The recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election put a spotlight on state-level politics and the way that national politics can influence what happens in the states. But there are a lot of other developments happening at the state level that you might have missed. We catch up on what's happening with Alex Burness, a reporter who covers state and local democracy and criminal justice issues for Bolts.
As the name suggests, Bolts covers the "nuts and bolts of power and political change, from the local up." Topics covered in this episode include:
- Felon disenfranchisement and mail-in voting
- Mail voting
- Threats to election administrators
- State-level Voting Rights Acts
We also discuss how national politics are shaping decisions that state legislatures make — even when those decisions appear to go against policies that people in a state overwhelmingly support. For more on this dynamic, check out our episode with Jake Grumbach on his book "Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics."
Episode Transcript
Candis Watts Smith
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University. I'm Candis Watts Smith
Cyanne Loyle
I'm Cyanne Loyle.
Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle, and welcome to Democracy. Works. This week, we are going to talk a little bit about what's happening in the states, some of the developments related to democracy there both positive and negative. Our guest is Alex Burness, who is a reporter for bolts, which is a news site specifically dedicated to state and local democracy issues as well as criminal justice, and some of the ways that those two things intersect, if you don't already subscribe to bolts, I think as a listener of this show, you will find a lot of the reporting that they do very valuable. But you know, we are recording this on April 1, the day of the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin that has been getting so much attention. But you know that really just scratches the surface of a lot of what's happening in the States right now, and you've done this from time to time on the show, and I thought this would be a good time to check in about what's happening across the states as well.
Candis Watts Smith
And I'm really glad that we're doing this. I think that most people can agree that we're living in a very weird time, to say the least, and a lot of our focus has been on the federal government because of the significant changes that we're seeing due to Doge, but Also due to a good number of executive actions out of the executive branch, in the White House. So I think that it's really timely for us to just kind of zoom back in on the states. Because as you know, our listeners know that a good deal of power, political power, the power around elections, around many of the issues that folks care a lot about happen at the state level. So just kind of bringing our focus down today, I think it's just exactly what we need. You know the I will say that what's interesting is that we're talking about Wisconsin, and everyone is talking about Wisconsin, and what, why? Why? I think that's worthy of just thinking about like, what does that mean? And what kind of moment are we in? Is that we always talk about how all politics is local, but we're also seeing that there's a kind of nationalization of state and local politics, and the fact that Wisconsin, no, no, no shade to Wisconsin, but it's not like the state that everyone thinks about a lot all the time, that is really a signal that there's something very particular happening and the dynamics of of our federal system and our federal and national politics.
Cyanne Loyle
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that's absolutely right. Candice, and one of the things that I I think that our podcast today is going to set up so nicely is, in some ways, the uniqueness of the American system that rests in the incredible power that the state has. We always try to find our more hopeful messages on on the podcast. And I think one of the hopeful messages here is, is how important state politics can be, and I think really teeing us up for the next couple years how important they are going to be right. So things like voters rights concentrated on the state level is going to be really important for understanding how things on the federal level play out, but also how people's like local individual lives are impacted over the next couple of years. And so I appreciate both, both the excellent reporting that's being done on kind of state and local politics, but also thinking about the U.S. as a unique system.
Candis Watts Smith
And so you know this presidency, this particular president in a moment where there is kind of a nationalization of local politics, of state politics. And here I'm really kind of depending on Jake Grumbach's work on laboratories against democracy. He was on on the pod a year ago or so, that the kind of to combine this presidency, plus that trend, means that we're also seeing a lot of norms change, and we know that they're just not that many laws have been changed in this past. How many every few months, but norms have changed significantly.
Jenna Spinelle
I'm glad you mentioned Jake Grumbach. I was I was thinking a lot about his work as well when I was talking with Alex. And I'll put the link to that conversation with Jake in the show notes if anyone wants to revisit it. But as you'll also hear, the the nationalization that kind of trickling down to the states, it sometimes comes flies in the face of policies that are very popular among voters and seem to be otherwise working pretty well. So we'll dive into all of that with Alex Burness let's go now to the interview.
Jenna Spinelle
Alex Burness, welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today.
Alex Burness
Thank you so much for having me on.
