- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, recent Supreme Court decisions are reshaping the future of voting rights in America.

We take a deeper look at the national ruling, the growing concerns around political representation and gerrymandering, and what it could all mean for communities here in North Carolina.

Coming up next, stay with us.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum, I'm Kenia Thompson.

For decades, the Voting Rights Act has been considered one of the most important civil rights laws in American history, designed to protect the right to vote and ensure communities of color had fair political representation.

But a recent US Supreme Court ruling is now reshaping how those protections are interpreted nationwide.

We're taking a look at what this ruling means and what impact it could have right here in North Carolina.

Joining me, our former Vice Chair Commissioner for Durham County, Nimasheena Burns, and Regional Managing Organizer with Democracy NC, DeMonte Alford, welcome to you both.

- Thank you for having me.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, I wanna start at the national level because this is kind of, you know, where we're getting our trickle-down effect.

People have heard the headlines and some of it may be confusing for a lot of folks.

DeMonte, I wanna start with you.

Can you break down what the Supreme Court ruling and this decision is doing in plain language for those that may not understand?

- Yeah, this is a 6-3 decision that the court ruled and it took away parts of the Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Section 2 is the provision in the Voting Rights Act that makes it possible for folks to bring suit, to challenge laws that discriminate or make it harder for people to vote based on race.

Essentially, before how the Voting Rights Act was applied, was they measured the impact of practices on voters.

Supreme Court said that regardless of the impact of the decisions or the laws, that you have to prove intent that is racist, which we know that it is very hard, almost nearly impossible to prove explicit racist intent.

But as a good therapist would tell you, that intent has nothing to do with impact.

- Tell us a little bit about, I guess, Louisiana versus Calais and kind of how that plays into all of where we are today.

- I do think, I'm happy that we ended on intent versus impact because I think what folks have to understand, back before 1965, you would see elected officials, whether they be in law enforcement, whether they be in local elected bodies, they would stand outside and do press conferences.

They would write memos and they would say, I am specifically targeting this subset of people, whether it be women or people of color, to make sure that their vote is diluted.

Nobody is writing it in calligraphy anymore.

It is not in the newspaper.

What we now have is these kind of discriminatory processes being put into the architecture of bills.

It is way more technical now.

So for instance, you won't see jelly bean test and poll taxes.

You won't see, what you will see is a map change.

What you will see is a precinct change.

You will see a deadline change.

You will see maps change.

I think North Carolina is a perfect example of just how much maps can change.

Like where we sit right now is a perfect example of how much maps can change.

So to sit here and say, we have to find intent before impact, what you are now calling upon people to do after Louisiana is to find the smoking gun before the fire, which is absolutely impossible.

- How do you prove intent then?

- I don't know.

And I think that was the whole point of it.

That was the impetus of it.

Before Section 5 was taken away, you've got to think about in a state like North Carolina, 40 of our counties were covered under Section 5.

Look at what happened here.

Once that was gutted away, you saw North Carolina start to do voter ID bills.

You started to see counties be in a position to say, well, do we really want to have Saturday voting?

I think you look at Durham where we have two weekends of Saturday voting, oh, and that's the same.

Every county's the same and that's not the case at all.

You started to see, and just so we're clear, I don't want people to leave because I know we want to educate viewers today.

You can still vote without a voter ID.

You can do a voter ID exception form when you get there, so you do have options.

But you got to think, these rules are also making people very frustrated and disenchanted, so do I even go if I don't have one?

So those are some of the examples that we've seen just in this state.

And now to see Section 5 gone away, I would say, well, don't worry, we got Section 2.

Don't worry, we got Section 2.

With Khaleel's taking away Section 2, now states can kind of sort of run amok and now the burden of proof is on the voter.

- We've already seen, DeMonte, about six states now.

I think Alabama, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, a few other states are submitting maps.

North Carolina has kind of, South Carolina is part of that, has kind of been submitting maps already.

North Carolina has.

What do you take from that?

Now, not all the maps have been approved, right?

There has been some pushback.

But what do you take from states that are trying to already kind of put in some changes that could impact voter outcome?

- We see that the states have, and the Supreme Court has basically allowed for racism, as long as it serves, explicit partisan gains is legal, is allowable.

