 ThinkTecAway, civil engagement lives here. Aloha, I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. Welcome and thank you for joining Sister Power. Today, Sister Power discusses when we all vote, we can change the world. If we really want our voices to be heard, we need to vote in every election, not just for president, but for every office, school board, state house, senate, all of them. Four million Americans turn 18 this year. That's huge. And we need every last one of them to register and vote. It's going to be the young people of this generation that would change the world. When we all vote, we determine our future. This afternoon, Sister Power VIP guest is attorney Daphne E. Barby and attorney Andre S. Wooten. Welcome to Sister Power. Thank you, Sharon. Aloha, thank you so much for joining Sister Power Andre and Daphne. And what I appreciate, what I want to say to you, what I appreciate about the both of you, that you're always out there supporting and fighting. And I think that you are the perfect, as a matter of fact, you're married to each other, both attorneys, and you are supportive and you always fight for the underdog and win on the ad. So let's get this started and let's talk about voting. We have many questions and we want people out there. And one particular person wants you to just elaborate on this question. It's not really a question, but a statement. Women may take their vote to vote for granted, but it wasn't that long ago when entire swaths of the population, like women, were denied that right. Women gained suffrage in 1919, meaning the grandmothers of many, not voting millennials, were alive during a time when they were prohibited from casting a ballot. So let's expand on the importance of voting. Constitutionally, the right to vote has expanded since 1789. The right to vote is a state right. There's no federal law, basically. I mean, there's a basic federal law, but the details are state laws. And when the Constitution was originally created, you had to be a property owner. I mean, you had to be a white male. You could not be generally African-American. Although in some states, there were wealthy African-Americans who did vote. There was the shipowner that his name will come to me in a minute. However, what I'm saying is that the right to vote evolved. Certainly with the Civil War and the 13th Amendment, African-American males attained the right to vote, and then females, American females, gained the right to vote with the 19th Amendment, indeed. So it's been an evolving thing. It's been an evolving thing. Even technically, when the right to vote was granted, there were political barriers preventing people from voting. Medgar Evers was gunned down as president of the NAACP in Mississippi the year escaping, but I believe it might have been 1963, something like that. But he was gunned down for organizing the people in his community to go and vote because when your group does not vote, then they can be dictated to and basically run around by others. Why is it important to vote, Daphne? Well, it's an exercise of power. And if you have a little bit of power, you use it. And people, you notice all the candidates come around during election time? Yes, we do. Okay, so they know that you have the power to vote and they want your vote. So at that point, you can ask them questions or you can present an issue that's particularly troubling for you. You want to know what they're going to do about the homeless. You want to know what they're going to do about civil rights. You want to know their position. And at that point, you got their ear. So you make it known. And not only the fact that you're questioning them and asking and demanding of them something, you also have the power to persuade your friends and neighbors as to voting and to who to vote for. And that is an exercise of power. So you shouldn't just sit back on the couch or wherever you are surfing. I don't know wherever you are. You should. It doesn't take much time, does it? You can go in the voting booth and there you're done. And I think, what, 10 minutes or something like that? You can do absentee. And that's even less than 10 minutes and mail it in. And you can also go down early voting for lunchtime. Just go to city hall and vote there. So use your power. Because if you don't use it, you're going to lose it. And that's the important thing about voting. And Andre has said historically in the United States, it began only voting, only was allowed for white males of property. It evolved. And 15th Amendment came after slavery. And it let people of all races and creed males vote. And then you had the 19th Amendment with the women allowed to vote in 1919. And then later, another extension of the Constitution was for allowing 18 years to vote because people who were 18 were being sent to Vietnam. And so the issue was, listen, if you can get killed in Vietnam, you have the right to vote. And so it lowered the age from 21 to 18. So use that right because otherwise the politicians are going to do what they want to do and also realize that the super, super wealthy and the 1% of the powerful are exercising their own way of getting a politician elected through super PACs. And so we have to, we, the citizens who don't have super PACs or super rich money or a lot of money, we have to get together. We have to question the candidates. We have to look at the candidates. And we have to, most