vote just to fundamental, this podcast was born out of the idea of part of maybe what's missing and the US conversation about politics is we don't actually know sometimes how to engage, it's really difficult, or maybe it feels difficult, or maybe it's not very clear of where to do things and when to do it and how to do it by so I want to break that down. I want to say, you know, voting will take time, not only to understand the logistics of it, but it will take time on researching candidates and ballot measures, which we're going to cover kind of that research part of getting ready to vote in another episode. But truly, we all know and have seen how elections have consequences for whatever issue you vote for. And these are not an exhaustive list list, by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe voting for issues like reproductive rights, or immigration reform or climate change or the national debt. Voting matters, you know, who is your leader will make decisions and put into place policies that will have the impact on you in your daily life. And so, you know, I want to be your guide for how to engage with the US government. And I think, first among those is registering to vote. So in this episode, I'm gonna give you a few things. I'm going to give you the context and history of voting in the United States. It's going to be an abridged version. So forgive me, I'm a logistically going to help you understand how to register to vote, if you are if you need to change it, maybe because you moved, just checking your status, ensuring you know deadlines of when primary voting happens or general elections. And then finally, I'm going to have a call to action at the end of the episode. Okay, so first, the history. And this was something that I think we sometimes don't realize, but the Constitution doesn't really speak to the right to vote, it states that anyone eligible to vote in the largest house of a state legislature is also eligible to vote for the House of Representatives. But that's basically it. So what we saw was states were had the power, we're left with this power to decide who was qualified to vote. And for hundreds of years, for a very long period of time, it was restricted to property owning and taxpaying white men. And we know that it took a really long time for us to get past that, and to ensure that everyone had the eligibility to vote. But this civil war really is an inflection point, not only the 14th Amendment, which, you know, ensure that citizenship to all natural born or naturalized Americans, regardless of race and guaranteed that right of citizenship like voting cannot be restricted by the states. You also saw the 15th Amendment, which prohibited the restricting have the right to vote due to race, the 17th Amendment requiring seats to elect Senators by popular vote, the 19th Amendment, extending voting rights to all women in the 26th Amendment, extending the right to vote to everyone 18 years of age or older. And then the 24th Amendment, explicitly blank bans, pull taxes, which often prevented low income citizens from voting. So you saw kind of the inflection point of the Civil War and then for decades after fighting for the rights of all Americans to be able to vote. And you know, I think, understanding that history of, you know, we talk a lot about constitutional rights of understanding that it wasn't really laid out. It left it really to the states from the Constitution, and the States didn't get it really right for a very long time. And then you saw these amendments come that ensured and, you know, while states still have the ability to regulate their elections, the Constitution does talk about congressional elections. So that's an interesting caveat. I won't go too far into that. But I think it's under, it's important that we understand some of that history. Now, that is a, as I said, a very abridged version of voting in the United States and does not cover all the issues, but gives you kind of an understanding of maybe we're all these, where things are rooted in and why states have so much power and regulating how voting happens. So second, giving you the history in the first, in the second section, we're going to talk about logistically, how do you find your state's requirements? Now, I started doing some like Googling, and you can find a lot of different websites, I think what I would caution you or encourage you to do is make sure to understand who maybe is supporting it. That doesn't matter if it's on one side of the AI aisle or not. I think understanding maybe some of the language that you'll see understanding maybe some of how they frame things, and it's not a bad thing or another. But I think it's important that we have eyes wide open. But you can see there's vote.gov, there's vote.org, there's a ton of organizations that will say, Okay, what state are you living in? And we'll lay out all the necessary requirements. There's often in many states, online registration, mail and registration. In person registration. I know that, you know, I've lived in Florida, and I've also lived in DC. And I've been able to register to vote as I got my driver's license. So sometimes that's an option. There's also National Voter Registration days, I think it's typically in September. But I think this is it's, as we're going into 2024, let's get ahead of the curve. Let's get registered to vote. I think on those websites, it's really important to