And politicians should not be able to choose their voters.

Voters should be able to choose their politicians.

- Yeah, and when we look at North Carolina, you've already kind of mentioned voter ID laws.

And do you think that this emboldens or empowers the state to maybe do other things that we aren't foreseeing yet?

- I think it's not just our state.

I think it's many states.

I think you see like this Southern sweep.

You just listed some.

A lot of people saw what happened, what could potentially happen in Maryland.

We saw what happened in Virginia, where you saw the Democratic Party say, well, we're gonna redraw.

California said, we're gonna redraw.

Now we're sitting here.

North Carolina has already confirmed their primaries, right?

So when you go to Florida and Alabama, I also want viewers to understand, no one's going to do it the same.

You have one state that says, okay, we're going to do a redraw.

Somebody else, Louisiana might come back and say, all right, Supreme Court already said we're gonna keep these lines the same.

But now they're asking the Supreme Court, well, okay, we'll keep them the same, but can we change them in 2028?

Since these are already confirmed.

Other states are saying, well, we will stop our congressional primary.

We're actually gonna stop our primary.

We're gonna redraw maps and start a new primary date.

So from state to state to state, you're seeing them kind of sort of attack this thing in a really different way.

South Carolina, just yesterday, I think everyone saw, like on the House side, they voted to redraw maps where it was seven to zero.

And then you actually saw folks come back and say, you saw Republicans come back and side with Democrats in the Senate and say, we are not gonna redraw these lines to disenfranchise Clyburn.

And I want people to really understand, this should not be a Democratic or Republican issue.

When we looked back at 1982 and see how Section 2 was really codified and re-emboldened, that was actually a bipartisan effort by both parties.

And it was signed into law by Ronald Reagan.

So when we sit here, we wanna talk about the disenfranchise of voting.

It's not just about, I think we can make it very easy, it's just about black people.

But when we pushed back voter ID laws, we saw that across the board, this affected seniors, this affected individuals who were poor, whether they be white, Hispanic, because the main piece of identification you had was a driver's license.

In order to have a driver's license, what do you need?

You need insurance.

In order to have a driver's license, you need an address.

- It's a trickle down effect.

- All these things.

So I do think people need to think about how it affects everybody.

And at some point it will.

- Well, DeMonte, what are we seeing here in North Carolina?

And to her point, how is this affecting everyday people?

- How it affects everyday people is, you'll get a less transparent, less effective, and less representative form of governance within your district.

What happens is politicians tend to play to the political expedient side.

If they know that they're in a safe district for their particular demographic, there is no concern for them to go and talk to a person who is outnumbered in a crackpacked or stacked district in gerrymandering.

- And when we look at funding and local budgets, how does that show up?

How does gerrymandering and redistricting show up as far as funding and our schools and those kinds of things?

- Yeah, I mean, an example would be like the old North Carolina 9th Congressional District, right, which used to stretch from Charlotte all the way to near Wilmington, North Carolina.

The needs on the 74 corridor in Rockingham, North Carolina is completely different than the needs in Anson and Monroe and then Warrenburg, North Carolina.

So when it comes to resources, you have this district that is so stretched thin for partisan reasons that the resources that people need that should be a nonpartisan resource like education, healthcare, good roads, schools, those resources are not handed out or not giving or not fought for because it is a safe district and politicians are typically going to be complacent if there's not a push or there's not a competitive district or if there's not competitive primaries.

There's no reason for this politician to go above and beyond.

- Commissioner, when we look at what's happening day to day, there's always like there's new developments since we woke up this morning, right?

And so how do we, well, tell us what the new developments are and then how do we keep up and how do we know what's really important to look out for as these decisions are being made?

- Well, one, I would tell everyone everything's important and I know that's really hard for people to take in because people are trying to feed their families and they just wanna go to work and you're like, well, why do I have to pay attention to everything?

Because at this point, it is a scramble.

It is moving at lightning speed.

Some people might've woken up this morning and gotten emails and we discussed this a little bit about we need you all to show up for public comment because now there's this bill being proposed that says we don't want any additional amplified sound at the voting booths.

