we're so lucky to have this guest coming forward she's a Trailblazer uh she served as the minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives and became the first black woman in US history to be a major party's gubernatorial nominee since then she has founded multiple voting rights organizations and nonprofit groups fighting for democracy equity and become a driving force behind the Surge and voter turnout in Georgia her efforts were pivotal in Joe Biden's victory in the state and helping Democrats secure control of the Senate it's a dear privilege to Welcome to the stage Stacy [Applause]
Abrams they have't coming from the other side absolutely right there thank you so much for coming out thank you so let's Jump Right In okay what do you want to talk about Georgia on my mind okay okay Joe Biden probably owes you a uh a fruit basket of things Rafi waro owes you a fruit basket of things John OA OST you owes you some thanks uh vice president Harris do you think she can pull it off absolutely well what makes it as a woman of color what does she need to do to win Statewide in
Georgia I haven't figured all of that out yet but look part of the challenge was building first and foremost the imagination people believing that this was a possibility uh the second was the conscience it was showing people the consequences of not acting so I would look at my 18 race is sort of the imagination race showing people that you should pay attention to Georgia 2020 and 2021 uh and again in 22 was the conscience race here's what happens in America in Georgia if we don't act and I think this third race which will be our
third cycle will will be the opportunity to show change that Georgia is stepping fully into its posture as a woman of color it is difficult to solve for both racism and misogyny at the same time uh but we've made some progress on both and what I think is even more important is that she comes with a proven set of skills a failinks of policies and a lived experience that is reflective of the needs and values of not only orans but Americans more than anything though they are investing in the State uh what had preceded a
lot of the work and that we were able to you know leverage in 1820 2122 was that no one paid attention no one believed it was possible and that was the imagination piece uh once we did it showing we could do it again at least in part was 22 and that was by making certain that Senator warno was reelected and well you know I I didn't get the job we had a really strong basee and we were one of the few states that did not have a precipitous drop in Black vot voters and so what
we can do in 24 is harness all of those things using the incredible star power not just of Vice President Harris and Governor Waltz but using the star power of Voters who know that people are paying attention and they care about our voices and that more than anything gets people to vote when people think that you want to hear what they have to say they don't shut up much like me let's expand on that point because I think it's an important one we're going to talk about voter suppression later on in our discussion but voter
engagement um that is something where you've seen a real shift in these last four weeks with vice president Harris on top of the ticket can you talk about the importance of voter engagement in what you seees particularly in a place like Georgia is the most important thing for that campaign to do we have to remember we've been going through this you know soon hopefully to be cancelled Trump show for a very long time I mean this was this is 2016 2015 but he started his invective in 2014 and so we've had a very long stretch
of this dismal hate-filled invective and we have twice been able to counter it once winning the popular vote with uh Vice with secretary Clinton the second time actually winning the election with President Biden but it still feels like you're watching on the same show you had the same characters on the stage the same main characters I love and respect and rever Joe Biden I think he has done this nation incredible service but there is something about having new characters there is something about having a new narrative and a new energy and a new show and
I'm sorry for using so much uh you know television metaphor but for the American people for Georgia in particular what she signals is not just something new in terms of the name but profile identity responsibility she understands in a different way there's also a generational change she is the first Gen X uh nominee that we have had and so all of those pieces matter and they come together in this Avatar that is Vice President Harris and for voters they can find themselves in her and they can see a future in her success for themselves obviously
the candidate now is inciting a lot of excitement which is a very good thing and we're we're going to talk about the suppression stuff in a little bit what are some of the barriers you have seen that are not put forward by the government are not put forward by perhaps Bad actors who are trying to suppress the vote where are some of the things that prohibit people from voting especially in in in in in consequential elections one is believing it matters I I I do not subscribe to the notion that voters are apathetic it's rarely
apathy it is usually disillusionment despair or simply that they disbelieve that change is possible because they live in communities where Chang has never happened and so a lot of the work that we've done on voter engagement has been about localizing hyper localizing why it matters and then expanding the aperture so people see if I can do this thing then this next thing happens and this next thing happens part of addressing the disbelief is also winning elections people people believe they can have more when they see someone get something you play the the surgeon who plays
the lottery increases dramatically in the state where the last winner got it and so human psychology says if you can show that there is a value to a behavior more people will engage well the opposite then is true when people don't see change when their lives get either measurably harder or do not make a measurable progress they start to believe that no one cares and no one coming for them and so a lot of this then gets you know cemented through bad policy bad action but the innate psychology of hope hope is hard it is
