♪♪ ♪♪ -Previously on "And She Could Be Next"... -There are not enough people on the inside that look like me.
-With the 2018 midterm elections underway, women of color lead a defiant movement to transform American politics from the ground up.
-I am so sick of people with limited imaginations... -Yeah.
-...telling us what's possible when I see how excited people are.
-Have you guys voted?
-Coming up, in episode 2 of "And She Could be Next".
-Today marks the beginning of a determined, organized, mobilized campaign.
-You beat people bloody in order that they will not have the privilege to vote!
-Laws across the U.S. are being passed to make it harder, not easier to vote.
-There's been a rash of voter identification conflicts in states across the country.
-You put somebody in handcuffs and you throw them off a boat, maybe they get out and maybe they swim up to the top.
But the throwing off was still problematic.
-Since the 2016 election, nine states have passed laws restricting the vote.
-We have had experience in the past with Negro political domination.
It was known as the Reconstruction.
There are some who call this present attempt to build up political power through the mass registration of unqualified Negro voters the Second Reconstruction.
-If counting jelly beans in a jar was Jim Crow laws, then what we're looking at is Dr. James Crow, PhD, data scientist.
-Mm-hmm.
-Brian Kemp has taken 670,000 people off the voter rolls in Georgia.
-We're not going anywhere.
We're going to keep standing up for what we know is fair, just, and right.
-It is a new day.
There's a new coalition.
And ultimately, we're gonna push this country forward, because there's more of us than those that seek to do us harm.
-I don't want anyone to vote for me because I'll be the first black woman to be governor in the history of the United States.
I want you to vote for me because I'm better.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Laughter ] [ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Please give it up for our next Congresswoman from the great state of Michigan, Rashida Tlaib.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -I said this last night, but I love being in a room like this.
People just think, like, folks that run for office like, oh, this, you know, that we don't need this, but we do.
And we are probably gonna need it even more when we're there in Congress, when Alexandria and I, and Ilhan and Jahane and Ayanna -- I love that we have these amazing names.
Yeah, you're gonna have to learn how to say our names.
[ Cheers and applause ] I love the fact that we're here getting together, because this is what they're afraid of.
Like, they don't want us talking to each other.
They don't want us to say the things that we're saying today.
And I got to tell you, it's going to be this movement that is going to be in front of us, actually.
You all are in front of us.
And we have to follow your lead.
In 40 years, we've never seen this many women going to Congress, and we haven't even gotten to November General Election.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Hey.
How's it going?
-Hi.
Good morning.
I'm Nse, Nse Ufot.
-Hi, Nse.
I've heard all about you.
-Yeah, same here.
-How's it going?
-Uh, it's going really well.
-Turnout looks good.
-I'm super excited about it.
It seems to be, there's, like, um -- People are being animated by tons of different things.
-Yeah.
-So it feels real.
But, you know, 48 days.
Um, how do you feel?
-I mean, I won by like 900 votes.
But what's incredibly inspiring is that we expected like about 50,000 people to come out to vote, and 89,000 people came out to vote in our primary, which is pretty historic.
So if that continues, then we'll be able to pick up three more seats in Michigan, which would be nice.
-Oh, I'm super excited about this.
-Yeah.
♪♪ -Our country is really craving new leadership and people who are real and not, um, you know, kind of stiff, trained political types.
But they're also, I think, craving unity.
[ Speaking Spanish ] The polling makes me nervous.
You know, it's just -- It's so -- Ugh, I don't know what's gonna happen.
I, you know, I feel good, but there are some seats that are extra special to me.
I had a great phone conversation with Lucy McBath, sent her money, and uh, she's just so wonderful.
-Hello, Errol, this is Lucy McBath.
I'm the mother of Jordan Davis, a young man who was shot and killed simply for playing loud music in his car in Jacksonville, Florida.
And now I'm the Democratic nominee for Georgia's Sixth Congressional District.
I'll be opposing Karen Handel.
Click.
-Please stop calling me.
-Absolutely, sir.
I'll be more than happy to take you off the list.
I'm so sorry.
-That's alright.
Have a nice day.
-You, too.
Bye-bye.
"Do not call back."
I won't say that race isn't an issue.
Of course they see that I'm a minority woman.
But I think in the year of the woman, women don't care whether you're black, green, brown, or yellow.
But of course, it takes years and scores of people that are on the ground, in Washington, in the state legislatures, mobilizing, organizing to change the culture.
-In some parts of the country, it does seem like the America that we know and love doesn't exist anymore.
Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people, and they're changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don't like.
From Virginia to California, we see stark examples of how radically, in some ways, the country has changed.
[ Indistinct conversations ] -There's both.
-Oh, they're both.
-Spanish and English.
-Oh!
[ Indistinct conversations ] -Demographics is not destiny.
You know?
The demographics by themselves did not make the change that we all want.
I mean, we're 51% women.
Doesn't correspond to how many women there are in the United States Senate or the House of Representatives or any other level of government.
So demographics by themselves don't mean anything.
What's really valuable is that it's new people who come in with organizing experience, mobilize more voters, who inspire more voters, and when they are engaged, then we could say we have power.
♪♪ ♪♪ -The mission of the New Georgia Project is -- every voter, every election, and so we just don't believe that there are off-cycle elections.
How do we have three people canvassing the same list?
We have a Secretary of State who is running for governor.
We've sued him several times, because of, you know, purging, keeping people off of the voter rolls, just a number of voter suppression tactics.
Um, and he sees that as a point of pride.
So basically, what I'm gonna do is do one GOTV report, like this is where...
So I am trying to figure out how do we aggressively ring the alarm so that people know that our elections infrastructure is under attack, while at the same time trying to get infrequent voters -- young people, people of color -- to believe that their vote counts.
For those of you who don't know, I run an organization called the New Georgia Project.
-Whoo!
-Yes!
To date, we've registered over 300,000 people of color in all 159 of Georgia's counties.
[ Cheers and applause ] Now, there are lots of assumptions that black people don't vote, that young people are unreliable, that Latinos aren't Americans, that Asian-Americans are conservative, and that white people are racist.
And we work really, really hard to challenge all of those assumptions.
And so that is why we were so intent on trying to create an opportunity for women around the country who wanted to come to Georgia and help bring about the new Georgia, people who wanted to plug in.
We wanted to provide a political home for people who didn't have one.
♪♪ [ Laughter, indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ -Oh, this is better.
Okay.
After the 2016 elections, I heard all of these stories about women that were waking up, but most of them were women that didn't look like me.
Most of them were women that had never lived in my community.
And I think, for once, we're demanding that we are not only the people that can get everyone else elected, but we want to be on the ballot, and we want people to help us get elected.
-I know that polls are underestimating the people-of-color vote, I know they're underestimating Black voters.
They're underestimating Latino voters.