And that sounds pretty benign because you're thinking I'm in line, I wanna think about this process.

I want it to be quiet.

I don't want anyone yelling at me at the polls.

But is it really about, folks are not usually yelling at you at the polls, like that is not something that happens.

Is this law about outsourced noise or is it about folks, churches coming in and doing souls to the polls and singing on the way there?

Is this about stroves to the polls and the Divine Nine coming there with a group of people?

Is it about people having music at the polls and not even in a space, in the space that is outside where you're supposed to be?

What are these laws set up to do?

Is it to set up to keep people from coming in droves on those Saturdays and Sundays?

- So let's pause there for a second.

So it's hard to identify racial intent, discriminatory intent, but we well know that the Divine Nine and most church groups are gonna be black, heavily black populated.

So is that not, hey, this appears to be racially motivated?

- I'll tell you this, we'll have a lawyer, let's find out how can we prove it.

I think that is the reason why they wrote it this way.

How hard is it going to be to prove that that's what these laws are about?

I think we can all sit here and say, okay, so you all said no Saturday voting in some counties, no Sunday voting in some counties.

We're going to shut down some of the hours instead of going to seven or eight o'clock, we're gonna move out to five.

Well, who works every day?

Working class people work every day, right?

So this after five o'clock is this opportune time to go.

Saturday, Sunday, these opportune times to go.

So I think the argument becomes, once you put all these laws together in aggregate, are they disenfranchised in a subset of people?

Yes, but you've done them over years.

So can we really come back?

Because now they've cherry picked this one thing and this one thing.

What we're looking at, in aggregate, they do disenfranchise a group of people.

They do dilute the vote of a group of people.

But we also, I want to put some personal responsibility back on this.

Did we allow this to happen?

Like, these laws, they're submitted into committee year after year after year.

And of course, sometimes they don't pass.

The reason why they don't pass is because they didn't have enough votes.

Okay, now they have enough votes.

So it's not like we didn't see this coming.

So I do put some personal responsibility back on the voter to say, we saw some of this coming.

Like, North Carolina has often been the laboratory, at least for the past 40 years, especially when you look in Gaston County and look at how two of these, two court cases really define how other states started to do things.

So I don't want us to be surprised.

I want us to be alert.

- Yeah, that's a good point.

DeMonte, I want to bring you back in and talk about the work you do at Democracy NC.

Tell us a little bit about the organization and how is Democracy NC helping educate and whatever it is that you're doing.

How do you motivate, move people around these different changes?

- So we operate in multiple different ways, statewide and locally.

Primarily, County Board of Elections and the State Board of Elections.

We monitor County Board of Elections to make sure that there are good voting plans.

There is direct research, and the founder of Democracy NC, Bob Hall, always says that the number one way to ensure that voters go out and vote is a solid and sure voting plan that is passed by the county.

- What does a good voting plan look like?

- A good voting plan is a voting plan that allows the most possible hours for folks to be able to vote, has the most available facilities or areas for people to do early voting, allows for campaign volunteers, or not campaign volunteers, but volunteers, or for folks that are working for the Board of Elections to come in and get trained, pay these folks, because we know that they're already underpaid, people that are election advisors in these counties.

So a good voting plan from the county mitigates really a lot of issues, but we've also seen in North Carolina in the past, they've tried to make it illegal for County Board of Elections to advocate for people to come and vote, which that should be the primary thing that a County Board of Election does, is to say, "Hey, maybe you guys "should come over here and vote."

So they're very explicit in the fact that they are trying to suppress the ballots in being cast in North Carolina.

- Yeah, and so the work that you do at Democracy NC, especially during a time like this, looks like what?

- So yeah, this summer, we'll have the Black Votes Rising Tour, where we will be traveling throughout the state of North Carolina, specifically in the Black Belt regions, where a lot of the voters are going to be affected by the change to the Voting Rights Act, and doing this political education work that's needed and necessary.

We're gonna do voter registration this summer.

We have our fellows from our Democracy Summer Friendship that are gonna be in communities around the state, registering, doing canvassing, knocking doors, making phone calls, planning and hosting events that are gonna bring folks out.

But also, we know that the number one way to fight against this is turnout.

Turnout in November for the general election.