hard to think I can do this one thing I can cast this ballot and my life gets better I can cast my lot with you because of two commercials and a door knock and things are going to get better and so the work of campaigns the work of activists the work of people is to connect those dots so that people think it's possible but we have to confront the very reall lived experience that most people have that things didn't get better the last time they did it or if it did get better they aren't sure
who's you know who did it uh and whose fault it is that it didn't happen yeah it certainly is an idea of Despair that seems to be purposeful at some points uh to for people to feel like that um it's no secret that the act of voting has been made more difficult in a lot of places especially con SE quential ones um one thing I'm fascinated by is it seems that the groundwork is being laid for the threshold of a challenge to the to the tally is being lowered greatly to sort of sew chaos How
concerned are you about that in Georgia and other places around the country oh it's going to happen it will happen it it absolutely will so I I go back to 18 when our campaign caught national attention it was in part because we were able to demonstrate that the then Secretary of State who was running the campaign had purged voters at at Mass scale but had also refused to process voters had closed polling places uh and I'm going to do very quick um taxonomy so voter suppression is this it's can you it's when the state or
state related actors interfere with three parts of voting can you register and stay on the roles can you cast a ballot or does that ballot get counted and what we saw in Georgia in 18 what we saw in was Wisconsin in 18 what we saw around the country in so many places in 16 in 12 in 14 were laws that made it easier to take people off the roles to make sure they couldn't register it was so egregious in Florida that the League of Women Voters stopped registering voters there um so the first major issue
is registration can you register and stay on the roles and so in Georgia we have mass challenges where anybody can pick up the the US Postal Sur Services uh change of address form list and go to your local County registar and challenge your legitimacy as a voter and they made it easier Brian Kemp made it easier to challenge the average voter and the problem is it puts the onus on the voter to prove they have the right to vote so you got to get time off work get down to the county office and prove that
your constitutional right to participate in elections is still reliable and a lot of folks when they get that weird envelope ignore it and then maybe you can't vote so that's one piece the second is can you cast a ballot well casting the ballot is do they close your polling places or do they do what they've done in places like Arizona do they sue to stop absentee ballots are they they're trying right now to take a number of people off of the list of who can send in an absentee ballot they're trying to stop a group
of registered voters from being able to participate in a presidential election in Georgia Brian Kemp changed the law to make it harder for you to use an absentee ballot which disproportion Ely affects people of color and disabled people the third is does your ballot get counted and that goes to the most fun they're having which is the decertification approach they are lowering the threshold under which someone can challenge whether a ballot gets counted and the reason they're doing that is because there's a really strict timeline once elections finished you have a number of days where
you have to at the local and state so there more than 3,000 counties they have to certify those ballots they then have to get it to the Secretary of State who has to then certify it so that the electors can cast their ballots by December 17th if that doesn't happen that whole sequence gets delayed there's no remedy for it except for it to happen when the US Congress convenes the following year and oh wait for it Congress then gets to decide and so if you can slow the process down if you can undermine the legitimacy
of the process if you can foment and so descent and so concerned then you can delay the process enough that you can then claim conspiracy then claim malens and that's the plan that they have and it's an incredibly well-funded plan that is playing out right now across the Battleground States and we should be very very concerned yeah we do have some secretaries of State in the audience today and it speaks to what is rather an unappreciated role especially on the national level uh we often forget how much these Federal elections do are run locally right
and what that means what do you think it's important for the voter out there to understand about the role of secretaries of state that they really do control a lot when it comes to this pivotal vote they do but so secretaries of State have extraordinary responsibility and remarkable power but so do County election boards and that's really been where a lot of the Cesspool of intention has been bubbling so they're targeting those count counties which are often determined they're run by partisanship so if you have a county where the leadership doesn't necessarily like the winner
they can in Georgia now one person because of a a series of what we would argue are illegal actions by the state election board which were permitted Because of Who was appointed by the the governor and the Republicans in the state now one person in a county can hold up the entire county certification process that means in Georgia it is entirely possible our 16 Electoral College votes can't move unfortunately because they took the Secretary of State off of the state election board the Secretary of State can't intervene and so part of what's happening is how