importantly, vote. Vote, vote, vote, vote. And we have such a short time. And for our viewers, I want them to know, as of today, we have 17 days until the primary. So voting, this should be a discussion around the kitchen table. It should be a discussion when you pick up your high school children from school because 17 days is not a long time. And it's 104 days until the general election. And since we're talking about voting, let's talk about the paper ballot. Well, the paper ballot, I think, is crucial because even though there may be hanging chads, it's not perfect, but it can't be hacked as easily as some computer program or some electronic disk. I think that a paper ballot backup, at least, is essential. Just as a backup to see that, no changes have been made after levers have been pulled. I'm glad you were speaking about that because one of the questions that someone submitted, will our voters be safe this November without paper ballots in every election? And you've answered that. It's interesting. I believe it was South Carolina, someplace on the east coast. They actually determined that some Russian billionaire was an owner of the company that had the contract to provide the voting machines for the state. And they found that out, I think, about a month ago and are making moves to ensure that the vote is safe. Well, I used to vote in those machines in City Hall. I don't think they're internet, but it was computer. And now I'm going to go back to the same plain old paper because even though they said they had a paper backup, this past election in 2016 really worried me. And I knew election night, something was wrong. And I believe that, as is now being proven through the number of indictments of Russian spies, is that, indeed, the American electorate was hacked. And it took us a long time to gain this right to vote. I don't want to see it lost through computer advantages, I'll say that. And so what needs to be done is there needs to be new laws on voting. And some of these new laws need to address the need for hiring people who are very proficient in internet and hacking via computer. And that needs to be done now. And that's what I think is going on. I mean, there's all sorts of ways to obstruct a person's right to vote. And that's one of the ways that we're finding out has occurred and may occur in the future unless we get with it and hire a lot of people with new jobs to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Well, I read also about the judge, let's talk about voters ID. And that's another one that was discriminating against the people of minorities and the brown people, the black people, the voters ID in Iowa. I think it was a judge in Iowa that shot that down. Yeah, I mean, he was asking the prosecutor, the representative of the state, show me the instances in which fraud has occurred that this bill is supposed to correct. And the Attorney General couldn't provide him with any realistic examples. And so consequently, it was clear that this was a barrier that was set up to be a hurdle for people exercising their constitutional rights. That's a good point. And before the show, Erin, we were discussing, yes, there are 18 million high school people who would be able to vote for this election. And one person asked me to ask you and Daphne, explain to the new voter what they should look for in choosing the candidate because the candidates need to put the people first. Well, you need to look at the history of the candidate. I mean, there are basically two types of candidates. One, if you're dealing with an incumbent, a person who's already in office or has served in other official representations, they will have a track record. You can see where they voted if they voted for issues and substances and on provisions that you supported or provisions that you were opposed to. That's one thing that you should check out. If the person has not been in office and does not have a record of voting, then you have to look and see if there's any record where they've given any speeches, any record where they've written any essays, maybe even look at their Facebook. That's what they're looking at now. But the other thing one should be focused in on in terms of a representative is who's supporting this person, especially who is financially supporting this person. Is the group that's supporting this person a group that has my interests in art? Or is this a group that is doing something that I would not really support because it supports them, but that is taking money out of my pocket? So that's called dark money. People don't like the name dark money, but it's hidden money. And it's the super PACs. And Citizen United is an example of these super PACs is billionaires are coming in and they're being able to buy politicians through their money. And you would not know that because the politician does not have to reveal it to you. I know the newspapers are suing people who get these super PAC money so that they can find out who's behind this candidate. Is this a puppet or is this someone else that you can really rely on? And I just for the younger people I want to bring to mind some recent successes because there's a lot of depressing news, in my opinion, as far as super PACs controlling a lot of politicians. But there are fresh new voices and fresh new politicians. One of them is Alexandra Ocosa Cortez, who's from the Bronx. And she is a Democrat, but she won from a Democrat. She beat the Democrat in the primary, who was a well-known incumbent. And she did it by walking the streets and talking to people and getting them excited. And the young vote came out and voted for her. So, I mean, that shows she was able to reach and to talk. And also Stacey Adams, who is running for governor of Georgia. Well, we have a lot to discuss, and this is exciting. And when we come back, we're going to complete our segment, get out and vote. Truth is, I'm impressed. I haven't been asked such intelligent questions in a long time. Thanks. Didn't issue. She had so many children she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread and kissed them all soundly and put them to bed. Hunger is a story we can end. End it at feedingamerica.org. When I was growing up, I was among the one in six American kids who struggle with hunger. But with the power of breakfast, the kids in your neighborhood can think big and be more. Go to hungeris.org to make breakfast happen for kids in your neighborhood. Welcome back to Sister Power, and our discussion for the day is when we all vote, we can change the world. And our VIP guest is attorney Andre Wulton and his lovely wife, attorney Daphne Wulton. And before we continue to talk about voting, just give us a snippet of type the law that you practice. Well, me, I do a lot of personal injury defense, personal injury representations of injured people, car accidents, and other type problems. We do some criminal defense. We also do employment or representation, employment discrimination cases, ADA representation cases, general things. I do civil rights law. Can I talk about Stacey Abrams because we left off of that. Well, let's discuss the race to elect the first black woman governor in American history. We were discussing Stacey Abrams, and her strategy was simple. Reach out to the young voters, people of color, and women. And you are most definitely able and qualified to discuss that. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, I looked her up once you invited me to the show. Okay. Thank you very much. You're the best. And what I like about her, she wears dreadlocks. Okay. Hey. Proudly. Okay. She's a Yale law graduate, went to Yale Law School. And in her first year of Yale Law School, she wrote a romance novel. And she's also an author of many romance novels. I mean, and she identifies and says that she is a lawyer by day and a writer every day. So now she's going to hopefully win and she'll take on a new role, which is governor by day and every day. But anyway, she would be the absolute first in the whole United States, the first African American female governor. So we hope that she wins. And not only that, but I just want to mention one other thing. These are all things that voters can do. And to change the complexion of the political scene is not so depressing, but to more inclusive rather than exclusive. And I mean that not just by race or sex, but also money, class system. So another person who I want to mention is London Breed. She's the new San Francisco mayor. She's an African American. And she's followed up by after mayor Ed Lee, who was Chinese American, had died in office. And so she will be the she is the San Francisco mayor as we speak. And she won through a special election. So again, that's a way of how younger people can really take back the power, take power. Yeah, because I think that millennials, they say why millennials do not vote. And I think they get a bad rap on that because they protest. They just do it in a different way. And so why do you think people refrain from voting? I think some people refrain from voting because they didn't like the choices that they had. Really, the last time around in 16, a lot of people stayed home. They didn't think there was a difference, Tweedledum versus Tweedledee. But now you know the difference. Now you can see stark differences with a regime that's trying to roll back all the things that the Democrats did to try to protect people in the previous eight years. The Republicans are bumbling around trying to torpedo Obamacare when they couldn't muster the votes to officially replace it with anything better. So they're just trying to destroy it to harm people rather than come up with a plan to actually help people lower the cost. And the only way to really do that is with a single-player plan, which is what the rest of the Western world does, and which is why their cost for health care is so much lower than ours. Progressive candidates is the answer to your question. That's why the Democrat run in Birmingham in the special election. That's why the progressive candidate won in the Bronx and beat the so-called liberal candidate who's just taking the money from the corporations and telling the people anything they want to hear while they're bought and paid for by the corporations and just doing their bidding. It's time for progressive candidates who don't take the big-pack money because any candidate who takes the big-pack money is nailed down by the shorthairs and has got to do that bidding. Well, we have a chart that we can display that anywhere in the United States that you can see where to vote, what the date you should vote. And we have the state, and of course for Hawaii, is August 11th. And we mentioned early that from today we have 17 days remaining election. And if you have any questions, please go to www.HonoluluElections.us or call 768-3800. Well, let's continue this conversation because we need to get those 18 million voters out, the young people out to vote. It's crucial, it's imperative for this election that we get the candidates in that it's about the people. We have affordable housing. We have education that we have to consider. We have women's rights. We have equal pay. What's our next step to continue to inspire and encourage, Daphne? Well, first of all, with regards to voting in Hawaii, there's no excuse because you can go to the voting booth even on election day and get registered. Just have your ID ready so you can't say, oh, I can't vote. I didn't register. No, go on down to vote. The other thing is that watch debates. I think that an incumbent who doesn't debate, maybe not deserve your vote, think about it. I was thrilled actually to watch the Ohio vote. It was on TV yesterday. It was very good and it really opened up my eyes as to what various positions people had for the Ohio election. And what was interesting about that debate, they had about 20 people. None of the incumbents showed up. Not even one, none of them. They were all new people who were voicing, answering questions, debating and voicing their opinions and no incumbents. And so one of the candidates said, you know what? Look around. There's no incumbents here. Don't vote for them. Vote for us because we are interested in you. We're here to talk about what's going on. And I agree. Yeah, absolutely. That's what you should vote for is people who come, answer your questions, look you in the eye. I don't think an incumbent should take a vote for granted. And one other thing I just wanted to mention about the voting system here in America is the Electoral College. In 2016, the numerical vote went for Hillary Clinton. The only way that President Trump got elected was through the Electoral College. And what that does is takes a certain percentage from a state and uses, and they give them points, a sign of points, and then they add it up. So a state like Hawaii, I think we have three Electoral College. We used to have two, but I think our population went up. That's that right? The Electoral College is weighted for the rural areas and discounts be urban cities. If there were a popular vote, I mean basically the east coast and the west coast would dominate and the central parts where there's more land, but fewer people would basically have to go along with what the cities decided to do. So the Electoral College arguably balances that out. It gave voting power to the southern slaveholding states before the Civil War. There were 16 presidents, 12 of whom were slave owners and slave dealers. And that's because the Electoral College was set up originally to protect the rights of the slaveholders to get them to agree to the Constitution of 1789 in the first place. That's why the Constitution is far from colorblind. It's color coded. And so because people have fought and died for the right to vote for many, many years, it's very important for people to continue to exercise their right to vote now. Because if you sleep on it, bad things can happen. And as far as the Electoral College, I think that it's time that it be abolished. Let's just go by popular vote. Give us a broad reason why. Because it would start it to promote slavery and to keep slavery. It's undemocratic. It's not fair representation. Look, you run for election, you expect a popular vote. The person who wins the most votes to win, but not in America. We have a lot of work to do, don't we? Yeah, isn't United States the only country? The only so-called democracy that uses an Electoral College, really. I mean, that's why people say it's a, what, a representative republic rather than a real democracy. And I think it's time, after 260 years, we graduate to being a real democracy. Another question here, or more of a statement, the central question of this election will give a new generation their chance to shape Hawaii's future, a future that includes them. So let's bring it home. And let's inspire, motivate, and educate the people here at Hawaii to get them out to vote. They need, this should be a discussion at the dinner table. This should be a discussion to educate your children why it's important to vote. Well, there are issues on the table. There are issues of pesticides and whether or not the fields that are being sprayed have an obligation to notify their neighbors as to what is being sprayed that may flow into their yards and into their schools and in their cities. There are issues of how are we going to power our islands? Are we going to go for renewable, safe energy? Or as some people want to go for nuclear reactors and keep burning coal and fuel? There are questions about how we're going to finance the rail situation. And each of the candidates has a different view on this. If you want your position to be articulated, then you have to find the candidate that agrees with your position and vote and support that person. Sounds good. Well, Daphne, in 20 seconds or less, look into the camera and bring us home. Listen, exercise your right to vote because that's an exercise in your power. Don't give it away. Keep it, share it, be motivated, spread the word, and go and vote. Get out and vote. Well, thank you for spending the party of your day with us. Thank you, Andre, and thank you, Daphne. Again, our discussion was when we all vote, we can change the world. People, please get out and vote. Peace and keep fighting. Aloha.