It is important that we organize.

One of my mentors, the late Reverend Johnson, Nelson Johnson from Greensboro, North Carolina, would always say, "Walk together, children, "and don't you get weary."

So in this moment, when we see the things are changing and shifting constantly around us in this environment, we have to be sure and remember that they move lines, we move people.

- You mentioned earlier that people are already kind of like, "My vote doesn't matter."

Do you feel like this kind of solidifies that idea for some folks who are on the fence about voting?

And how do we kind of change those perspectives knowing how critical voting is right now?

- I actually don't.

I'm a hopeful person.

Because I also think we've been flooding the zone and this stuff is coming so fast.

I actually don't think, and this is, I don't think people know everything that we're talking about today, which is why I appreciate you having this conversation, because we are pushing this out into the cultural zeitgeist, right?

So I think that's important.

I think people know what you tell them, and we have to tell them, "I need you to do three things before you go to the polls."

And usually, with campaigns like his, folks will do those things.

I don't think, I feel pretty bad.

Folks are not watching the news every day.

They're not watching network news every day.

- They're fatigued by it.

- They're fatigued by it.

So I don't even think some of the things we're talking about, about what's going on in South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, they're really looking at or paying attention to.

But I also think that some of that apathy is what people are looking for, and some of that confusion is what they're betting on.

So I always tell people, he talked about having a good voting plan, like at a county level.

We want people to have that.

And for some folks who are out there who are advocates, like the work starts now, I think all too often, people wanna start talking about elections in November.

Know this is the perfect time to start talking about elections, letting folks know what their rights and responsibilities are.

But for you viewers at home, I would want them to do a couple of things.

Sit down today, find out where your precinct is.

Like that is number one.

Number two, call 10 people, make sure they know where their precincts are.

Like make sure your friends know where they're going.

Number three, I would ask anybody right now to take out a piece of paper, write down everybody in your city council, everybody in your county commission, everybody who's in the House and the Senate for North Carolina, everybody who your congressional representative is and who your senators are.

And if you cannot fill up that piece of paper, especially when people say politics are not about me, your children go to school every day.

Where your kids go to school is dictated by the folks who are supposed to be written on that piece of paper.

If you cannot name those individuals, that is what people are banking on.

That's really what people are banking on.

He mentioned a pastor a second ago.

I think we all love Reverend Dr.

Martin Luther King and the work that he did.

But before he got to that church, one of the pastors who was there before him was Vernon Johns.

And Vernon Johns prolifically said, when you see a good fight, you get in it.

And that's what I want people to do.

This is a good fight.

Get in it.

And the other thing I would end with is we can't be disenfranchised.

When we think about John Lewis and this idea of good trouble and him getting his skull fractured on Bloody Sunday, he had to fight dogs, he had to fight hoses, he had to fight the police.

We are fighting paperwork and misinformation.

And so at this point, our children are gonna judge us on what we did today.

And I don't want my nieces and my nephews to look at me and say that I sat on my laurels because I didn't wanna get a paper cut.

- Yeah.

So your three things, know your precinct, where to go vote, call 10 people, and know who is-- - Oh, and know, call 10 people and know who your representatives are.

Like, that is huge.

And so, yeah, get in a good fight.

- Can I respond to that about the apathy?

- Yes, please do.

- The people in Red Springs, North Carolina, in Robinson County, can tell you about their vote mattering because the mayor, Caroline Sumter, was able to win by a single vote.

- Yep, by a single vote.

- A single vote in Red Springs, North Carolina.

You asked the former, the soon-to-be former Speaker of the House in the General Assembly of North Carolina over in Rockingham County, does a single vote or does a couple of votes matter when you lost by less than five votes?

So to the people that are apathetic, no, you matter, your voice matters, your vote matters.

- So we do those three things, but what do we need to make sure that we do in order to actually be able to vote?

- You need to make sure that you are registered, that your registration is current and active.

You need to make sure that you have a understanding of when the election is so that you can set a time, a date, and make a plan with your family, loved ones, whenever it is, to go out and vote, and that you need to make sure that you are aware and educated on the issues that is affecting your community, whether it be your soil and water conservation list or whether it's the governor or whether it's the president.

