 Okay, we're back. We're live. It's the 10 o'clock block. I'm Jay Fiedel on ThinkTech, and we're talking about history lens. A moment on lenses, like in cameras, you know. There's various kinds of lenses. Lenses that look wide, lenses that look far, lenses that are just fixed focal plane, others that are adjustable focal plane. The history lens is the lens we're talking about today. And the history lens is probably the most powerful lens of all. It looks far, it looks wide, it looks deep. It tells you things you would never otherwise know. Exactly. And for that purpose we have John David N, HPU history professor. He's going to help us look through the lens today at voting. Why voting? Because in two days time we're going to be voting. That's right. So what is the history of voting we're going to talk about. We're going to look through that lens of history at voting in the past to really explain, you know, what is it about the United States that makes it a democracy, but in some ways not very democratic at all. You know, why is it that some groups it seems still struggle in terms of having their voting rights protected. You know, why is it that it seems that there are some officials who still, even though they deny this, they seem to be bent on denying certain groups of voting rights. And why is this connected in some cases to race, gender? We can answer all of those questions by looking back at history. Okay. Wow. I'm excited because frankly I've never had so little confidence in the voting process as I do right now, John. Yeah, there are all kinds of challenges, right? But first of all, folks go out and vote next Tuesday. Okay. This is a very important midterm election. Please go vote. Okay. Yeah. And before we started the show, you were talking about the 2016 election, right? Where a relatively few number of votes made a difference and gave us the president we have or don't have today. Right. Right. That's right. And so, so it's about 100,000 votes actually in the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in Michigan, combined Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. So, so the thing is 100,000 votes out of 300, what is our population? 370 million, 370 million people. That's a very small number. That's just a few people saying, I'm not going to bother to do it because it doesn't mean anything because it doesn't matter. It does matter. Your vote does count and it matters. So, it's very important for people to vote. And if you don't take this seriously, we're all going to learn the hard way. You owe it not only to yourself, not only to the country, you owe it to me and John. Okay. There you go, Jay. Your answer, you're accountable to Jay. Look out. Okay. See, this is one of the questions, this is one of the other questions is, do Americans consider voting to be a duty, a part of their citizenship duty? And I think the answer is no. And there's a history to that as well. And I think it's this, the kind of continual fracturing of voting, even though more and more people get voting rights in the eight, especially the 19th century, it's still a fractured system where some people don't really believe that voting makes a difference. Other people are just disillusioned about the whole political process and so decide not to participate at all. So, yeah, it's really important, although what I will say about the 2018 election is there's a lot of energy with younger candidates, especially in the Democratic Party, but younger candidates who are of many different colors, many different, two different genders, I guess. And so there is excitement. There is an excitement and a sense that we could renew our democracy with this midterm of election, even if a particular party, let's say you're rooting for one party and it doesn't win. I do think this is a time when we're looking at a renewal. How would we know we're being renewed? What would the metric be? Well, of course, you know, I'm talking anecdotally. I don't have any aggregate statistics, but I think it's very important to, when you look at who's willing to run, who's willing to risk their income, their career. And the slings and arrows and disparagement of a political campaign. Yeah, and the beating you take in a political campaign, who's willing to do that? And actually, there's a lot of people willing to do that now. So it's actually kind of an exciting time to be in this democracy. So as flawed as this democracy is, it's kind of an exciting time. Well, take us through from the beginning, John. So when the founders created the nation, of course, you know, they wrote the Constitution and in the Constitution, there's voting rights. There is actually in the Constitution, original Constitution, no guarantee of voting rights associated with citizenship. No, there's no guarantee of that. So those are two separate things at the founding, citizenship and voting the vote. And I wouldn't even call it voting rights, because really, Jay, what we're talking about today is the movement in the United States from voting as a privilege to in the 19th and 20th centuries, voting becomes a right declared by the courts and really respected by politicians. So, but not all politicians. So this is our past. And