Jenna Spinelle
So we are going to take a bit of a tour through some of the democracy issues happening at the state level. We've done that from time to time on this show, but it's been a while, and there's always a lot happening across the states and within each state individually. But before we get into some of the specific issues, why don't you just tell us a little bit about bolts, the organization that you work for, what you cover and how you cover it. Sure,
Alex Burness
Bolts is a, I guess, almost well, we just passed three year anniversary. We're a nonprofit, independent digital newsroom, and we cover voting rights and elections as one of our main topics, and criminal justice issues as the other. And we cover these things, particularly at the intersection of local and state politics. So we're very interested in overlooked offices, too often overlooked offices, prosecutors, sheriffs, county clerks, etc, in addition to state legislatures, mayor's offices, State Supreme Courts. And I spend a lot of my time writing about voting rights in election administration, where that topic crosses over with criminal justice, like I mentioned before, so felony disenfranchisement, restoration of voting rights, the ways that states and counties pick and choose who has easy voter access, who has voter access at all? We are interested in connecting dots that often are overlooked. Particularly I have a background in local newspapers, and I know how much happens at the local level, and the hollowing out of the local press, I think, has made it all the more important to have folks like us at bolts who are keeping an eye on stuff that just is not going to get into the New York Times and is not going to be on CNN.
Jenna Spinelle
That's great, and thank you for that work. We will be sure to link to bolts in the show notes. I think a lot of our listeners will find the coverage that you do very interesting and insightful and very valuable. But let's start off by talking about felony disenfranchisement, one of the areas that you focus on in your reporting. I think a lot of our listeners remember Desmond Mead. We had him on the show a couple of years ago, and his work and the work of his coalition to pass amendment four in Florida, and then the subsequent rolling back of some of what had passed through the ballot measure by the Florida Legislature and the Governor that I feel like, in my mind, brought felon disenfranchisement to national attention, but that was just five or six years ago at this point, so I guess I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about What the This, this state of the nation, or the state of the states, looks like now, in regard to that issue, where are some of the hot spots and is it sort of following that same model of maybe two steps forward, one step back. With regard to, you know, what actually is able to get through the varying mechanisms of state government.
Alex Burness
You know, it's interesting to bring up Florida, because this is a topic that most people don't spend any time thinking about, and when they do, there are a couple things that come to mind for most folks. One is Florida, and the other is Donald Trump recently having a felony conviction, so that kind of brought it again to the forefront. But the fact is, the US is incredibly unusual anywhere in the world, among democracies, for the way that it ties criminal convictions to voting rights. This is not an accident. This is in very large part, a direct effort to minimize non white voter power, particularly black voter power, and particularly in the south, is where it is most pronounced to this day. But if you go around the country, literally, like every state has. Is some slight difference. In some cases, major differences. There are some states where if you get a felony conviction, you never regain the right to vote. There are a couple states, Maine and Vermont, as well as Puerto Rico and DC, where you never lose the right to vote, even if you're in prison. And so between those states where you are presumed to lose your voting rights for life, Virginia, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, those states all vary a little bit, and it kind of depends on who's the governor at the moment. But anyway, between those states and Maine and DC and Vermont and Puerto Rico. On the other side, you have a very wide range of approaches, and this is a huge and overlooked story of untapped political power, deliberately untapped. This is how you end up in certain states with, you know, up to 10% sometimes more, of black adults who are disenfranchised, who can't vote. I like to say that every election that you see, any election results comes with an asterisk. Doesn't mean that they aren't legitimate. But who gets to vote? What kind of access they have that varies so widely by states. In some cases, it varies widely by counties. As a result, the outcomes that you see this candidate won by 100 votes, this candidate won by 1000 those are results of subjective human decisions. This isn't like, you know, God given like this is how it is. These rules are made up by real people, and in when it comes to voting rights and and Criminal Justice, the minimization of people's rights is a very deliberate and very ongoing choice. It's super dynamic. It's changing all the time, so we try to keep a close eye on it.
Jenna Spinelle
And sort of at the other end of that spectrum, this is not specifically felon disenfranchisement, but I know you wrote recently about Colorado and what's happened there, that is the, the first state I believe, to require that jail serve as polling places, is that right?