And I think it's because that's -- I think that's what electoral people are taught to do.
-Sometimes our people come from countries where getting involved in politics means that you're risking your life.
And so it's like, they teach their kids to mind their business, be a good student, be a good worker.
And now that's not enough to keep you safe anymore.
We just want to do right, and, like, keep going forward and, like, help our families.
And now I think we're encouraging, like, [bleep] that, push back.
Don't listen to your mama.
[ Laughter ] We got to be out here.
You know, we got to be loud, instead of just quiet students that are just getting A's.
It's like we need more than A's.
They don't care that we're getting A's.
You know, like -- -When there's an option that I think is both viable and actually can present a better life for our community, I think we move.
And to me, like, all of that is, like, applying it towards 2020 and what we can do there.
-And there's a lot of us.
We're out here, knocking, talking [bleep] to everyone as much as we can to, like, plant those seeds of defiance and rebelliousness.
-I'm Ai-Jen, and I'm here with Care in Action, and I want to thank Asians for Abrams.
You make me proud to be Asian.
And also Gente for Abrams.
Asians have so much at stake in particular, and I think that Stacey is going to be an amazing governor for our communities here, and I just -- I can see it.
-The reason that I support Stacey Abrams is very personal.
It's because I'm undocumented.
The United States is set to become a majority minority country by the mid-2040s.
And so the new American majority is important because it comprise-- it is comprised of people of color, women, and young people.
And there's so much untapped potential.
-We're going to be talking to all Asian-Americans today, who we have found to be split ticket voters, which means that they're not reliably Democrat or reliably Republican.
-This group of voters, it's like door-knocking your parents.
So, you know, think about that.
Like, what would, what would persuade them?
Do you want to vote for the woman who is for healthcare and economic, you know, justice, or do you want to vote for the person who wants to round up people and put them in his truck?
-I got a big truck.
Just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take them home myself.
[ Engine starts ] Yeah, I just said that.
I'm Brian Kemp.
If you want a politically incorrect conservative, that's me.
♪♪ -"Please remember to vote!"
♪♪ Oh yes, we would love to give it to you.
Yep.
♪♪ ...and that we support a specific candidate.
We're not selling anything, right?
And this is protected under free speech rights.
And as someone who's done this for a long time, as a person of color, and male, too, they get suspicious of me, and they follow me.
But, I mean, that's just what you have to deal with as a person of color in America.
♪♪ ♪♪ -Whee!
Alright.
Okay.
-[ Speaking native language ] -We have Chinese literature, Vietnamese lit, you know, Korean.
In Gwinnett County, there's like 11.1% Asian-American voters, and our project is to reach low propensity voters.
Usually, the campaign will skip over them, just from a, you know, investment and result perspective.
But we want to make sure these people also get contacted.
[ Knock on door ] Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, okay, alright.
[ Speaks foreign language ] Actually, I want to -- I want to check her registration before we go, make sure she's -- And I'm trying to help a voter vote.
And I checked on her registration on the Secretary of State Office, and it says to contact the county election board.
So I'm calling to see what's going on with her -- her right to vote.
-Okay, and you said her last name was...?
-Well, her -- her last name is Tran, T-R-A-N. -Yeah, how -- Why did that get flagged?
Do you know?
[ Woman speaking indistinctly on phone ] Oh, is it because of the exact match or something?
-Yeah, and -- Right, well, Vietnamese people usually have, like, you know, four parts to their name.
So her is, like, Ngoc Anh Tran, you know, and so we don't have necessarily a middle name, and then you convert that over to English paperwork and form, you either end up jamming the first two name, like LeAnn together, or there's a space, and then it causes all kind of exact-match issues.
-How have some civil rights organizations sort of made the case that exact match and voter ID requirements, that these types of burdens actually disproportionately affect people of color, minorities?
-It's in the data, right?
So, black Americans are eight times more likely to be kicked off of the voter rolls because of exact match or to have their application status be in pending in perpetuity.
Asian-Americans and Latinos are six times more likely.
-The Secretary of State is essentially creating the rules.
Can you explain why -- -It's a conflict of interest?
It's problematic?
Yeah.
So, the Secretary of State, Georgia's Secretary of State is the chief elections officer.
Some of the machines in Georgia run on Windows 2000 software.
Microsoft no longer provides support for Windows 2000 software.
In a lot of ways, this feels like Jim Crow's last stand.
So, Georgia's going to be the first state in the deep South with a white minority.
So Asian-Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans are gonna make up the majority of Georgians in about six years.
And so we aren't the only ones with that data.
Right?
So the Secretary of State, conservatives, the pale, stale, male minority, that has a really firm grip on Georgia's policies and politics, they are also looking at the same data.
-Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp has taken a meat ax to the voter rolls in Georgia, trying to disqualify as many potential voters as possible.
Last year alone, Brian Kemp took 670,000 people off the voting rolls.
And as we headed into this election season, with his office still administering this election, even though he's running in it, we learned that his office had taken more than 50,000 new applications for voter registrations and essentially just stuck them in a desk drawer somewhere in his office, put them all on hold in pending status.
-It's not about the race here.
It's about the best person for the job and it's her.
Seriously.
But I'm glad she black!
Now, let me tell you what happened to me when I went to vote.
I picked Stacey, and it was another Democrat person -- I picked her.
And it changed.
It went to Brian Kemp, and it went to someone else.
I did it twice.
And it took me a long time to get it back.
So I put it on Facebook to see if it was happening to anybody else.
Guess what?
Later on that afternoon, it happened to somebody else in Gwinnett County.
-It is my pleasure to introduce a woman that inspires me every single day, and the next governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams.
[ Cheers and applause ] -[ Chanting ] Stacey!
Stacey!
-Stacey!
Stacey!
-Stacey!
Stacey!
-Hi.
[ Laughs ] I'm just so excited to be here with Latino Victory in Gwinnett County, because I need to ask you for a favor.
I need you to do two things.
-[ Translating into Spanish ] Number one.
-Número uno.
-I knew that one.
[ Laughter ] I need you to vote early.
Say "vote early."
-Vote early!
-[ Speaking Spanish ] -Because I have an opponent who wants your voices to be silenced.
-[ Translating into Spanish ] -In fact, he said, if everyone who was eligible to vote does, he will lose this election.
[ Cheers and applause ] We have too many people who are afraid to vote, not because they aren't eligible, but because they're afraid that they will expose their communities.
-Buenas tardes.
Hola.
Mi nombre es Gina.
♪♪ -Over the last week, we've reached out to mostly Latino community members just over text message.
And then, I mean, since we've been door knocking, we've, like, talked to almost 120,000 people.
Some folks have been told to go back to, what was it, Mexico or Africa, I think?
[ Laughs ] Yeah, it's, it's pretty shocking how, like violent some of the responses are.
I don't know.