Regardless of the election, every year there's an election here, get off of the couch, go and take part of it.

- Yeah.

Commissioner, what are some things that as these new developments continue, like we said, day to day, there's something new, what should we be looking out for that may be, I don't wanna call them red flags, but things that should peak our attention?

- This one's going to sound really random.

I want people to, I should've gave my three at this point, but I think people need to watch their mail, and I know that that one sounds really random.

Right now, I think North Carolina's a good example of some of these precincts that are going to change.

As much as the state law might change, your board of elections director's probably gonna send you a postcard to let you know your precinct is no longer, this fire station is over here.

- And is that because of the redistricting?

- Well, I'm just saying, at this point, so many people have gotten power.

It's not just about the redistricting.

You also gotta think your local board of elections has power to say we're gonna keep elections open to six or seven or close 'em at five, we're gonna stop on a Saturday.

I actually want people to pay attention to their mail, because that's another thing we don't do.

We're looking for everything to be on a billboard.

It's not.

We're looking for everything to be on television.

It won't be.

It won't be on social media, like folks on social media-- - Or text messaging.

- Or text messaging.

But are you actually following your local board of elections or your county on Facebook?

So no, I would tell people to look at their mail, because what I don't want folks to do, this is for the person who always votes, is to get up in the morning, and they go to their elementary school where they used to vote, and they're like, nah, you need to go over here.

And I got up to do this before work, and now I don't have time.

So really start to pay attention to your mail over these next couple of weeks.

Of course, it's really easy to say, look at the news.

Whoever's watching this right now, if somebody who's looking at the news, call that person who you know is not looking at the news.

Like, we all have those 20 or 30 friends that are not doing that right now.

And I think probably one of the last things I would say, and this one sounds really random, I want people to start getting engaged themselves.

People think that, oh, this doesn't have anything to do with me.

I don't have any seats on local boards and commissions.

Durham County, by itself, has 40 commissions.

This is a good way for you to get in yourself.

If you wanna be on the Women's Commission, really figure out how this stuff moves and how budgets move.

That sounds really simple to do.

Go down there and apply what people are resting on, whether it's one party or the other.

It's folks not necessarily paying attention.

And that's not apathy.

You're just focused on your own life right now because the economy's bad.

I would ask anybody, go and get on a board or commission.

That sounds really far-fetched.

You might care about homelessness.

There's a Homelessness Commission.

You might care about the fact that there needs to be a new sidewalk.

Get on your Transportation Commission.

Once you start to sit in on some of these meetings and really see how things move and how they go, that is when you get excited and engaged because now you feel a part of the process.

- Now, I know misinformation has been a big thing.

We've done multiple shows on it.

DeMonte, Democracy NC's website, does that have resources for folks to go out and maybe find out some of this information, or where do people go to find out?

- Yeah, please check out Democracy North Carolina's website, democracync.org.

We have things, we're updating constantly.

Check out our social medias.

We're updating, or you can check out any of our coalition partners.

There's Common Cause.

There's the Black Alliance.

There's the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

There's the ACLU.

There's tons of other folks in this work that we're working, or in this coalition that we're working with that you can reach out to.

So just get into the community.

What helps us is building more community and fighting the isolation instead of isolating and having less community.

- Yeah, and one last thing to your point is to reach out to people, because there are some people who are in silos, right?

Who may not be paying attention, and so picking up that phone and calling, maybe even partnering with churches?

- Oh, absolutely, and I think that people don't know what you don't know, but what I have found, whether I was elected or not elected, once you tell people a piece of information, their interest is piqued, it really is.

Once you tell some, especially if you think about a gatekeeper, and I think sometimes, like, well, who are the gatekeepers?

Is somebody who's in leadership at a church, or leadership in a community that might run a small business?

Like, those people really will pick up a church in their barber shops, in their grocery store, in their salons, and I know folks like, well, we're always talking about those places.

Those are communal places, and people are really seeking community now, and putting those messages in those places, I think it's gonna permeate a lot deeper than what folks think it will.

- Thank you so much to you both, Nimasheena Burns, and DaMonte Alford, thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram, using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum, and on the PBS Video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson, I'll see you next time.

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