Alex Burness
Yeah, that is very closely related to what I was just talking about in a super interesting, super overlooked issue. People in US jails, in most cases, retain the right to vote. In most cases, these are people who are in jail pre trial, that is, they've not been convicted of anything. In many, many cases, these are people who are there, not only pre trial, but only because they cannot afford to buy their freedom. So you have 1000s and 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of people across the country every election, sitting in jails who are functionally unable to vote because the local officials who could facilitate that access, generally speaking, do not care to lift a finger to do that. Sometimes that's because of apathy. You know, I'm, I'm a sheriff. What do I have to do with voting? I'm overseeing this jail and making arrests. I There's nothing to do with me. Sometimes it, it's that. In some cases, it is actual hostility. You know, why would I provide voter access to this population? But the fact is, these are eligible voters, just like you and me, and in most cases, they are overlooked. There's a handful of places in the country that do it well, that make it points to take jail voting seriously. That includes Houston, Chicago, Denver, Flint, Michigan. I've written a bit about, but by and large, that access doesn't exist. People are functionally cut off, and that's something that I think the vast majority of Americans don't realize. I'll give you a quick example, the largest jail in the state of Colorado is in Colorado Springs. Holds about 1600 people, and the state of Colorado was considering a bill last year to become the first in the country to command that every single jail set up an in person polling place to facilitate access and the local clerk and the sheriff's office came down to the Capitol to testify against the bill, and they said, We're not denying anybody voter access. We don't need this mandate. And one of the state senators said, okay, so how many people voted there in your 1600 person jail in 2022 Well, the answer was 00. People had voted there if you don't go out of your way to create the access people who are in cages, who are unable to as easily as you and I can log on to register or change your address to obtain a ballot or work with the local clerk's office to cure a ballot if there's a signature discrepancy and there's a question. About whether you're you're going to be counted anyway. What it all adds up to is a massively, functionally disenfranchised population.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and I guess, why is that? I mean, I know that there are grassroots groups. There are the Desmond Meades of the world who are working at at various levels to try to increase this access. But I think if you, as you were saying before, if you take together both the formerly incarcerated people and the currently incarcerated people, that that's a good chunk of voters that are being left off the playing field. I mean, it would seem that elected officials and people running for office would want those votes, especially if they think that those votes are going to work in their favor or might help them win an election. Where is is that disconnect?
Alex Burness
I think that incarceration and post incarceration is, by design, a hugely isolating experience. There are so many ways that the world signals to you both, when you are inside of a jail or prison, once you get out, in some cases, before you ever get there, that you are something other you are in essentially an underclass. Try securing housing or getting certain professional licenses. For example, if you're coming out of jail or prison with a conviction, it's very hard. So the question of, well, why doesn't anybody care to address this? This is all these potential voters. Why are they excluded? Well, why is the food in jails and prisons so incredibly disgusting? Why are people paid pennies per day for labor in prison, in some cases not paid at all. This is all part of the same kind of, again, isolating, intentionally dehumanizing experience. I think often that it's pretty wild that we call these, the system that oversee these facilities, departments of quote, unquote, correction or rehabilitation. It's no secret that in many cases, people come out more traumatized, more isolated than they were before. It's the same in the voting space. Now, why has this not been addressed? I think there are a few reasons. One has to do with a general feeling by politicians, particularly on the right, but definitely on the left as well, that this is not a population worth sticking their neck out for, that they might pay a price in a primary or a general election or have an ad run against them or something, if they go out of their way to bring this population, or a segment of this population, into the fold. In my view, when everybody feels that way, it helps to keep the Overton window where it is. There are certain places Colorado being an example that through this, like jail voting policy showed this is you can do this. The sky doesn't fall, by the way, it's a pretty common misconception that people in jails and prisons routinely lean left or would routinely voting in favor of criminal justice reforms that might reduce the length of sentences or criminal penalties. There isn't comprehensive data on how exactly incarcerated people lean, but I can tell you, it's a much more complicated picture than you think. I've talked to people in jails and prisons who run mock elections where Trump won in in blue suburbs or blue cities. I have personally interviewed people in jails and talked to them about their politics, and they're not uniformly anything. You might be surprised by that, but I don't think that that's how politicians see it, particularly Republicans. And so there are a lot of reasons why shame generally doesn't happen in this space, and why we're stuck in this place where Maine Vermont, DC, Puerto Rico, are the only places in the country where you can vote from prison every year, a number of states bring bills to change this. This year is no exception. We've seen bills and at least in Maryland and New Mexico, and they just don't go anywhere. Almost without exception, they do not go anywhere because it's just not a group of people that politicians really care to support.