when we look at the past, we can see linkages to the present. And we'll talk about that. So in the early days of the Republic, then there was voting, voting took place. There were national elections. Presidents were, of course, elected based upon electoral votes. The electors were chosen by the state legislatures. And the state legislatures were voted on by the voters of those particular states. But there were no women voting. There were no African Americans voting. There were no Native Americans voting. And those white males who voted had to own substantial amounts of property, not just property, but substantial substantial amounts of property in order to vote. So that was voting was actually very restricted. Senators were chosen by the state legislatures, not by a popular vote. So it's not much of a democracy. Actually, the founders didn't think that they wanted a democracy. You know, the founding fathers called this a mobocracy. They were really afraid of democracy. That's why the electoral system is there. A one man, one vote democracy frightened them. Isn't this going to be on the final? It should be. It should be on the final. This is not what we grew up thinking, is it? That's right. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, this is part of Americans need to be educated about the history of how the vote evolved and how limited it was in that. It becomes a little more precious now, realizing that it wasn't there at the beginning. It had to be earned over 200 years. Exactly. Now, that's a very good way to put it. And so that's what happens over the succeeding, the succeeding centuries is various groups decide, hey, the promise, not necessarily in the Constitution, but certainly in the declaration was a promise of equality. And shouldn't we have equality in terms of the ability to choose the leaders of the country? And so what you see, so interesting sidebar in the 1790s, women did vote in New Jersey for a few years. And then they got rid of the vote because this was some radical idea was passed by the New Jersey legislature. And then it was later on, they said a few years later said, oh, no, no, that's terrible. We've got to get rid of that. We give us, we take us. Yeah. And the other thing about that is, well, so we'll go on and talk a little bit more. But the thing is for women, women start to press the vote during the Civil War period. The suffrage movement actually begins in the 1840s for women's rights and the right for women to vote. But there's a court case in 1872. It's called Minor Versus Haper Set. It goes to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court, the head of the Supreme Court Haper Set makes this decision that women do not have the right to vote. And his argument is that there's no precedent for women voting. And the second argument is that voting in citizenship are two different things. And just because you're a citizen doesn't mean you have the right to vote. This is a very old idea that this Supreme Court justice is bringing into the post-Civil War period. So, but of course, the main fight for the vote, well, so in the period before the Civil War, then what happens is this period of popular democracy drives states to get rid of the property restrictions. Well, if I'm, you know, 17 or 18 or 20, and I can go into the Civil War and get my butt shot off, then I should be able to vote next time around. Yeah, and I think there is some, of course, it's not the Civil War so much as it is like the Mexican War in the 1840s. 1848, yeah. And the War of 1812, in which, yes, you know, you do the sacrificing, you should have some benefits of citizenship. So it's, so by 1852, then all states have eliminated that property requirement. And so all white males can vote. And soon then senators become elected popularly instead of by state legislatures. Of course, the national electoral system stays in place. So, but the big fight, the fight that causes the Civil War, of course, is the fight for freedom for African American slaves. And at the end of this fight, during reconstruction, after the Civil War is over, then the question is, do these African Americans, should they have all of the rights of citizenship? Or should they have the right to vote? They become citizens, but should they have the right to vote? And the Republicans would have wanted the Republicans. That's an interesting irony. The Republicans wanted them to have that right. That's right. Well, some, yes. I mean, eventually, of course, the African Americans, there is a constitutional amendment which is put in place, which says that the vote cannot be denied on the basis of race or color or condition of servitude. Now, the trick with that is it can be denied on other bases. So that constitutional amendment allows African Americans to vote. But their voting rights are denied in other ways. First of all, through voter intimidation during reconstruction. But the voting rights are also denied through various laws that are passed in the South, mostly. But there are a few states in the North that actually have these restrictions. Well, so there's a poll tax. There's a literacy test. They re-institute property requirements for voting in some southern states, which, of