We've definitely seen the way in which the rhetoric around undocumented immigrants that's been happening over the last couple of years impacts the way that people think about the election.
So, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23.
The debate is being put on live, because it's only going to be in English, and folks don't know English, so we're going to be interpreting it live.
-Well, Miss Abrams, as you know, in a recent video, you called on illegals to vote for you in this election.
I was actually shocked.
I had to watch that video twice.
It clearly shows that you are asking for undocumented and documented folks to be part of your winning strategy.
So my question is, why are you encouraging people to break the law for you in this election?
-Mr. Kemp, you are very aware that I know the laws of Georgia when it comes to voting.
In fact, I am one of the foremost experts in the state on expansion of voting rights.
And I have never in my life asked for anyone who is not legally eligible to vote to be able to cast a ballot.
And, in fact, we took you to court in 2016, and a federal judge said that you illegally canceled 34,000 registrations.
You used the exact same system that is under dispute right now.
Under Secretary Kemp, more people have lost the right to vote in the state of Georgia.
They've been purged, they've been suppressed, and they've been scared.
He raided the offices of organizations to stop them from registering voters, because voter suppression isn't only about blocking the vote.
It's also about creating an atmosphere of fear, making people worried that their votes won't count.
♪♪ -Y'all are among the best canvassers in the state of Texas.
You are the most devoted El Pasoans.
The whole mission of this is to stand hand in hand, completely united as border communities.
♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Ma'am, are you a U.S. citizen?
♪♪ ♪♪ -Yes, I am.
-Alright.
U.S. citizen?
-Welcome to the open border -- -Are you a U.S. citizen?
♪♪ -You know, when the Bush administration proposed building a border wall in El Paso, Democrats in Congress and in the Senate voted for it.
You know, it broke my heart.
What that does is it dehumanizes our community.
[ Indistinct conversations ] -We cannot eat without salsa in this house, or in mine.
Especially the hot stuff.
[ Conversing in Spanish ] But you make them and cover them and let them get tender and then you take the top off and let them brown.
-Well, that's not how I make them.
-Okay.
-But thank you, Mom.
[ Laughs ] -When I -- When I look back, when I came here, I was a little girl.
I was a little girl.
And my only concern was my school.
I had a sick father, and I used to take care of him also, to help.
But there wasn't this hate, per se, against immigrants.
Morally speaking, spiritually speaking, this is not bringing us together.
If you haven't been violated, if you haven't been raped, if you haven't gone hungry, if you haven't lost a child to -- to gangs or the narcos or the drugs, we cannot judge these people, because you don't know what they're going through.
-No matter what, we've got to back each other up.
And so don't forget where you came from.
Don't forget if you make it, you know, better life, don't forget you owe it to people like gardeners, you know, and landscapers and truck drivers and hotel housekeepers and laundry workers.
You owe it to those people for us to have a good, strong community.
-[ Chuckles ] -The people who aren't already engaged, already active, have a reason.
Sometimes that reason is that they've been pushed out of the body politic by voter suppression, because one of the ways voter suppression is so effective is that it convinces you that it's permanent.
It convinces you that it was your fault.
And it convinces you that there is no remedy.
Our responsibility is to know who is impacted, because when disengagement is most effective is when you don't believe different is possible.
-You can't poll transformation.
And I think that of all of the polls that show us neck and neck, I think obviously that is true.
We are actually doing something that hasn't been done before.
It's going to be close as hell.
One good thing about -- about leading a Southern race is that Georgia is, like, not in any way a stranger to movement, building coalition around, like, civil rights, right?
And so this weekend, we're going to have about 10,000 canvassers who are moving folks to -- getting the information they need for GOTV on Tuesday.
And so now we just need to take the people who love us and get them the information they need to vote and then protect their vote.
♪♪ -Good afternoon to you, Tracy.
Take a look.
Again, we are at the library on Ponce de Leon.
You can see there is a long line.
As you mentioned, there was a problem earlier.
I'm told that the computer that verifies your identification, it went down, and it was a problem across Fulton County.
I was just told a second ago -- -People are still in line.
♪♪ I'm gonna try again.
♪♪ -Even I face challenges.
As a candidate who went to go and vote, I walk into my precinct to do an early vote.
And quietly, the young woman who's manning the desk tells me that I've already voted, that I've got an absentee ballot.
I'm like, "I would have remembered voting for myself.
This has been on my calendar for a while."
Luckily for me, I had a phalanx of cameras behind me, but I also know the process.
And so I knew to ask for her manager.
I knew to walk her manager through the questions, and I had the agency to say, "This isn't right, I need you to fix it."
And so I entered the last phase of the campaign, both excited about what was to come, but also deeply worried about what could have -- what could happen.
-Georgia has the most aggressive set of voter suppression laws than any state in the country.
It is voter ID laws, documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, poll closures and consolidations, massive purges, and then what's called use it or lose it, And that's if you don't vote, you lose the right to vote in the state of Georgia.
♪♪ It's almost like death by 1,000 cuts.
♪♪ Each of these things, on their own might not be offensive to most people.
Collectively, they make up a scheme that is designed to make it more difficult for people of color and for women and young people and poor people to participate in our state's elections.
And it is absolutely by design.
-On July 3, the day before the 4th of July, I go to my mailbox, and I see these mailers in my mailbox, and they look like the things, you know, get free dental insurance, whatever, but they have the change of address stickers on them.
So I'm like, you know, this must be important.
So I opened up mine, and the first line goes, "We have reason to believe you have moved.
And if you do not fill this form out," which looks exactly like a registration form, "we're going to put you on an inactive roll, right?
So I'm reading the -- I'm looking through the thing.
And I'm like, "Well, that's odd, because I just voted."
So I'm not inactive, and I moved, but I moved within the same county.
So according to the National Voter Registration Act, if one moves within the same county, the only thing I had to do was fill out a change of address form, which I did, and the county and the state are supposed to send me a new registration card, which they didn't.
I've had just about every relative serve in every war.
You sent my people to go fight for democracy here and somewhere else, and I come here, and you try to take it from me?
Do you know how pissed off that makes me, how offensive that is?
You tell me that my husband dying for this country is great, but I can't vote?
-It's 2018, and voter suppression is alive and well.
Ask the busload of African-American senior citizens in Georgia who tried to head to the polls on a Black Voters Matter tour bus.
Here's what happened.
-We were going out so that the seniors could see the bus, and many of them wanted to ride the bus.
-They were fired up, high energy, excited to go vote -- out here, literally out here, dancing and having a party in front of the senior center, getting on the bus to go vote at the polling place.
-Someone had passed by and saw the seniors getting on the bus and called the county commissioner's office to tell them that we can't do that.
-It is so intense, especially now that the voting has started that almost 10% of the absentee ballots are being tossed in Gwinnett.
-Yeah.