Jenna Spinelle
And this also speaks to a trend that I think we see across democracy and voting issues, where the states that we think of as leaning blue, like, you know, Vermont and Maine, although Maine, you know, is kind of purple, Colorado tends to have more voting rights, more access, whereas, you know, traditionally, red leaning states have less, and the legislatures are, you know, seemingly trying to work to make it less and less and less as as time goes on. Um, does that? Does that trend still ring true to you? And and. And if not like what? What does that look like, if you look out kind of across states when it comes to how democratic they are or not?
Alex Burness
Yeah, well, there's huge variance, obviously. And which party controls the state is usually a pretty good predictor of what voter access is going to look like. That's been particularly true and sort of supercharged in the Trump era. As a general rule, there are exceptions on both the left and the right. Blue states seek to make voter access more convenient expanded, and red states don't. It's sort of that simple, and this has become hugely polarized and national politics. Not that they weren't always highly relevant in state houses, but they've got their tentacles in state houses now in a way that I haven't seen previously. I'll give you a good example I just came back from Utah, which is a red state that, in contrast to every other red state in the country, has universal all male voting, and it's been a phenomenal success. In Utah, turnout is way up. This has been particularly helpful for rural voters. There's a lot of folks who live in really far flung, flung places of Utah, universal mail voting, where everybody who is registered to vote automatically receives a ball in the mail has been hugely helpful. There in surveys, voters routinely say, we like this. We trust it. We want to keep it. By the way, nothing has really changed in terms of political power in Utah as a result of them having this over the last decade or so. Republicans ran the show then, and they run the show now. But here in 2025 it's just a different game. Like I said, national politics are invading at the local level, at in a really striking way. And so Utah, just the other day, their legislature, controlled by Republicans in both chambers, passed a bill to end automatic, universal all male voting. Why did they do this? Was it because there was an issue with voter fraud? No audits showed that there wasn't. Is it because it wasn't actually helpful in doing what it was meant to do by juicing turnout. No. Turnout was way up. Did voters have an issue with it? No, they say that they love it. They did this because they're Republicans, and that's what you do. And there literally were Republican legislatures during committee hearings who were saying, it doesn't sit right with me to look around the country and see that we're in league with states like Colorado and Oregon and these other blue states that have universal all mail voting, they upended this very successful system for really no good reason. They did it to appeal to a Republican voter base that, because of Donald Trump and his allies, don't trust mail voting. They did it to win praise from the Heritage Foundation, which has state by state ranking of voter access. So anyway that that's just an example, a sort of extreme and recent example of how how you vote and when you're allowed to vote, and whether your vote gets counted is hugely dependent on who is in power in your state or in your county. And as a general rule, again, when it's Republicans, you can pretty well guess that your access is going to be more limited.
Jenna Spinelle
Are these issues that voters will care enough about to try to bring back in in some way, given that you were saying in Utah, specifically, mail voting was was very popular, and something that seemed to benefit a lot of the people there..
Alex Burness
You're right to bring up recourse that voters have, because that really goes hand in hand with the actual policy changes. That's a really important thing to talk about. And you're right. Something we write about all the time at Bolts is direct democracy, the ability of citizens to say we've got an issue with X or Y policy. We're going to go gather signatures and we're going to put this thing on the ballot and see what the people actually think. Lawmakers are not stupid. They understand very well that that is a potent option for the populace, and when and where they fear the citizen vote, they often take steps to to minimize that voice. My colleague wrote a story out of Arkansas where they are advancing a slew of changes related to ballot measures and citizen initiate, citizen initiated petitions, including one that really stuck with me that would require petitioners. You know, picture, you're outside of a grocery store, you're in a music festival, and somebody comes up with you and to you and says, Hey, we're trying to do this. Will you sign? Everybody's been there. One of the reforms in Arkansas. Of would change it such that the petitioner would have to read to you word by word the or you would have to read to yourself the language of the ballot measure. Daniel timed himself doing this with one example, and it took like four or five minutes. Imagine how, how hard it is to get somebody to stop outside of the grocery store and talk to you for a few minutes about whatever issue. Then imagine you said, Okay, well, now I got to give you this homework assignment. You need to read this thing which, by the way, is written in total legalese, because that's how these things go. That's a really clever, frankly, a very clever way to make it a lot harder for these initiatives to qualify. I'll go back to Utah for a second because I was just there. In addition to what I mentioned about mail voting, they are advancing a proposal to make it so that anybody bringing a citizen initiative would have to perform an independent fiscal analysis that shows, how much would this cost? Where would we cut from the budget? Legislative analysts who work for the state are going to do that in any event. If somebody says we want new 2% tax to fund public parts, Legislative Analysts are going to run those numbers and say, Here's how that impacts the state budget. By commanding that the citizens who would propose that perform that analysis. It's just another hurdle, just like the Arkansas thing I mentioned, in ways, big and small states make it a lot harder for citizens to hold the legislature in check and to say, actually, we want to make these changes. And like I said, in Arkansas, there's a lot of really clever and small ways to do it. It can be a real death by 1000 cuts thing, and it can be something that totally flies under the radar. An overarching theme that I'll just close this point on, is something I have found covering local politics everywhere is the average person just is not thinking about this stuff. Understandably, it's not just that the local press has been hollowed out, which it has. It's not just that social media is a mess and it's impossible to navigate and to get to the real truth anymore for a lot of people, or at least it feels impossible. People are busy, people are doing stuff. People are taking kids to school and doing jobs and making dinner and so on, and the average person is just not going to follow the seven bills in Arkansas that seek to upend direct democracy. The average person in Utah doesn't really have an informed opinion on fiscal analyzes related to ballot measures, but lawmakers know what they're doing and the stuff that they are advancing really works. That's why they go after them.
Jenna Spinelle
So you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation that you also cover election administration. I know there was a lot of talk leading up to the 2024 election about threats to election administrators, people resigning from their jobs or otherwise burning out because of you know whether it was physical threats of violence or just increased pressure, or in all the all the ways that their jobs just became unpleasant in some degree or another. But then I feel like after the election, the message kind of became okay, well, there weren't what. There was not widespread violence. There are some. A lot of these threats never came to fruition. The election was free, fair and secure, and so this is like something that we don't have to worry about anymore. And so I guess I just wonder, the sources that you have, the folks that you talk to, how are they feeling now? How are they feeling as they think about the next elections to come? Are those threats still there, and if so, what are they doing to make sure that they're ready to combat them?
Alex Burness
Well, to state the very obvious, the reason that this election felt smoother in terms of protest or incidents of violence or threats to election administrators is because Donald Trump won. It's just that simple. This is something the stress the treasure, county clerks, election administrators, very much feel this. I am talking to these folks on probably a weekly basis all around the country. I am impressed always with their resilience. I think something that the average person might not really realize is that the people who run your elections are, I mean, these are like office jobs. It is boring administrative paperwork in a lot of cases, but it's incredibly important work, and these folks, particularly in states that offer a lot of local control, like Wisconsin, for example, these states confer a lot of power upon these people to make voting easy or not, and they might have diminished budgets because their state legislature is not making their life life easier doesn't want to help them out. They. Face incredible pressures over vote counting and ballot distribution and an immense amount of scrutiny. I mean, I'm a journalist, I think that scrutiny is a good thing. Of course, accountability is a good thing. But you hear from these clerks. I talked to one a couple weeks ago who said, you know, when I started doing this work, 1015, years ago, we would have these, you know, poll worker observation opportunities, where you could come and watch ballots be counted. And one or two, you know, usually retired like especially civically engaged, people would show up. And in the last election, we had to have an overflow room, because people by the dozens, were coming out for this. Again, scrutiny, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, but the reason that that county clerk has an overflow observation room and didn't 10 years ago is because of Donald Trump and the his movement, the Republican Party, sowing intentionally distrust in elections that are run by average people, that are run by usually elected, but typically kind of, you know, not like famous folks who just want to do the work. The work is fueled by everyday volunteers, by civil servants who work in the office, who don't make a lot of money and who are working hard just to keep up. Of course, it's no secret, as you alluded to, this worker base has been hugely demoralized. In recent years. There's been a ton of turnover in states, a ton of institutional knowledge lost in county clerk's offices, in Secretary of State's offices, and that's because, well, how would you feel if you worked in a job where you were constantly being undermined, or at least being threatened to be undermined by officials in power? How would you feel getting hate mail, getting, you know, scary letters sent to your house, or voicemails? That stuff is real, and it happens all over the place. I think the reason you didn't hear so much about it in the last few months, again, is because Donald Trump won. But we should be under no illusion that this problem is solved. It's not going anywhere.
Jenna Spinelle
So last thing is, we start to wrap things up here. Alex, so the you know, I hear a lot, I'm sure you do too, from people who are just wanting to get involved somehow, but not sure where to start. A lot of this stuff, as you said at this in the States, is is very complicated and takes some homework to come up to speed on on what's going on. And there's a lot of different coalitions and organizations working on various issues. I know there's no one size fits all answer here. But I wonder if, if you have suggestions for people listening to this and maybe thinking, oh, I want to get more involved in what's going on in my state. I know people can certainly read the reporting that bolts and and many other outlets out there are doing. But what else might you suggest beyond that?
Alex Burness
Well, I'll pick on what. Pick up on what you said. It's a little bit shameless, but I genuinely would encourage anybody who's listened to this and finds it interesting to subscribe to bolts. It's free to do, and if you really like it, you can throw us a few bucks. There are other outlets that cover this stuff. Well, the down ballot voting rights lab, democracy docket, states newsroom, which is a coalition of different outlets around the country that cover state houses, there are journalists and experts doing really good work in this space and keeping an eye on it. That would be my best suggestion, is to read and pay attention. And I know it's hard, because I try to do it in my own life, and Twitter is barely functional. There is no one place you can go to to get all the information. And like I mentioned a few times now, chances are wherever you live, your local newspaper is down to a fraction of the staff that it once had, if it exists at all. There are a lot of headwinds that is to try to stay informed on these issues, but it is possible as for how to get involved. Look, I I'm not in a position to advise that you, you know, donate you or become a member of any one nonprofit. There are groups all over these, all over the country, doing work in this space. One easy thing, I would say, is sign up to be a poll worker. See how this stuff works, learn about it. It won't just be good for you, it'll be good for your community. These offices need people to step up and help in this space. They need competent, caring citizens to want to make a difference. When it comes to election administration, I said it a few times now, but this whole process is fueled by everyday folks who take a few hours out of their day or their week around election time to pitch in. So that would be. One thing, read, educate yourself to the best of your ability, sign up to be a poll worker if you're so motivated, pay attention to what's going on in your state house. Visit your state house if you have the time and again, I'll say shamelessly, you really should read both. I mean, even if I didn't work there, I would say this is an outlet doing really important work, connecting dots among overlooked spaces.
Jenna Spinelle
Alex, thank you for all of the work that you've done, and your colleagues at bolts as well on this space, and thanks for joining us today to talk about it.
Alex Burness
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Cyanne Loyle
Well, welcome back, everybody. We were talking about this a little bit in the beginning, about where state power is really the most important. And I think that the interview really brought up nicely the the idea that one of the things that states do that have the most dramatic effect on our day to day lives is actually determining voting regulations, right, so who can vote, and then asking questions like, Who should vote, right? So who deserves to vote? And I was really struck by thinking through some of the rules and regulations about about incarcerated individuals and whether or not they have voting rights, but, but not even whether or not they have voting rights, but how radically different the concept of voting rights for incarcerated individuals is across state. I think it's a really great place to look at some of these variations and and a good reminder that it doesn't have to be one way or the other, right? So it doesn't have to be that incarcerated individuals cannot vote or even vote while they're in prisons, but rather, in other states, like Maine, for example, you can vote well in prison.
Candis Watts Smith
I mean, this is one of the this is where one of the cool things about federalism comes in, is that each state can do its own kinds of things. But I think also that variation across across the US also shows what the possibilities could be. And so I think that, generally speaking, if you ask the average person if a person who is in prison should be able to vote, most people will say no. And it's almost kind of common sense. And you know, I would argue that a lot of our common sense comes from that comes from the messages that are telegraphed to us by policy we typically trust our policy makers. So if they said that a certain group can't do a certain thing, you know, people in prison can't vote, or people who are going to get welfare should have to do a drug test, or there's all these ways that like that. Policy makers in policy telegraph signals about who's deserving of what. And most people live in a state where people who are in prison cannot vote until becomes like, Okay, well, yeah, it must be something about that. I think what's really fascinating in this space is that, yeah, if we look really closely, we see, actually, two things Alex points out. One is that there are some stakes that still allow incarcerated people to vote. And then there's the question of jail based voting, which is different, right? A lot of people in jail have not been convicted of a crime. They're there simply because they cannot afford cash bail and to go home with their families and to wait for their trial. And so, you know, the question then is, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, even in your own county, should you be able to vote if you haven't been convicted of a crime? Should you be able to have access, relatively easy access, or the same kind of access as everyone else? And so there, I think, is that's the one that a lot of people haven't thought about. But it's really cool to see that there are places that are being that are that are focused on that issue to make sure that there are that all eligible citizens are able to access the ballot.
Cyanne Loyle
And Candis I mean, I love that point because it also I thought Alex's comment about bad prison food was another really valid point, right? We don't have to serve bad food in prisons, right? It's just kind of how we think about things. And you can think about lots of other places in in the world that that treat incarcerated individuals or people convicted of crimes, not necessarily as criminals, but as people in need of rehabilitation, right, or reintegration, and the policies that come out of that, vis a vis food, but also voting and and other types of reintegration policies are based on how you think about the individuals in the first place.
Candis Watts Smith
So that, that is a really good example of one of the ways that states are swinging toward lower. Bring back barriers for voting, and then we have several other examples of going in the other direction. And the one that really boggles my mind is the change that we see in Utah. I think that at the very least, one of the things that we can get around our minds here around is that we are seeing this. This is where we see a nationalization of of state politics, where the the the intro, the introducer of this bill to reduce mail in voting in Utah, or nine out of 10 voters vote by mail is answering not to constituents, but to the Heritage Foundation. And so I just, I actually have a hard time wrapping my mind around this case, because it's Utah, it's a solidly Republican state. Even if the demographics are changing, we've seen, you know that that, you know it's changing to, you know, there are more Latinos. There's 78% white, right? But even if there were more Latinos. It doesn't necessarily mean that that group of people are going to vote for Democrats. So why make this change?
Cyanne Loyle
Candis, even Utah, yeah, even taking party lines out of it. I mean, the the part of that story that that you raised, that I think is most salient for me, is that nine out of 10 voters are currently voting by mail. So this is a great example of a policy that has been adopted that is working for people. It's a procedure that people are familiar with. So this is not something is working, and everybody agrees that it's working and it's more convenient, and people know where their local drop boxes or or kind of whatever the you know the procedure is, in Utah, and so I'm baffled by the Why break something that doesn't need to be fixed?
Candis Watts Smith
I mean, we do that all the time, like, we make up problems. We make up solutions to problems that don't exist. But this is just like on another level. You know, at least in the like Arkansas kings, I can see, like, okay, there's a policy maker who doesn't want to have an in run, like, they don't want citizens running around them and like, loopholing them through the initiative process. I mean, of course, I you know, we live in a democracy. Idea. You know, we live in a democracy. Ideally, people can have a say on the kinds of policies that affect them. Um, you know, we know that people are that, you know, many people would like to have more control over those things. So it makes sense in the kind of, like real politic situation, in a way that the Utah case, I I have to say, like my mind is blown about that. And really, maybe I just need to sit down somewhere and read a little bit more. But also, just want to say that I think it's really interesting how there are so many different strategies that states can use. There are so many levers, even in the space of voting, that state legislators can use to either expand or contract, contract access to the ballot.
Cyanne Loyle
And even in terms of the importance of voting in local elections, right? So so much attention is always placed on the federal elections, and we miss the off cycle elections, right? Because they're seen as less important. But this is a really central call to the day to day stuff that is actually impacting our lives.
Candis Watts Smith
Just before we close Cyanne, to reiterate, and we've heard this. We've heard this over the past couple of years on this pod in particular, is that there are plenty of places for individuals to insert themselves into. You know, their democratic processes, and not necessarily just around election. You know, elections are not the end all be all. They're not the, you know, we don't just kind of go and do our election and then that's it, and we let the leaders do it their work that we have to stay vigilant, but also just to stay active, and so that might mean, you know, becoming a notary public or poll worker, or, I don't know, you like, drive, you know, do like wheels on meal, right? And make community and make connections between people.
Cyanne Loyle
Candis, I want to offer an even lower kind of intervention, which is, you know, to really uplift and amplify the great work that's being done by local journalists. Yeah, we're talking about, you know, actually, you know, who is in our state house reporting on the exciting things that are going on and the important things. That are going on, there are local journalists who are doing that.
Candis Watts Smith
So we will thank Alex and bolts for doing that kind of work, for keeping us informed and for showing us all the ways that democracy can be expanded or contracted at the local and state level. So with that, I'll say thank you for joining us. I'm Candis Watts Smith.
Cyanne Loyle
And I'm Cyanne Loyle.