course, all of these things, those three measures actually disenfranchise poor rights as well as poor life. So voting is even way back in the constitutional days was recognized as an expression of power. And we don't want to give everybody power or hold that power. And so this country is really built in the 19th century anyway and into the 20th on expanding that power to more groups. And right after this break, John, we're going to come back and talk about how it further evolved into what it is today with pictures. Okay, yes, we've got a few pictures. We'll be right back. Hey, Aloha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because security matters. Aloha. Hi, I'm Bill Sharp, host of Asian Review here on Think Tech Hawaii. Join me every Monday afternoon from 5 to 5 30 Hawaii Standard Time for an insightful discussion of contemporary Asian affairs. There's so much to discuss and the guests that we have are very, very well informed. Just think we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. The possibility of Xi Jinping, the leader of China remaining a power forever. We'll see you then. We are learning stuff today with John David and history professor at HBU about voting here on history lens. And it's really kind of shocking to me to find out some of these things. We had no guarantee of voting one man, one vote, one man or woman, one vote back at the inception. And this country had a fight for it. It had a design, development, sculpt the whole system. And it has been up and down. And now I think it's going down. The reality is if we want to hold on to the democracy as we understand democracy to be in the people, we have to vote. You have to do more than vote. But yes, observe the voting is key. Voting is fundamental to citizenship in a democracy. So definitely voting. Go vote. Go vote next Tuesday, please. Yeah. So yeah, so these pictures. Yeah, these restrictions were put in place. We can bring up a few of the pictures. This is from the election of 1800, which was highly disputed between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. And it was decided in the House of Representatives. That's how close it was. And it was the worst kind of mud slinging campaign you would have ever seen, worse than any today. So that was kind of the beginning of the real nasty kind of divisiveness of politics. We don't remember it to be that way, but there you have it. That's right. It's been divisive at times and other times not divisive at all. But so if we could bring up a few more of the slides here. So this is when African Americans get voting rights. This is from 1876. And African Americans in the South got to, they participated, they voted, they became officials. Over a thousand officials at local, county and state levels in the South. There were several representatives in the House of Representatives. There was one senator. There were I think two governors, African Americans. So it was kind of this moment where African Americans took hold of the reins of political power. You say moment because the Confederate, former Confederates and landowners and slave owners didn't like that at all. Right. And that's when the Ku Klux Klan got started. That's correct. So the Ku Klux Klan actually is started to stop African Americans from going to the polls. And it's pretty successful. So that by the end of the 1870s then all of those Republican controlled legislatures have turned over to Democrats to what are called Redeemer Democrats, which are called Redeemer. They're really white supremacists, but they're, they're redeeming that the South from what they see as this corrupt, tyrannical Republican, Black Republican led regime. The South shall rise again. That's it. You know it, Jay. I can hear Dixie in the background. It's so pertinent right now. Right, right. So, so if we can bring up the next slide, one of the things that happens is the poll tax is put into place to prevent poor African Americans from voting. And you can see this is not from 1800s. This is 1958. No. Yes, it says it right on it. It's I'm curious how much money was involved in the poll tax. I can't see that, but it's, it's, it's enough to prevent poor, poor tenant farmers from voting. Clear suppression. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a way to, to keep them from the polls. So, so the, and these other measures were put in place. So, but there were folks on the other side who continued to say, and many of them were Republicans, progressive Republicans who can continue to say we need to expand voting rights. And so the next play on this is of course the voting rights amendment that allows women to vote. And here they are. They're voting in their first election in 1920. The amendment has passed in, in 1918. And of course women's voting rights are connected to women's virtue. This is interesting because it's World War I. And there's this big battle going on. Suffragettes are, they're going on hunger strikes. They're chaining themselves to the Capitol. Exactly. They're, they're doing all these protests. And, and so, and, and this makes the American people uncomfortable. But Wilson is trying to find a way to let, to give them the vote. And the argument becomes, the argument