-So we've filed suit against that, yes.
Black Voters Matter had a tour bus -- They've been giving -- get out the vote -- Not only stopped.
The bus company has now said to them, "You can no longer use our bus."
-Voter suppression has actually gotten a lot more sophisticated.
And so, you know, we see it as our collective responsibility to meet that sophistication with sophistication.
Georgians literally are at the place right now where we get to write our future and write the kind of state -- what we want our politics to look like, what we want our policies to look like.
And I think that it's just really, really important that we have as many voices as possible participating.
-And unfortunately, there are many people in power in Georgia right now -- that is not their view.
-Right.
-You know, their view is to make a very narrow electorate, and their frame of reference seems to be, you know, white men over 21 who own property, which was the original terms of voting in the United States.
-I joke that, you know, this ain't your daddy's civil rights movement.
Right?
And that it -- But it's our responsibility to leverage everything that we have access to -- Technology, everything.
-Literally.
Right.
Oh, no.
[ Laughter ] Right, right, this ain't your daddy's civil rights movement, yerr?
[ Laughter ] -I'm Brian Kemp.
This is Jake, a young man interested in one of my daughters.
-Yes, sir.
-Jake asked why I was running for governor.
I said, "One."
-Cap government spending.
-"Two."
-Take a chain saw to regulations.
-"Three."
-Make Georgia number-one for small business.
-And two things if you're gonna date one of my daughters?
-Respect.
-And?
-A healthy appreciation for the Second Amendment, sir.
-We're gonna get along just fine.
-Hello.
-Well, hello!
-How are you?
-So nice to meet you!
-You, too.
Finally.
-Right, but I'm sorry, under the same circumstances.
-Like you now, my life is forever different and changed, and there's no going back.
-No.
We can't go back.
-So now we fix this.
-We fix this.
We go forward and fix it.
Just learn from the past.
Don't stay in it, though.
-On February 14th, I sent my two children to school.
The morning was like any other morning in my house.
It was chaotic.
You know?
I have two kids, and they're running late, and the dogs are barking, and my wife and I need to get out the door.
What I remember about that morning is rushing my kids out the door, telling them, "You got to get to school.
You got to get to school."
What I don't remember about that morning and what haunts me -- It's the reason why I do what I do now -- I don't remember if I actually said to my daughter, the very last time I saw her, the words, "I love you."
But it wasn't supposed to be the last time.
My daughter, who was the single toughest person who I knew, running for her life with an active shooter at her back, made it to within one second a single shot through her spinal cord.
This could be any one of you.
And the only thing standing between more innocent people dying or not, is hiring people like Lucy to represent you.
-The number-one thing that legislators always say to me is, "Well, if there's 90% of the people in this country that believe -- that believe what you believe, in common-sense solutions for gun violence prevention, where are they?
We don't hear from them.
We don't see them.
But we see the NRA.
We hear from the NRA.
You know, they're calling us, pounding on the door.
We hear it all the time from them, but where are the people that believe what you believe?"
-Faith has to have two things -- substance and hope, because, see, some of you all have lost your hope.
Well, the reason your faith is struggling, because you need hope in order to have faith, because hope is the bridge to faith.
I mean, think about it.
You have to hope something will be better before you can believe it will be better.
♪♪ -Good luck with your campaign.
-Thank you very, very much.
-I'm Lucy McBath.
Hi.
-How you doing?
-I'm Lucy.
Hi, I'm Lucy McBath.
Very nice to meet you.
-You look glorious in your hat.
-Thank you!
I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
-You really do.
You do.
-I wish I had known this is old-school Sunday, 'cause I would've dressed up.
Hi.
-Nice to meet you.
-Nice to meet you, too.
You live in Jacksonville?
-I actually am from Jacksonville, Florida.
-Oh, my goodness.
-And I had a cousin that died as a result of gun violence at a -- at a gas station.
-In Jacksonville?
-In Jacksonville.
Very, very sad.
This was maybe -- was over about 10 years ago, but it's just so... ♪♪ ♪♪ -I have a real quick question.
And this is a very Dawson-specific question.
Do you know why from the street corner down, all the businesses, even the bank, everything shuts down at 12:00 noon on Wednesday?
Is that true?
Is it true that they shut down on Wednesday?
-True.
True.
-Do you know why?
Tell me what you heard.
-So, on Wednesdays, everything shuts down at 12:00 because way back in the day, they would go sell slaves at 12:00 every Wednesday.
Still, to this day -- Yeah, kind of like a tradition.
-In the early '60s, there was only 28 people of color that were registered to vote in Tarrant County.
And a lot of educators were fired when they went to register to vote, and now -- -That's like 50 years ago.
-Ma'am?
-That was 50 years ago.
That wasn't, like -- -No, no, no.
-Long, long time.
-In the '60s.
-Yeah.
-And we've come a long ways.
Women really carried the whole.
Men ain't doing too much.
-[ Chuckles ] -One of the ways that we can demonstrate the will of the people while we work to fix the system is to have overwhelming turnout.
♪♪ -How you feeling?
[ Cheers and applause ] Can't stop, won't stop!
When I say "black voters," you say "matter"!
Black voters!
-Matter!
-Black voters!
-Matter!
-Our goal is to move voters to the polls, right?
-Yeah!
-We've seen this uprising of people of color, Asian-American groups, of immigrant groups, of black groups, of African groups, of LGBTQ groups -- this coalition of people coming together in ways, and I quite -- I'll say, in my adult life, I've not seen.
Ultimately, if we're going to change and move this country forward, it's going to take us banding together and create a coalition of the willing that is rooted in power and love and that we're going to transform this country.
[ Beep ] -Access granted.
-In our community, we hear a lot of -- a lot of, "My vote doesn't count," talk, you know?
And ends up being a plague.
That's the okey-doke.
It may be the okey in the doke.
-When you go to the polls, you see a lot of older people, but for black men, it was like a disconnect in the '80s, you know?
When crack hit and ravaged our community, that type of support and camaraderie and mass amounts of people coming out to support kind of stopped.
Yo, yo, what up, what up, what up?
How you doing, baby?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
-I seen people getting out, talking about voting that I ain't never would've thought would go vote.
And that's a good thing.
Even me!
-While we don't put our faith in one elected official and their ability to sort of work miracles and make magic happen, people power is real.
And our fight for the Georgia that we want to live in is not in vain.
-The last few Georgia governors races have been close.
They've all been decided by roughly 200,000 votes.
Heading into this election, though, and with everything that we've been through over the past two years since our last election, which was a presidential -- this one does sort of feel like the consequences might be just as big.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Ladies and gentlemen, the contrasts in this race are very, very clear.
We got to hunker down.
We got to chop wood.
It's not just about your one vote, because friends don't let friends vote alone.
[ Cheers and applause ] Best of luck to you.