highlight Okay, when are the deadlines to register to vote, some states allow you to register day of and vote. Some require you to register ahead of time and there's a 30 day period or 45 day period. I think it's just important that you understand what those deadlines are so that you're able to participate fully in the primary season, like I referenced at the beginning of the episode, or may that be local, state federal elections, knowing the deadlines and understanding Okay, these are the deadlines, or when is the primary? Well, when is the general so that you have that time to do research on the different ballot measures because ballot measures I feel like are in sometimes hieroglyphics it's very confusing to read. But I think it's important that you have that time to understand, okay, this is my runway. But I will be honest, this takes a lot of time. And on the list of 1000 things that are on your to do list, it feels like physical get to that tomorrow. But then those deadlines happen, and you're not able to vote. And there's nothing worse and maybe this is the nerve to me, there's nothing worse than watching election come in and see it be so so close, which I would venture to guess many elections in 2024 will be be so so close. And you didn't vote, you didn't let your voice be heard. You didn't engage in the process. And I think at that point, you're left with x time of how long that person is in office to see what happens to give them a chance. It's not always going to be easy to give that person said a chance. But don't let yourself have that feeling of I didn't register to vote, so I can't vote. There's nothing worse. So I also want to say you know, important things to think about beyond the deadlines beyond ways to register is updating your registration. So if you've moved, if you've gotten married and change your name, update your voter registration accordingly. you're updating everything else, just go ahead and get your voter registration updated. Because maybe you're voting in a different precinct. You know, I am a I love to go on election day to a polling place. I am a total nerd, I get so excited. I think every volunteer doing the pin on the paper and putting it in the ballot machine. Just so am thinking about it. But you don't want to not have that chance to vote because you didn't update it. That feels sad. So make sure to check your voter registration. Make sure to register and figure out in your state if can be online Malan if
you've already done it when you got your new ID if you've moved or you've changed your name, register, or make sure to update your registration accordingly. And finally, I'm gonna give you a call to action. This is the time to engage your friends and family. I can hear the panic or I can see the panic or I can sense the panic and you have Kevin I'm not going to talk to my family about politics and I get you Yo, because politics over the last few years, I think events since 2016. And as a part of why I wanted to do this podcast is that politics has become so if you're not on my side, you're against me and you're on the other side. And there are issues that that can feel very grounded in. But the fact of the matter is, is that we need every voice at the table to actually have this representative government. We need to have opportunities to engage and say, we may not agree on this. We may be cancelling each other's votes out. But we're getting to vote. And isn't that a powerful thing? I mean, as a kid, I'll say, again, my parents often voted for different political leaders, when it came to local or state or federal elections. And that was celebrated, their differences were celebrated. And I think there's something really important and that is, I can love you. I don't have to love your politics, hallways. And I'd encourage you to, you know, ask them, Have you registered to vote? Do you know how to vote? Can I help you vote? Can we make a day out of it? Because that can be something that can build a bridge to understanding of your differences. Maybe it sounds Pollyanna, and I get that. But what we've been currently doing this division isn't getting us anywhere. So why don't we try to bring everyone to the table, and maybe we'll have a better day. So before I close out, I do want to highlight some amazing resources that I use while I research this episode. First, the National Archives that really helped ground me in the History, factoids vote.gov. And I will link all of these in this in the show notes, vote.gov and vote.org. Both of them are super user friendly, they give you guidance on it, where your seat is how to register to vote, and I encourage you to utilize those resources if you don't know if you're registered to vote or not. As always, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of On the hill podcast. If you like to go ahead and hit subscribe so that wherever you listen to podcasts, it will always be in your inbox when a new episode drops, which is typically Thursdays. If you want to learn more about me the host, Katherine Getty, my handle is Katherine Getty makes it pretty easy. And the show's podcast is on the Hill DC podcast. So follow along for more about what we're going to be teasing out what we're going to be doing what we're going to be thinking about and I always want to hear feedback on these episodes. Thank you so much, and as always tune in next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai