 Okay welcome everyone. Good afternoon. We're happy to have you with us. We have with us today former trial judge Sandra Sims and longtime criminal defense attorney Bill Harrison. And we're going to talk some more about what's going on with injustice, inequality, and their impact on the parts of our lives that make a real difference to us. One of those today we'll talk about what's the role and the impact of injustice and inequality on the elections as we go to the last 50 days before crucial votes. Bill, Sandra, your thoughts? Thank you. I'll let you go. That's a really, really good question and one that I think that a lot of people are really concerned about and actually when in essence they're really neat and necessarily be that kind of concern because I think right now we're in a place where the notion of there being the kinds of things that took place before the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1964 are not necessarily occurring in that same way. There are some things that we need to take a look at and kind of examine the way we do polling and that sort of thing but I think that massive laws and procedures that inhibit people from voting prior to what happened in the Voting Rights Act doesn't exist like now. So people really ought to feel ready and capable of going in voting whether it's by mail or not and then where we do have issues to address. I mean there are enough agencies and there are agencies and organizations that are involved in making certain that everyone has the right to vote and that everyone can vote and I think here in Hawaii we're certainly doing something very unique with all mail, all voting by mail entirely. So I think that's kind of interesting. I don't know. What do you guys think about it? I do. I think that it's a great tool for everyone to have a say in what goes on during the elections. There can't be any further question as to how do I get there, finding time to do it, etc. All those issues go by the wayside because you can do this and just drop it in the mail. If you want to, if you're afraid of the mail, you can go down to these poll boxes and drop them in the poll boxes. So I think it opens up the voting rights to everyone whether you're older or you're busy or what have you and that's shown in the primary. So I'm really looking forward to this general election in that regard. Yeah. In fact for us in Hawaii, this last primary vote that was all mail, we had the highest turnout for a primary that they're in years because of the ease of, I like to think it's because of the ease of voting, but I don't know. Other places are feeling more challenged than we are, but I'm kind of comfortable at this point, even though there's lots of naces, a lot of noise out there about it being illegal or being rigged. I don't think that's, those are real concerns. I mean, there may be some efforts in some places to inhibit people or silence people's efforts to get out or maybe to see that that is occurring in places, but I think there are organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other nonprofit organizations that are involved in so many communities that are making certain that everyone understands what their rights are and that they have that ability to vote and that's, I mean, that's a big thing and I think that's, and I'm involved with a number of organizations, sort of organization whenweallvote.org, which I think Michelle Obama's been involved with and really, really working to get young folks out to vote and provide materials for that. I was on a call the other day with the links and that's what we were talking about is, you know, when we all vote in ways that people are encouraged to vote, particularly young folks, so yeah, that's cool. Yeah, Chuck, my only concern nationally is the fact that with all this fake news going on, there is a tendency to raise issues that really aren't issues with regard to mail-in voting and cause people to be concerned, at least in their minds, concerned about fraud going on and things of that nature. And that concerns me because I don't want the U.S. to be like other countries where we know the voting is rigged and there's issues and people don't want to go out to vote or are afraid to vote because of the fact that they don't want to participate in a fraudulent voting scheme. So I know that there's a real push from certain segments of our society to make that happen so that there can be a challenge to the election results. So that's my only concern. Yeah, yeah, and that's mine too. I think about that and that's but the reality is that it's it can run smoothly. It can be done and I think it's not and even with the you know voting by mail and absentee at 2% because we don't get the results the day of I think the days of being able to have those all those results in on the day of the election just may not be anymore. I think we have to expect that all the tallying is going to come you know sometime after because you you know different states have different rules about when the absentee ballots can be counted you know some don't allow for them to be opened and counted before before the election before election day. So that's stuff that can could think about too. So I'm excited about it. I'm concerned about it but I think if we are if we are conscientious careful and involved you know we can do this. We can do this. I want to be where you know someone mentioned the week about having you and observers come in on elections and it and that's just you know when you thought when I first heard it was like no it was kind of calm but they were serious to think that we have raised the specter of there being such a possibility of there being this this so-called rigging that we need observers. You forget Sandy that we are a third world country here. We're heading that way. So those are really good points and I think the distinction between Hawaii where even our election commissioner acknowledged after this last primary election that the mail-in ballots went much better much cleaner with far fewer problems than the in-person polling that had for years before that. So we're a good example that it can work. We know that there are groups that are really opposed to it because statistics have shown increased votes tend to concentrate in rural areas which have tended to favor one party over the others. We know that as Bill points out there are serious intentional voter suppression problems going on in places on the mainland. In Georgia they have purged that the government has purged over 200,000 people off the voter rolls as allegedly gone missing dead whatever whether that's true or not and there's no real control of that because there's nobody behind them that second guesses or checks what they've done. So we're safe here but nationally we're not. And that presents a real problem because this is a really important election we're talking about and you know our local voting may be in order but nationally we have to be concerned and still be very vigilant that we do things right and not allow the Voting Rights Act to be and run by other procedures such as lack of a postal individual. Yeah that's just that is just weird I don't know where I is that even a real thing I'm you know some days you wonder is that a real thing and it's hard to and nowadays it really is hard to to grasp because there's so much fake news out there through socially otherwise and then through partial news outlets I mean when we were growing up we knew that there were certain newspapers and news media that was partial but nowadays you really have to be concerned as to partiality on all fronts so that that changes what we understand it gets filtered to what we learn is happening so that's the scary part. Yeah because you have to kind of look at your source when you're saying a news source you really have to look at where what that source is I always do right before I decide that something really is it's like wait let me who is this? Yeah that raises another really critical point which is if we really went by one person one vote system male problems in person problems would kind of come out as a wash and it probably wouldn't make that much difference I mean the last election there was a margin of close to three million votes so even if half of those that were questioned you still got a million and a half full margin but we don't who we've got a system that was developed by a society whose constitution is designed for a democratic republic but whose voting system is designed for a very limited electorate yeah at the time of our founding at the time of our constitution not even close to everyone had the right to vote women could not slaves could not people who are not essentially landed gentry had serious problems it was set up that way and so the electoral college vestigial system that we have now favors geographical area and rural communities heavily over concentrated urban communities it has not adapted to the over 200 years of change in the concentration of the population so we've now had two elections where the popular vote loser by substantial margins wound up being the electoral college winner clearly that is the objective of the party that is not doing well in the polls right now and those swing states that can make that electoral college difference are where the effort efforts to concentrate voter suppression voter deregistration voter discouragement all those things are happening the Georgia's Florida's Texas Pennsylvania Wisconsin Michigan yeah as you say that that whole system the electoral college basically was set up to help a specific portion of our population and really is the basis initially for systemic discrimination you know what's going to happen with that system and they set it up that way they did not want people who they believe did not share their viewpoint to be allowed to to participate in their party politics and so we go back back to what we started out this conversation about is the inequality and discrimination it starts right there we're talking about elections is that electoral college system and that's a really good point though because that electoral college system was a product of a group of people none of whom were elected representatives of colonies yeah they were kind of self designated and every one of them was part of a specific power elite at that point in time it's interesting that as the country gradually moved probably more through the influence of Lincoln than any other single president toward a more egalitarian electoral system a more balanced one that the counter push over the last few decades from Reagan's time on has been to re-concentrate the power and the wealth in electoral control and to use that for germandering for voter suppression for taking people off the voter rolls for making registration more difficult we've all seen examples during our lifetime of people who tried to register to vote who because they had not memorized the chief court of each county of their state will refuse the opportunity to do that 100 years ago no it's not it's in our lifetimes I was you know looking at the the life of Fannie Lou hammer and in a recent webinar that I was involved in and the things that she talked about in in that effort to really really move the to move the ability of people to vote to fight voter suppression in in Mississippi was just phenomenal this is a woman who was like literally beaten literally beaten um as she pursued the the the right to vote uh you may remember well maybe not vividly but you know basically the Mississippi um uh challenged party basically storming the democratic convention in uh what was it 68 or 72 to be seated um which was which was you know part and part so why we had to have that voting right so when you look at what folks like her did I mean to just totally sacrifice them their bodies their lives uh to do this and then we look at there's still these kinds of efforts to suppress still going on not not maybe in the same way nobody is I hope not beating anyone up you know who's coming to the polls but we're certainly having to be mindful and careful um about some of the suppression things that are coming up in some of those areas that you mentioned Chuck and um but I think there's also more education and more involvement particularly and I keep going back to this particularly with our young folks who are really really um this time maybe more engaged than ever um that well not ever because I think we saw that kind of movement in civil rights as well but when you think about it you know this is a generation the what do you call them the the wise or the disease or whichever ones they call themselves um this is a generation number one grew up with Barack Obama as their president so the notion of you know they're being someone who is of color in the president's office it's yeah that's just how it is but it's also a generation that you know grew up with the specter of of being shot at while you're at school which is something that you know for for us was you know the biggest thing you had to fear was to you know the three o'clock you know fight in the in the in the playground or something if there was such a thing um but those are the kinds of things that they're having to face for real um and you know with gender issues that they're having to address as well um issues with regard to you know growing coming out of foster care into adulthood so this is a generation that's you know lived through a lot seen has seen a lot and then are coming into their own to try to understand this system and I don't know that we've done such a great job of even explaining what that why that electoral system is there to most folks because mostly just don't really understand it why in the world is there what it's for they don't get it and and not really understanding that it needs to be changed whereas I think there's a generational shift that is saying it's going to change yeah I kind of feel like this is where that move is coming from much in the same way that you know the young people were involved in civil rights we're kind of kind of seeing that hopefully as well I think I maybe got more faith than the young people who are most people too no no Sandia and I'm I'm also heartening at the the fact that our young people have sort of woken up to this issue of elections and voicing their opinions and exercising their first amendment rights for a long time for many years we didn't have that there was so much apathy with the young people yes yes the movement that we grew up in that was a time of change and we all understood that and we all took the stands and positions on different things and we voiced our our you know attitudes and opinions and went to the polls and we voted and we did all those wonderful things and then there was a big lag of time where maybe we coddled our kids too much I don't know what it is I can't say but but I'm seeing a real waking now and it is really is something that we can look forward to and and hopefully we'll make uh uh substantial changes and in the way we go forward from here on out so Bill does that and Sandra does that bring us back to that really important point you raised earlier which is we may never have seen a campaign of misinformation as extensive as expensive as strategically organized and structured as what we saw in 2016 and what we're seeing exponentially greater now not just clearly undocumented from Russia and other sources but from particularly one of the parties yeah how did the young people deal with that how did they master objectively reliable choice that that I think that's a really important question that we have to look at and this new generation has to look at because you remember back in the 60s when JFK became the first president to use the the television to really go out and talk to people and get his place across and gather gather people um the you know recent administrations they understood the power of social media and they have now grasped onto it and understand that this whole group of young folks have grown up in that social media they haven't grown up in the television they haven't grown up on how we grew up by going outside talking to one another in a town square um so they really have mastered this this uh social media platform they've got those very very bright younger people around them telling them that this is where you have to focus your attention and we were amazed at our executive using tweets um and we say how could you I mean how on earth could someone ever believe you or you know look up to you when you're doing this and yet he's got millions of followers you know hundreds of millions of people are listening to him uh and it's it's it's scary in that respect so we really have to figure out how um everyone who was involved in the um the electoral process how to educate and and make these younger folks understand that that this tool that they're using is too easily abused and and that's a concern yeah it is subject to that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a good point too i'm not so where do voters especially young voters look for reliable objective truth to make their electoral choices what needs to happen to give that truth to them in ways that are both accessible and reliable is there a media failure here that is part of the problem that's part of it that's definitely part of it but but i think it goes back to what sandi said earlier on when she sees something she looks checks it out and what one amazing thing about the about the internet is that it's so vast and so you can almost find information on every subject in everybody um and so you have to do your homework uh you know we have to make sure that that these uh young millennials really do their homework and not just take what first comes off the the you know the instead of the ticker tape that in the twitter tape and as uh as valid right we have to do our homework and um i'm hopeful that and it's our responsibility and you know to teach our kids and our grandkids to do that uh and so the responsibility then falls back on us as well and not to let this go without making and properly teaching like our grandparents taught us you know and reading the newspapers and listening to the news and listening to the radio you know we have to be objective and and uh you know we have to to keep our uh inquisitiveness going on and uh and make sure we do our homework yeah and so let me ask you folks who would maybe a scarier question who we know that you folks are younger than me but in our general time period that there was a level of mistrust and opposition and questioning of elders and of authority one of the things back in the 60s that was a kind of a catchphrase was don't trust anybody over 30 right exactly okay so let's assume that there is some element of that that is a natural part of youth's resistance to and questioning of authority the scary question is has the republican party and have trump been able to turn that concept on its head in their favor by claiming to be the ones who challenged the traditional old boy authority yeah you know go ahead Sandra go ahead that's a good one I I'm not quite sure I mean there's certainly an ostensible attempt to do that but uh I I I still go back to this position of having a bit more um uh faith in the discernment and intelligence of this younger generation it is a questioning generation yes uh and it's it's certainly ones that you know they raised some of the same kind of concerns and questions we have but at the same time their ability to do more independent kind of thinking because they have access to more resources yeah you know and the thing is as I bought up earlier the this new political movement they have capitalized on the fact that being different means acting different speaking different and they really have capitalized on that you know when in our lifetimes or anyone's lifetimes would you have a president your chief executive speaking the way he does tweeting the way he does and he's separating himself from the older folks the older generation the old school um and how they did business and politics so he has really understood and capitalized or the smart people around him have understood and capitalized that sets him apart from the old guard and makes him more enticing to this new generation who don't want politicians anymore they want people who are going to do things and they see politics as his group of old folks getting together having fun amongst themselves gaining you know um riches on the backs of other folks and they don't want that anymore yeah yeah okay so coming into our last minute any wrap-up thoughts sundra i think we're going to be okay what makes you believe that i think deep down deep underneath all of the noise that we are hearing there is i think within with many of within people an ability to be more discerning that we're giving folks credit for i do believe that i absolutely believe that and just because there's a poll i think i'm getting to the place of you know polls being meaningless because i'm not sure that everyone even responds to that um and i agree i agree totally with with sandra and i think it's just basically there is a now our movement for the goodness of of people we're looking towards the good of people and i think that that will will carry us through the selection i i i think so i think so i i really think this is undercurrent of people who are just you know concerned about each other more and and and this pandemic has aided that too in some ways i think it's made us more inward directed caring directed looking at one another looking out for one another and in that maybe even in enhance some of our abilities to communicate better with each other we're not necessarily seeing in a media setting so you know i i mean it's it looks scary at times but i think we're gonna be okay there is a note who will wrap it up do the right thing for all of us