that pushes this over the top is that women can bring, bring virtue to a government by selecting virtuous leaders in ways that men cannot. This is a new kind of argument because in the 19th century it was thought that women and men had separate spheres. That women should stay in the home. Men should be in the political arena because the political arena is nasty. It's power laden. It's corruptible. And women are virtuous and they're raising children. But now there's this new idea of the suffragettes that women actually are virtuous creatures and should bring those virtues into the republic. So women are allowed to, to vote. And so that's another way in which the fight, as you describe it, the fight was one for those who expanded voting. Yeah. So of course then the, the next major of a moment for voting was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So if we can bring that up, yeah. So on the Voting Rights Act, can you leave this up for a little bit? This is a little bit complicated, but when you're looking at this graph on the left side, it's registration before the Voting Rights Act. And on the right side it's registration after the Voting Rights Act. There's little change among whites, but you see the orange there, that's African Americans. And you can see before as few as maybe 10% of African Americans in Mississippi were registered to vote. And, and you know in the 20s maybe up to 40%. Then afterwards you have over 50% of African Americans are registered to vote in all of those states. And this is just two years after the Voting, the Voting Rights Act takes place. So this is a very important moment because African American males had been given the right to vote. And through various measures, those, those voting rights had been taken away. Really kind of almost surreptitiously with these, with these various laws. But the, the one thing to be said is in the United States voting and voting laws are generally state laws. So states can have these kinds of things. But that's why the Voting Rights Act is so important because it unified voting, basic voting rights in the United States. And it forced states to get rid of these voting restrictions. You know, all of the restrictions that we were talking about. So fast forward from 1965. Right. That's when I graduated law school. So that's, that's when my consciousness began. Yeah, yeah, that's an important period. From 1965 to now. Right. The, the idealism in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yeah. As under Lyndon Baines Johnson. Right. From Texas already. That's right. Right. Has not converted white supremacists. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It has not been realized though. And in fact, we see a thousand pinpricks now undoing it yet again despite the fact that Congress enacted it. Yeah. Okay. But the worst parts of segregation and voting of disenfranchisement. Right. The worst parts have not reappeared. There's no poll tax. There's no property requirement. There's no literacy test. You know, all of those really egregious acts were taken out. Now it's, it's, it's a little more subtle. For instance, in this election cycle, there's a big controversy in the state of Georgia because the, the secretary of state of the state of Georgia is running for governor. And the secretary of state in Georgia controls voting. Those who can vote and those who cannot. He talked about a conflict of interest. Yeah. He controls the, the, the voter polls. The, the, those who are, the registered. So in one capacity, he wants to control the vote. So that he can win the election in the other capacity. So, and, and Georgia has a law that if you haven't voted, I think it's for two elections, then you can be, your voter registration can be annulled, nullified. And, and apparently reports have suggested that this guy has, has gotten rid of or thrown off the registration up to a million voters over the last four years, I think. And of course many of those are African Americans. And Georgia was the same state where they made these people from a senior home who were on a bus. Right. On a way to register that polls get off the bus. Right. Which was absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. And so racist. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, it's so, so, but the one thing we have to keep in mind, the one thing that's been constant and will continue to happen is that this idea that voting is a privilege and not a right with which our nation was founded is still with us. We have to understand that the past gives us that the lens of history, the history lens shows us that we are a nation that at its foundation did not really like the idea of voting, especially lower class people voting. I'm still arguing. So, so, so it's still a problem today. We haven't completely gotten rid of that and I don't think we ever will. So it's still a fight. The funny thing is that growing up, I'm sure you had the same experience. Yeah. We were, we were served a history, if you will. Yeah. That we're pure voting. Voting is democracy. Well, yeah. I actually don't remember getting much education at all about whether, whether the founders liked voting or not. But, yeah. So, so it's a problem. And