You may have heard that we’re live tonight with our voting rights reporter @AriBerman who is in conversation with @ilazer and @EricHolder about all things voting rights. We’ll be tweeting throughout the event! Follow along below 👇 
@ilazer chats with 18-year-old Olivia about what issues are most important to her before Berman and Holder take the stage. Olivia is worried about systematic poverty and how it affects those with families.
And we’re off!
@AriBerman breaks it down: “America has really only been functioning, or semi functioning democracy, for a little over 15 years.”
“This is a nation that has always grappled with issues of class, of race, of gender,” says @EricHolder. “You see that exhibited certainly in who has the right to vote, who has the ability to cast a ballot.”
“[The GOP] is concerned about having too many people vote because their policies won't attract sufficient numbers of people to win ethically,” continues Holder. “They're going to try to pick their voters instead of having voters decide who their representatives are going to be.”
When asked about the Texas voter ID laws, Holder says that “in some ways that’s the genius, and the insidiousness, of these measures that have been put in place to try to maintain power for a party that I think is, in essence, a minority party.” (Hey @GOP that’s you!)
“The election of Barack Obama, the election of the first Black president, really brought out the best and worst of the country,” says @AriBerman. “For the Republicans in 2010 it was, ‘We're going to redeem white supremacy.’”
@ilazer asks them about the Electoral College. “If we had a popular vote election, there would be no doubt that Donald Trump would lose,” says @EricHolder.
And we’re onto gerrymandering! “What is gerrymandering?” asks @ilazer.
“It's drawing districts to incentivize one group, or one party, at the expense of another,” responds @AriBerman.
@EricHolder: “I came out of the womb a Democrat.”
“Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, southern and western states have closed 800 polling places!” says @AriBerman.
Election Day? ”We vote on Tuesdays in November because that’s when farmers used to bring their crops to the market in the 1800s.” — @AriBerman
“There's a reason why the US consistently ranks near the bottom of the bottom of voter turnout,” explains @AriBerman. “These other countries do things in a much more sensible way than how we approach our elections...they have federal standards that we don't have.”
“Donald Trump can’t see your citizenship status,” says @AriBerman about the US Census.
The US Census is private. Not even the President of the United States can see what you mark on that paper. PERIOD!
The US Census is private. Not even the President of the United States can see what you mark on that paper. PERIOD!
“You may hate Donald Trump, but he cannot see your citizenship status on the census,” continues Berman. “This is about much more than whether you trust Trump with your data. This is about economic and political power being allocated fairly for the next decade and beyond.”
And that’s the night! Thanks for following along and you’ll be able to catch the conversation in full on the @MoJoPodcast next week.
