🔰Stacey Abrams - "Stacey Speaks Up” & Combatting Voter Suppression | The Daily Show

What a pleasure it is to have you on. I am so happy that you're here. Thank you for having me. Of course. Of course, my pleasure, our pleasure. You are clearly a powerful force in Georgia politics. You had two historic runs. You're a large part for why Georgia flipped blue in 2020. It feels like there's so much progress that's being made, and yet here we are again coming up on election, on the election. And it's mandated that ballots must be hand-counted in Georgia. Is it as f***ed up as it sounds? Yes, so let's, let's... Great. Well, that's all the time we have. Okay. So I've got two bits of good-ish kind of news. Okay. So number one, so when they say hand-count, what they mean is count the ballots, not the votes. So they're physically requiring each precinct to physically count each ballot. We've got about five and a half million voters. Oh, is that all? Yeah. And so it's going to take some time. So the intent is to create chaos in the system. So when people hear, oh, well, why shouldn't you hand-count the vote? They're not counting the vote. They're counting the physical ballots. But today, Robert McBurney, one of the judges, he ruled that this was unethical and irresponsible and that they can't do all of the things they want to do. However, what we have to recognize is that we have a state Supreme Court that is packed with people who are, unfortunately, sometimes like-minded with the people making the rules that we are not too happy about. And so what we need to watch is not what they're doing, but what we do about it. We can't get sucked into the maelstrom of crazy. We've got to go around the maelstrom to the ballot box and have so many of us turn in our ballots that it doesn't really matter. We'll still fight the fight, but we cannot let them convince us not to get out. Okay. You've been very focused on voter suppression, and you define voter suppression as when a state or state actors interfere with the three parts of voting. Can you walk us through that a little bit? I can, and thank you for remembering. I did my homework. You're good. So it's, can you register and stay on the rolls? So can you register, and then can they take you off? So can you register and stay on the rolls is one. Second is, can you cast your ballot? Do they have hoops and hurdles and ID requirements that can't possibly be met or that are really difficult to meet? And then does your ballot actually get counted? Meaning, do they throw out your ballot because the postmark is smudged or because you can't match your signature, or in this case in Georgia, because the hand count takes so long that we miss the deadline for our votes to actually be counted. So voter suppression tends to be, people think of it in one way, but it's three different capacities, and they often come together for an evil triad. Our job is to pay attention to all three and not get distracted by just one, but to do our best to push back against all of them. And this isn't just, you're working on this not only in Georgia, this is obviously happening on a national level. What advice would you give voters at this point? What can be done? How can voters be sure that their vote is counted? First, show up. And it sounds easy, but too often, the reason they put these hurdles in place is to convince us it's not worth it. The administerial and administrative process becomes so complicated that just not voting seems like an easier choice than showing up, and we can't let them do this. It's the nature, it's like letting the DMV convince you not to get your license because you have to stand in line for a really, really long time. Don't let them win. Don't let the bad guys get you. So show up. But the other piece is don't vote alone. Too often, we think of voting as a personal issue, but we are part of a system, we're part of a democracy. We need to take people with us, and we need to explain what we've learned. We need to tell people, here's why your vote matters, because so many people think, well, my vote won't count. Yes, Georgia was decided by fewer than 12,000 votes in a state of 11 million people. It counts. It counts more than you can imagine. Please God, vote. I do want to talk about your book. Congratulations. This is such a beautiful children's book. Stacey Speaks Up. I read this to my son the other night. He was riveted. It's so inspiring. Why focus on a children's book? Have you given up on adults? I, look, I believe in doing what I can, but starting as early as possible. So yes, I've got legal thrillers, but I kill a lot of people in those books, so I go back early and try to get the one thing that I can get the ones young so they can fix the stuff we're about to break. Yes, oh, great tactic, great tactic. The story is about a young Stacey who discovers that a friend of hers can't afford to buy lunch, and she decides to do something about it, speak up, and it's really like this beautiful grassroots, inspiring story of how children can get involved at even an early age. What inspired you to write this? I wanted to tell a story about advocacy and empathy. Empathy, how do you feel the pain of someone else? And then advocacy, what do you do about it? But center it around an experience that is universal to childhood, which is school lunch. But it's also because I live in a state that is refusing to offer summer lunches, refusing federal dollars, and it's not the only state, but Georgia's governor has refused to accept taxpayer dollars that have already been paid into the system. Children going hungry is getting worse in this country, not better, and being able to focus on the issue not only of empathy and advocacy, but making sure that we have the strongest, healthiest children possible is incredibly important to me, and that's why Stacey Speaks Up for me was an opportunity to tell a fun story about a little Stacey who thinks that she can write her way out of the problem, and then she realizes she's gonna have to do something more, have her friends coming together to help her, and they get to enjoy something that I like to call Taco Pizza Friday. Love this idea, by the way. Thank you, thank you. It's a childhood dream made manifest in this book. Same. But giving kids the sense that they, too, have the capacity, they're seeing a lot of dangerous things. They're seeing a lot of hard things. Your son is watching a world that feels overwhelming, and I wanted a book that acknowledges how they feel and tells them that there's something they can do about it, and using a story that's accessible, which is every one of us knows about lunch. We know about hunger, and we need to think about the children who don't get to solve that hunger problem and see what we can do to help them. So grateful for all that you do. Thank you, and go out and get this book. It is so sweet. Stacey Speaks Up, it's available now. Stacey Abrams, everyone!