-Are those good numbers?
That's why we got to get the vote -- I mean, we're just -- -Let's load 'em up!
-[ Laughs ] Look, I'm excited.
This has been an extraordinary journey.
I mean, there are moments that are very disturbing -- you know, being accused of things I know aren't true.
But that's part of politics.
But, you know, it's also sometimes disheartening to realize that, for some, it's more important to win than it is to win honorably.
But I've been very proud of our campaign's response, which is, look, we can correct the record, but we're not going to follow that path.
And that's because I want this campaign to consistently be emblematic of the conversation we want to have going forward.
-Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Ms. Oprah Winfrey!
[ Cheers and applause ] -Georgia on my mind.
Hello.
[ Cheers and applause ] Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So -- So, here's the deal.
I am an independent woman.
[ Women cheering ] I earned the right to be independent.
And the women, the women who just got the right -- Listen, it has not been 100 years.
White women, listen to me.
[ Laughter ] There was a time where you couldn't even own a piece of property without your daddy saying you could.
Then I have to say this to you, black people with ancestors who never had the chance -- When you sit at home, and your friends sit at home, and you don't get up and go vote, you disrespect your elders.
[ Cheers and applause ] You disregard your history.
You disgrace their legacy.
[ Cheers and applause ] When you don't vote for what they were lynched for, discriminated against, humiliated for, and you can't get up and go vote, you dishonor your legacy.
[ Cheers and applause ] So earlier, I asked you the question about what had prepared you.
You came from parents who got you ready, who had been working in their own way for justice, equal rights, civil rights your whole life?
Yeah.
-Absolutely.
Robert and Carolyn Abrams are the most extraordinary people I've ever known.
-Yes.
[ Cheers and applause ] -I'm going to ask you again.
This looks like the Oprah show.
[ Laughter ] Here's your moment.
-Oh, God.
-I asked you, "Were you surprised about your daughter?"
Let's turn around so everybody can see you.
Were you surprised that this is happening to your daughter?
-No!
I am not surprised.
[ Laughter ] Stacey was born to be President.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you very much.
So what this must mean to you, being a representative from the State of Georgia and now seeing Stacy running for Governor after all you've seen and known.
-It'll make me cry.
-Really?
-To see a talented, charming, smart, young black woman, running for governor in the state of Georgia?
-Georgia!
-In Georgia.
[ Cheers and applause ] -But many people in this state and other parts of the South, could not register to vote, when they were asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap.
-Yeah.
-And the number of jellybeans in a jar.
And just -- Stacey, go for it!
Bring it home!
[ Cheers and applause ] -Can we do, like, a quick round of, like, thoughts the day before elections?
-I'm-a get emotional.
Y'all, I can't even.
As somebody who is from Georgia and has lived in Georgia my whole life -- Ugh, I said, let me not get emotional.
-It's okay.
-But, ugh, like, it's hard.
[ Voice breaking ] Like, for me, Kemp is so representative of everybody who hates us, does not want us here.
And it's wonderful to be able to have somebody like Stacey Abrams, a black woman, because, you know, whenever the first anti-immigrant attacks started coming in Georgia, who was it that stood up for us?
It was black women.
It was black folks pushing back against that hate.
I felt it growing up.
I felt, like, "You don't want me here."
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't have a home.
-It's -- It's inspiring, you know?
And, um, someone, like, who never believed in the electoral process until the last six, seven years, getting involved, and I see that change is happening.
And the things that we need to do just to be treated like human beings, it's beyond.
It's mind-boggling, you know?
So, I -- [ Sighs ] ♪♪ [ Crying ] I would never trade this for anything.
♪♪ ♪♪ -We made it.
-We made it.
Election Day, dude.
We made it.
Mwah.
-I love you.
-We made it.
To good conquering evil today, Tuesday, November 6, 2018.
-Alright.
-Salud.
-iSalud!
♪♪ -Here we go.
This is the day.
♪♪ What's up?!
-[ Wolf-whistles ] [ Laughter ] ♪♪ -So, we anticipate that there's gonna be a large level of people going to the polls and being stuck in line.
In case there is a backup of line, we're trying to warm the polls so that people stay in line.
And the way we do that is we make sure they're not hungry, they're not thirsty.
-Anyone need any snacks?
Granola bars, Cheez-Its, cookies?
Granola bars, Cheez-Its?
-I'm going to take something.
-You're going to take something?
Please do.
-Uh-huh.
Yeah, 'cause we're going to be here for hours.
And we're not happy.
At all.
-I was in charge of staying in touch with the line warmers to just see what they were seeing.
And what they were seeing was just massive voter confusion and voter suppression.
There was an intentional creating of a system that made it so that people were already suspicious, already weren't sure what they were supposed to bring.
-I have talked to a lot of frustrated voters today who say, with such a big race at the top of the ticket, why weren't Gwinnett County election officials ready for today?
The polls here at this precinct did not even open at 7:00.
They didn't open until 7:25 a.m. Once they opened, the machines were down, and they remained down for four hours.
-They didn't have power cords to the machines -- power cords for an electronic voting machine.
Something as simple as that on Election Day led to so many problems and so many people leaving because they had to go to work or because they had to drop their kids off, and to wait five and six hours to cast a ballot is unacceptable.
-We're not going anywhere.
-You didn't -- You know that, right?
-Hey.
-I'm from New York.
We not going nowhere, honey.
-We're not going nowhere.
-We survived cockroaches, bad weather, bad trains, attempted terrorist attacks.
-Big rats.
Big rats.
Big rats.
-Rats the size of possums.
This is the least of my worries.
And I'm going home well-fed today.
Thank you.
Thank you, wonderful people.
-Can I have your first initial?
-E. -You're actually at Rock Bridge Baptist Church.
-I know.
It's really ridiculous.
And have you voted here before?
-Yeah.
-Some people were -- Their polling location had changed, and they had no notice.
So they have been coming here for their whole lifetime, and then, today, it was like, "Oh, sorry, it's actually down the street," but they had been waiting for two hours.
We're making sure right before they even step in that door that you are at the right location.
And if not, we're putting it in their GPS for them -- go here.
-Basically, they told me that because I was registered in another county, I had to do the provisional ballot.
Wasn't really anything major, though, I just kind of said, "Okay, cool."
Stood in the line.
They did not, no.
Um, I do not, no.
-Okay.
So let me tell you that... -Can I be frank?
That's bull[bleep] that they didn't tell me that.
That really bothers me.
'Cause, I mean, if I only have three days -- Like, I voted.
I just filled out the ballot.
So that should be counted without me having to go somewhere else to show my ID to say that I voted.
-For the very first time at this polling location, they are splitting the line in two -- You have to get your ID verified with a form in one line, then get back out and go to the back of this huge line to vote.
And they're not telling anybody.
♪♪ -There's been extraordinary energy everywhere, lines across the state.
You need to stay in line.
Do not let trouble push you out of line.
As long as you're in line at 7:00 p.m. when the polls close, you can cast your vote, and we need your support.
So please do not go anywhere.
-Lauren, our campaign manager, asked our data director to create a map of where people were asked to vote provisionally.
And in every community of color, it was, you know, every other house.
And it was just brutal.
It was exactly what we tried to prevent -- a targeted effort to prevent people from having their voices heard on that day.
-Are you're checking the white districts, too, to see if they're down?
-Just voted here.
It was very fast, and I was in and out within minutes.
-There was no line.
It went smoothly.
Everything was posted clearly.
-I've heard a lot about voter suppression.
I've never seen any problems at any of these, you know, polling stations, so... -By the time I reached the hotel for our election night party, I was not confident -- in part because I knew that the nefarious behavior of my opponent and those who supported him were coming to bear.
-Thousands of voters were forced to vote a provisional ballot today, due to machine breakdowns and shoddy election administration overseen by the current Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
-Weeks before election day, Lauren had put together a set of election-night scenarios, knowing how close it was.
-We planned for victory.
We planned for a contested election.
We planned for a hung decision that we didn't quite know what happened.
-And what's so crazy is that we had this "Scenario Z," and it was at the very end of this long list of scenarios.
-A scenario that was like, large-scale machine breakdowns, large-scale chaos on election day.
-"Scenario Z" was designed to say, "We don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to have to react."
And, indeed, by 1:00 am on November 7th, we were at "Scenario Z."
-We saw four-hour lines on Election Day, tens of thousands of provisionals, power issues.
I mean, literally in my "Scenario Z" it was, like, power issues.
Full-blown, worst-case scenario Election Day.
♪♪ -I'm hopeful, but I'm scared.
2016 was so traumatic, and you're afraid to get your hopes up.
But, you know, but hope is a beautiful, wonderful thing that we can't lose.
So -- But I'm feeling hopeful.
I'm feeling excited.
-Okay, it's in.
Beto's at 74 in El Paso.
-This is for El Paso.
-Mom is at 68.
-I'm at 68.
OK. We're done.
[ Cheers and applause ] We need to make sure that immigrants and migrants are treated with dignity and humanity.
We have seen the worst that can happen in a country that deals with people through the politics of cruelty.
That is going to end tonight.
-Our new state senator for the 24th district for the state of California, Maria Elena Durazo!
-[ Speaks Spanish ] [ Cheers and applause ] -iSe puede!
-iSe puede!
-iSe puede!
-iSí, se puede!
[ Chanting ] iSí, se puede!
-iSí, se puede!
iSí, se puede!
-iSí, se puede!
iSí, se puede!
[ Cheers and applause ] [ Indistinct conversations ] [ Cheers and applause ] -Given all of the votes that are currently outstanding, the election will not be decided this evening.
[ Crowd groans ] -[ Chanting ] Stacey!
Stacey!
-[ Chanting ] Stacey!
Stacey!
-Stacey!
Stacey!
Stacey!
Stacey!
-Stacey!
Stacey!
Stacey!
Stacey!
-Because we have been fighting this fight since our beginnings, we have learned a fundamental truth.
Democracy only works when we work for it.
when we fight for it, when we demand it.
And I promise you tonight, we are going to make sure that every vote is counted.
So let's get it done.
Thank you so much.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -Evening of the election, I had every reason to believe that his ability to manipulate the system would win out.
The ebullience, the joy of what we'd accomplished, had been crushed, in part, by just the sheer ignominy of the process.
♪♪ ♪♪ -We are here this morning to make sure that our representatives on the Fulton County Board of Elections know how deeply disappointed and frustrated we were with how the elections were conducted.
We plan to have all 1,000 of us out in the streets trying to explain to people what their rights are in the next, I guess, what?
36 hours.
-My, my voter page for the Secretary of State's office, is not updating the information that we have in election that -- [ Clears throat ] I don't know what is going on with it right now, but there are -- There is information missing.
-Information?
Okay, I'm finished.
[ Laughter ] -This is the natural result of having someone who has a vested interest in the outcome of the race be the person responsible for certifying the integrity of the elections.
Voters have until Friday at 5:00 p.m. -- so that's tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. -- to cure any deficiencies in their ballot or in their status.
♪♪ -So our whole team right now, half of them are getting all these absentee voters and matching them to the voter file so we can start calling them, knock on their doors, like, confirm.
-We mounted a whole campaign this morning essentially to recruit volunteers to text and phone bank, to let people know about provisional ballots.
And over the course of the day, we've recruited over 4,000 volunteers.
-Tuesday, or if anyone had any problems, go to your county election office and ask them for proof that your vote was counted.
-I'm going to give you the master spreadsheet of rejected people, okay?
It's actually 987 people deep in Gwinnett County.
There's a lot of votes that got rejected.
Logically, if you got rejected it because of A, and I fixed A, you need to accept my vote.
The lack of notice is a big issue.
We shouldn't be the one having to go out and notify people.
This is the job of the Gwinnett County Election boards, and it's the job of the Secretary of State.
-My name is Cam, and I'm with a voter protection group.
And we're trying to talk to Charles.
-He's not here right now.
-He's not?
Does he know that his absentee ballot got rejected?
-I don't think he did know that.
-Yeah.
He put the current year as the year of birth, which is a common thing because they put the date of birth request right next to where people put the date.
-Wow.
-They know when your birthday is.
Like, what are they trying to do?
It's in the voter registration database of, you know -- There's no reason why you have to have your date of birth restated.
-The biggest controversy surrounds the state's new exact match law that put the registrations of 53,000 voters, most of them African-Americans, on hold, because of discrepancies in the way their names are spelled in state databases.
-Hey, Nse.
I cannot believe this.
This is killing me that this is what we're working with here right now.
And now me and Nick are trying to figure it out pretty much in terms of the quickest way to get the data.
-I am angry.
I'm trying to keep it together because I know that I can be -- You know, I burn [bleep] down... [ Laughs ] ...when I've reached my limit.
-We are getting literal PDFs with handwritten, like, line by line, "John Doe filled a provisional ballot."
So people are transcribing those into a spreadsheet.
-There's eight provisionals.
And the clerk already said he doesn't think any will be cured because they were convicted felons who were voting out of precinct.
-Oh, my God!
-We want every single vote to be counted.
In fact, we are fighting for Republican votes right now.
We are fighting for independent vote right now.
We are fighting for all votes right now.
Stacey as a gubernatorial midterm candidate got more votes than Barack Obama in Georgia, more than Hillary Clinton.
There were more total African-American voters for Stacey than total Democratic voters four years previous.
And so here we are... [ Laughs ] ...in a big-ass fight.
-We thank everybody for coming.
And celebrate yourselves for coming today, in defense of democracy.
Give ourselves a hand.
Give ourselves a hand.
In defense of democracy, y'all.
As you see, we have a lot of guests here.
And so they have warned us that they don't want us to chant.
They don't want us to be loud.
But if we operate in silence, that gives folk permission to continue to oppress our voices, suppress our votes, right?
In this year alone, we know that the former Secretary of State purged 340,134 votes from the rolls.
These numbers aren't, again, just data.
These are actual lives -They're people.
-These are real people who want their voices to be heard.
-Yes.
-[ Chanting ] Count every vote.
Count every vote.
Count every vote.
-Count every vote.
-Count every vote.
-Hold your fist up!
Hold your fist up.
Today we pledge!
-Today we pledge!
-And every day we pledge!
-And every day we pledge!
To organize!
[ Man speaks indistinctly ] Elections are important.
Elections are important.
Elections -- [ People shout indistinctly, woman screams ] -She wasn't even doing anything.
-[ Chanting ] Let her go!
Let her go!
Let her go!
-I'm a state senator, Nikema Williams, from District 39.
I was not yelling.
I was not chanting.
I stood peacefully next to my constituents because they wanted their voices to be heard.
And now I'm being arrested.
-Hey!
State Representative Nikema Williams!
-I was patted down under my bra, like, under my breast -- everything.
And then they said they needed to strip-search me to make sure that I wasn't hiding anything in my vaginal cavity.
You just removed me from the rotunda of the Capitol.
I showed up today to vote on legislation as a sitting member of the Georgia State Senate, and you think that I planned this and tried to hide something in my vaginal cavity to bring into the Fulton County Jail?
And I refused.
I said, "I don't even know yet that I'm being lawfully detained.
I'm not taking my clothes off.
I'm not comfortable with this.
And I'm not doing it."
♪♪ -I sat with Lauren, and we determined that the numbers just didn't add up.
And we'd been playing through scenarios again.
We'd thought through what would the options be.
I'd read the law very carefully.
And I knew there was no legal means through which to successfully challenge the election.
♪♪ -But I also knew that while I could not challenge the election, I could not condone the process.
-Hello.
This year, more than 200 years into Georgia's democratic experiment, under the watch of the now former Secretary of State, democracy failed Georgia.
To watch an elected official who claims to represent the people in the state baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people's democratic right to vote has been truly appalling.
So let's be clear.
This is not a speech of concession, because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper.
As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.
♪♪ There are those who see the outcome of the 2018 election as a burden on me for not having achieved my goals, and having let down the communities that stood up.
I see it as a privilege.
I get to speak for communities that are so often left out.
But more importantly, I got to create space for them to come in and own their own future.
-Alright, y'all, let's get ready to do a photo.
-We tripled Latino turnout.
We tripled Asian-Pacific Islander turnout.
We increased African-American turnout by 40%.
We proved that you can build a multiracial, multiethnic coalition that acknowledges marginalized identities and still holds together and over-performs.
And that's a privilege.
♪♪ -Electing Stacey was about her becoming a CEO of a state and being able to sign and veto legislation as the final stop.
And that's where black women have not broken through.
We can be a part of the journey, but we can't be the final veto.
And that for me says something, and that's what I'm going to fight to -- to change.
[ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Alright.
[ Camera shutter clicks ] -Oh, I'm worried about the time.
You know?
We have to be in our seats.
And I don't want to miss it.
Not on my first day!
-Please raise your right hand to be sworn.
"I," state your name.
-I, Maria Elena Durazo.
I want you to understand that who I am is a product of a movement.
I bring the experience of being an organizer.
♪♪ I'm not gonna change.
I'm not a different person.
♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] -Whoo!
Whoo!
-Whoo!
Whoo!
♪♪ -Oh, my God.
[ Indistinct conversations ] -That's a Mom thing.
-Hi!
-How you doing?
-How's it going?
-Wonderful.
-Hi.
How are you?
[ Indistinct conversations ] -[ Speaks native language ] -I'm going to, Mama.
She -- "Put some makeup on," is what she wants me to do.
[ Laughs ] After we actually take the oath of office, you do a ceremonial one, and I'm going to use the Qur'an.
When people ask me, "Why do you want to be a Congress member?
Why do you want to run?"
I tell them, "I want to change the world."
And I do.
I want to change people's lives for the better.
That's how we heal, when people feel like they're seen and heard and that somebody's on their side.
-It's my old high school teacher!
Okay, everybody smile!
-Do you have a tremendous sense of history at the moment?
-Of course.
This is pretty remarkable, for a Palestinian woman to walk in her mother's thobe.
[ Photographers clamoring indistinctly ] ♪♪ -People voted for me for my values and for the vision and for the policy perspective.
And that the border is claiming this historic moment?
That I love.
That I love.
-[ Singing in Spanish ] ♪♪ -The newly elected member of Congress spent the day in Washington D.C. That's Lucy McBath, who is part of the freshman photo on Capitol Hill.
And the new Congresswoman also tweeted this photo, saying she is ready to get to work for the people of the 6th district.
-It's very exciting to know that you're a part of a new wave of democracy, a democracy that looks like all of America.
It's been a long time coming.
And I think this is just the beginning.
♪♪ -I'm fighting like hell on behalf of my constituents.
One of the biggest issues is the corporate greed.
We have the highest auto insurance rates in the country.
In Detroit alone, average in one of my zip codes, like $5,000 for one vehicle for six months.
Hi!
How are you, George?
How's it going?
It really is pushing people into a cycle of poverty.
-Good to see you.
-Nice to see you.
House Bill 1756 was introduced in the United States Congress.
It's preventing credit score discrimination in auto insurance.
As you all know, Michigan has the highest in the nation.
♪♪ That's where I feel like I'm doing my best is giving my residents space, not speaking at them, but actually listening.
-The one thing that disqualifies them when I do interviews and when I hire people to my team is that they have driver's license, but they cannot afford insurance.
So it makes me feel bad to know that I can't give this person a chance -- -My husband and I, we're both senior citizens.
Three cars, all made by Ford, we're paying $754 a month.
-Right now, I'm paying almost $600 a month for one car.
-People are hurting.
And they want somebody that will fight back.
-I came here really just to thank you for your courage for bringing out unpopular issues.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Good afternoon.
An update now on that deadly shooting near a busy shopping mall in El Paso, Texas.
It happened at a Walmart near Cielo Vista mall.
-Patrick Crusius was armed with an assault-style rifle.
And authorities believe, based on what they've read and what they've heard from him, he was there to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.
-Words have consequences.
And the President has made my community and my people the enemy.
♪♪ This has to be the moment for all of us, where we say "ya basta," enough is enough.
And we are going to do everything possible for every single cross, every single person, every single life.
This is the hardest job I have ever had in my life.