much power are secretaries of State allowed to continue to hold and then how do they leverage that power despite partisanship to call out bad action and Bad actors in their state but also to do the training needed so that local County elected officials can do the work they need that those election officials have the support they need to actually get our ballots counted for the voter out there perhaps the one who's more engaged who's fired up about everything that's happened um you know former First Lady Michelle Obama said last night do something yes do something
you hear this from you and you are so well versed on the topic you're so well studied on the topic and it does almost form these dark clouds on the horizon oh my gosh this thing might be over before it even starts because it's going to G up the works delay delay delay delay delay and then yes it does get thrown to the House Representatives who would uh who who would vote on that we know how that would go um but for someone listening today what what can they do what can they do they can
go to fair fight.com so I I created an entire organization uh along with um some extraordinary people including Lauren grow Wargo who's our uh our CEO fairfight is designed to protect the right to vote and it's we like to say we're based in Georgia but we work everywhere so if you go to fairfight docomo [Laughter] vote what we can you can actually sign up you can help because it does not do any good to call out problems if you don't offer Solutions I refuse to do that I believe that it's our responsibility well thank you
that's important we're about Solutions based conversations here so that's very important and the thing is we've faced this before voter suppression isn't new it's news but it's not new we have had it over and over again what we accomplished in Georgia in 2020 and 21 and 22 was despite aggressive voter suppression it was not because we vanquished it it was because we understood it and we did the work to defeat it it didn't get everybody what they wanted but it got a enough that we can still make progress and so fairfight is designed for this
so if you go to fairf fight.com LGV we actually connect you with volunteer opportunities in State elections helping you can be a pole Watcher you can because all of those pieces matter it matters who's watching it matters who's counting it matters who's showing up when we need to then do a recount all of those things those little Arcane things that no one else who doesn't spend their entire life thinking about this should know about if you don't do this for you know fun you're not going to know all these rules we know these rules and
in fact we also now have an AI That's based in Georgia only called peaches uh so local Georgia voters can have access to this information but if you go to fair fight we can connect you with resources because we do need help this is winnable this is solvable we can defeat voter suppression or at least slow it down but we've got to show up changing topics here um this is a historic candidacy that we're seeing with vice president Harris um are you surprised at just how much of it's shot out like a rocket in last
four weeks I mean there is all this talk oh she pulls badly we you know she had a bad first year are you surprised by uh just how much it's taken a hold in the reversal and poll numbers I think what happened is reflective of The Hunger for leadership that can win and I am so grateful to President Biden for refusing to walk away from his responsibilities but also his willingness when there was a real opportunity for change when there was a coal Co blessing and a coalition of good being willing to pass the the
torch I mean look I'm a Democrat we are great at chaos and so when the possibility was what we know versus the vast unknown of course we were afraid but what we have demonstrated and the reason I'm proud of our party and why this convention is emblematic of what's possible for America is that we came together and we realized that some people were going to have to sublimate their ambition for themselves to lift up the ambition for this country and that's what vice president Harris reflects she is about how do we be so how are
we so ambitious for the future of our country that we can all come together and make it so you've been someone who is greatly heralded within the Democratic party um if vice president Harris were to win this and called you up and said come join my cabinet is there any job there that you would have an interest in pursuing i' I've gotten in a little bit of trouble in the past for answering questions like that I I no but I believe in being direct I believe in public service I believe in doing what you can
to improve the lives of others and I believe in kamla Harris and as I told President Biden as I will always say to anyone if I can be of help let me know I'm there we get you out of here with this one um as we head in this election what is your single greatest concern ahead of election night what is the thing that keeps you up at night the most that we forget that this is not about Donald Trump Donald Trump is he is a reflection of a larger set of ills in our society
and the extent to which we focus all of our attention on that one thing we miss all of the other terrible things that happen around us so yes I want to elect vice president Harris but we need to vote up and down the ballot we need to vote across the country we need to recognize that over in North Carolina Mark Robinson does not believe that women should control their bodies or cast a ballot we need to understand that in the state of Georgia we've got State elected officials who are willing to deny women access to
their Reproductive Rights and also Deni children the governor is refusing to feed poor children he won't take free money and oh by the way we still don't have Healthcare and so we've got to remember that across this country we don't just vote for the president we vote for the people and that means voting up and down the ballot across the country and getting it all done leader Stacy Abrams thank you so much for your time today we really appreciate it thank you for having me thank you for