so, you know, one of the struggles has been when, when not everybody is on the same page about voting rights, then you have people not voting because they get discouraged. And so, in the last few elections, we've had lots of voters who have just kind of stood on the sidelines. And so, if we can bring up the graph that shows voting patterns in the last, yeah. So, this is voter turnout. This is interesting because if you can leave this up for a while, this is voter turnout from 1789 to 2016. And you look, voter turnout, of course, is very low in the early period. This is eligible voters, but it's still very low because it was difficult to get to the polls. People didn't know they had the right to vote. But then it shoots up in the 1830s with, with states passing laws getting rid of the property requirement. And it's a time period when there's this real excitement about politics. We call it Jacksonian democracy, but it can be called just a democratic moment. And that extends to about 1900. And there's great spectacle associated with voting, with the main political parties hold these wonderful conventions and torchlight parades. It's a very exciting thing. Participation in a democracy is theater. It's part of the excitement of life. But we begin to see this decline. Now, some historians have argued that the decline in participation is really associated with the progressive movements of changing, pushing to change voting laws. So what happens there in about 1910 is that the primary system is put in place. Previous to that, smoke-filled room in the back of the Democratic or Republican convention. Made the nominees. That's who, candidates. Yes, it was the elites of the party that chose the nominees. So, but there were all kinds of other changes, the secret ballot was put into place in this time period. So, we didn't have a secret ballot back then. That's another amazing thing. No, that's right. So, yeah, it wasn't a secret ballot. And even though when we look at voter turnout in the 19th century, it was very high, but it was also very corrupt. You could bribe somebody to, you know, here's $5 for the Irishman down the road, or a bottle of whiskey for the Irishman to go vote for your candidate. So, there was a lot of corruption in politics. I noticed from the chart you were just showing that that there was a decline after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yeah, yeah, but it's not a big decline. No. We're talking about about 60% in the 20th century. And that's consistent with the 2016 election, which was at 58% participation. But if you think about that, 58% participation, that's a little more than half of the electorate voting. And that's, you know, a little less than half deciding, well, I don't need to vote, or I shouldn't vote, or I'm so disillusioned I don't want to vote. So, we've got, we definitely have a problem that, you know. And in the last moment, too, I'd just like to ask you to, to react to this article I saw in the MIT Journal. Yeah. About voting in China. Oh, yeah. And so, you know, so they have the social quotient score. Everybody gets a score. Right. And it's based on everything they know about you, which is everything, because they have social media, and they examine it with artificial intelligence. And they know, they know what you think. Yeah. From all indications, what you read, what you buy, what you say, where you go. And so, so the idea is in this article that in the future, Xi Jinping will be able to vote for you. She will know, she will know so much about you that she will be able to vote for you. And that, okay? Yeah. It falls on fertile ground in the United States. Yeah. Where not enough people do vote. Well, right. No, that's true. But for one thing, China is a totalitarian government, right? It's a dictatorship. Yeah, they, there are, there are opposition parties in. Okay, so in our last minute, I know historians don't like to make predictions, but I like you to predict. Are we going to have a robust rate here next Tuesday? Are we going to have an increase in voting participation in this democracy as we have fashioned it? What's going to happen in the future? I think Xi Jinping or something else? Well, no. So yes, yes, on the, on the, the election next Tuesday. Definitely. We're going to have an increase in midterm voting from the last midterm. We've already seen it in the primaries. On Xi Jinping, okay, that's scary stuff. And I think that's really dangerous. And let's hope we don't ever do that. In the United States, one of the things that makes voting maybe a little protected is that it's done by, it's run by the states, right? So, so you'd have to get all the states to sign on to something like that. It's a, it's a federal system. So there is a benefit in, in states rights. Yeah. There is a benefit in the federal system. Yeah, I think so. It's possible that that blunts it. We don't want that to happen. You know, we're not a totalitarian system. Well, you know, if I, you know, from, from, from your lips to God's ears. Okay. Thank you, John. David. And we'll do this again in two weeks. All right. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm gonna vote. Yes. Voting. Vote, vote, vote. I already voted.