And I will stack that up next to seeing my father dying and taking care of him with my mom.
♪♪ The horrible irony is that we've been safe.
We've been this tranquil, wonderful, peaceful place.
But it took that rhetoric to make us unsafe.
♪♪ -Mr. Speaker, we do have a crisis at our border.
It is one of morality.
As we have seen this current strategy unfold, intentional and cruelly created by the Trump administration, dead set on sending a hate-filled message that those seeking refuge are not welcome in America.
-On Twitter Sunday, the President wrote, "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came."
The four Congresswomen are American citizens.
Three of the four were born in the US.
-Hey, everyone, it's Rashida.
I want you to know that you belong, that this is our country.
And no amount of hate-filled bullying from the White House is going to change that.
♪♪ ♪♪ Being one of the first brought this national attention that I expected, but not at this level of anger and hate.
You know, I wanted to have a storefront, beautiful storefront, service center like I always have for six years in the state legislature.
And everyone knows that.
I love it.
I want people to see it and come by and be reminded that I'm in the neighborhood.
And sometimes it actually would remind people, "Come on in."
And then we said, "No, we need to be in a building where there's security."
I'm on, what, 63 death threats?
People can hate you so much that they want to kill you, solely based on your faith or ethnicity?
How do you talk to your kid about that kind of stuff?
♪♪ ♪♪ -A year ago, when I started, I was so unprepared.
You learn as you go, and that's okay.
♪♪ Seeing the waves that Stacey Abrams created nationally and seeing that she also lost her election but is still going, still has a ton of support, to me was like, "Wow, like, you don't have to win every single election to make a huge impact and difference."
♪♪ -Oh, that was easy.
-Yeah, but the ground was frozen the last time we did it.
When we first got our signs...
The day after the election last year, I texted Larry, my opponent, saying, "Congrats" as a way to formally concede.
And he's like, "We should get breakfast in Skokie next week."
And I was like, "Whoa.
You want to meet and sit down with me?
Like, isn't that weird?
Like, I ran against you."
But we get breakfast the week later.
He's super, super kind and, um, just holds so much respect for me as a candidate.
He was the one that brought up, "Well, you should run again.
What about school board elections?
This passion and energy that you have should not go to waste."
-It's election day.
Do you live in District 73 1/2 by any chance?
-I do.
And I have hers already.
Thank you.
-Oh, thank you!
-Someone came around, and I was talking to them.
-Hi, this is Bushra Amiwala.
I'm running for District 73 1/2 school board.
How are you doing?
Last year, someone told me.
like, Election Day should be the least stressful day for a candidate because all the work they've done should make it easy.
And, like, Election Day was so stressful for me last year.
And today, I, like, feel the stress-free aspect of it.
I'm like, "Maybe I did it right this time."
-My opponent just texted me saying, "Congrats.
I look forward to working with you."
[ All shrieking, cheering ] ♪♪ Thank you to everyone in this room.
Like, each and every single one of you have played such a pivotal role in me getting elected.
I can't -- I just said it.
I just said it out loud for the first time.
Seeing someone that looks like yourself in a position of influence or power, that does have an impact.
That does make people feel inspired and motivated to do something that they weren't doing before.
-My job is to not only open the door, but prop it open and go back and bring people with me.
I can change the face of what leadership looks like, because people see that it can be done.
-The committee will be in order.
The gentleman from Illinois.
-Uh, Madam Chair, before I get started, could I ask for a point of personal privilege to have the members of this institution in the gallery recognize you as the first Native American woman to ever chair the House proceedings?
[ Cheers and applause ] -If we can change what we expect of leadership, that it will actually be expansive and inclusive, then we've made it better for everyone.
[ Cheers and applause ] -We are all one community.
[ Speaking Spanish ] -You've got to keep organizing to move forward.
We've got to make sure that the women candidates that run for office have some grounding in being connected to a movement -- that it's not just, "Oh, more women are running?
I want to run 'cause I'm a woman."
-I have been working on this legislation for the last six years, as a survivor of gun violence myself, and I refuse to let anyone in this room challenge this bill as legislation that is not germane to saving as many lives as we possibly can.
-[ Shouting in Spanish ] [ Cheers and applause ] -My life isn't dictated by an election timeline.
I am trying to build a better future.
-Years ago, they were taking us out and killing us for just registering people to vote.
-They were fighting for voting rights, and we're literally doing the same work now.
These struggles are connected.
-Elections are opportunities to elect champions and to recruit people who can help us really build, so that Georgians can move from surviving to thriving.
-We're back to the 1960s with voting rights issues.
That we're not just running campaigns for candidates, we're running a civil rights movement.
-Thank you.
Thank you for putting your children first, putting your future first.
Because when you do that, the next person that comes along, they might not remember the struggle that you are putting in now, that you helped them get a better quality of life, that you -- that you helped them.
-[ Chanting ] iSí, se puede!
-[ Chanting ] iSí, se puede!
-iSí, se puede!
iSí, se puede!
iSí, se puede!
iSí, se puede!
-iSí, se puede!
-iSí, se puede!
♪♪ -[ Speaking indistinctly ] ♪♪ -That there are enough electronic voting machines at each polling location or having the adequate amount of paper ballots for -- -He's done a good job, but I vote Democratic.
It's kind of habit, so... ♪♪ ♪♪ -This young, 8-year-old girl came up to me, and she just kept going like this to -- She had a blazer on.
She's Palestinian, Arab-American young girl, Muslim.
And she's like -- I was like, "Riyan, I like your -- your, uh -- your blazer.
Like, you look good."
And she goes, "I'm trying to look like you."
And I was like, "Aww."
I was like, "Well, forget Congress.
Run for president of the United States."
And she goes, "Uh-huh."
And I was like, "Oh, my God," like -- And at that moment, I was like, "Oh, wait, this is so much bigger than me.
Like, this is so much bigger than all these other things.
Like, this is incredible."
And that little girl's, like, growing up like, "I could be President of the United States."
It's -- It's so amazing.
-Come out here and vote.
-I think of her all the time.
♪♪ It does make me not want to quit.
It does make me want to keep going, even days where I, just, like -- This is hard.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Vote her in!
Vote her in!
♪♪ -As young people, we're finally realizing that there's a lot that we can do.
We just can't do it alone.
-There we go.
My baby.
♪♪ -I don't know about you, but I like having people in office that care about me.
-Oh, Adam.
He loves that camera.
-Inshallah, 18, I will be running for city council.
Like, I'm really hoping.
-She voted for the first time, right?
Oh, my God!
[ Cheers and applause ] -It's a lot of things going on, but this is our time right now.
-You chosen.
That's why.
Why not you?
Who else?
-It is so incredibly important for us to come together in solidarity with one another, to build that future, to build it from the ground up.
-Go team, go!
-Go team, go!
[ Laughter ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
