Llewellyn King: Joe Madison thinks that U.S. voting rights are worth risking his life
Joe Madison
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
Election Day isn’t celebrated as a national holiday, and for most of us voting is inconvenient. So much so that only presidential elections draw a decent turnout. In 2020, a record year, 66.8 percent of the electorate voted.
The ballot box towers in significance in its consequence, but it seems banal when you traipse to a church hall, an armory, or a high school to do the deed.
Also, people in line to vote act strangely, suspecting each other of being a supporter of the rascals who have either made a mess of things or the rascals who will make a mess of things.
Given these things, and without regard to the present standoff in Congress over the For the People Act, it would seem to me that voting by mail, or even electronic voting, makes sense. We do most things of consequence electronically. The failsafe ID for voting in most states is a driver’s license. The Republicans are against voting by mail and electronic voting, but in most states, you can renew a driver’s license by either means. Kafkaesque?
For Joe Madison, the legendary Black broadcaster and human and civil- rights activist, voting is vital, and the ability to cast your vote easily and without duress is sacred. Further, He believes that contrived exclusion from the polls is a major felony against people of color.
Madison is prepared to put his life where his mouth is: He began a hunger strike for voting rights on Nov. 8, 2021.
During his college days, Madison was an all-conference running back on the football team, but now he is emaciated. He is following a liquid diet like one his friend Dick Gregory, the late comedian and civil rights activist, developed for his hunger strikes.
Madison told me he falls asleep at odd times and wakes up during the night. There is physical discomfort. Although he is getting to the point where the stress is showing, he plans to continue his hunger strike.
I have known Madison for over 20 years. I can hear the weakness in his voice. He is still doing his live radio talk show on SiriusXM Radio daily from 6 a.m. until 10 a.m. Eastern Time. As someone who has done four hours straight on radio, I can attest that in the best of health, it is a workout.
Madison sees the current battle over voting rights in the Senate and the Republican-controlled state legislatures’ push to restrict voting rights as reminiscent of the end of Reconstruction, when the South began to push back against Black voting rights granted at the end of the Civil War. “It included poll taxes, literacy qualifications, and property ownership, and led to lynching and the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan,” Madison said.
He told me he is worried for the future of his children and grandchildren if voting rights should be abridged again. He has three daughters, a son, five grandchildren and one great grandchild. He wants the vote to be free and fair for them and their children. That is why he is staring death in the face and hoping that the Democrats will prevail, and good sense will triumph, he told me.
Madison studied sociology at Washington University in St. Louis where, in addition to being a football player, he sang solo baritone in the college chorus. On graduating, Madison went into civil-rights work. At age 24, he became the youngest director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Detroit.
Madison began his broadcasting career in Detroit in 1980 and moved to Washington in the 1990s, where he mixed broadcasting with activism in a slew of causes.
I met Madison when he was protesting slavery in Africa and went to Sudan to free slaves. He wants the world to know how critical the voting-rights legislation is to the African-American community. “If we don’t get that bill, it could cost the Democrats both houses and the White House. African Americans may just be so fed up that they stay home and don’t vote,” he said.
Madison supports moves to modify the filibuster to bring about Senate passage. He is very hopeful the legislation will pass, and recalcitrant Democratic Senators Joe Manchin (W. Va.) and Krysten Sinema (Ariz.) will vote for changes to the filibuster. {Editor’s note: As of late last week, they opposed such changes.}
You don’t have to agree with Madison to admire him: a man with the courage of his convictions, measured by the endangerment of his health.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com and he’s based in Rhode Island and Washington, DC.
Web site: whchronicle.com
Robert P. Alvarez: We must protect the 2020 election
States’ Electoral College votes
Via OtherWords.org
First, it was a public health crisis. Now, it’s decimating the economy. And for it’s next trick, the coronavirus is threatening to undermine the 2020 election.
Unless, that is, Congress steps in to ensure we can vote by mail.
If you’re curious what the worst case scenario is, look no further than Wisconsin, where a gerrymandered GOP legislature forced voters to the polls over the orders of the Democratic governor — and against the advice of public health officials.
Wisconsin Republicans not only declined to send every voter an absentee ballot. They also appealed — successfully — to the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court to prevent voters who received their ballot late (through no fault of their own) from having their votes counted.
It was a transparent ploy by Wisconsin Republicans to support a conservative incumbent on the state Supreme Court by suppressing the vote. It failed — his liberal-leaning challenger won — but they struck a huge blow to voting rights in the process.
Fallout from the coronavirus exposed structural weaknesses in everything from our health care and education systems to market supply chains and labor rights. It also made painfully obvious the fragility of our electoral process.
Unfortunately, states have received little help from Congress in shoring up their elections. Just $400 million of the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill was earmarked for helping states cover new elections-related expenses stemming from the pandemic.
When it comes to providing the financial support necessary to ensure our elections are safe, accessible, fair, and secure, the last coronavirus response bill was a dereliction of duty.
Will it be safe to gather in large numbers by November? And even if it is, will voters feel comfortable standing in line, for up to six hours in some cases (thanks to GOP poll closures, but that’s another story), next to strangers?
If not, it’s fair to assume some voters will elect not to vote due to safety concerns. And that should undermine public confidence in the outcome.
The obvious solution is expanding voting by mail.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump is fiercely opposed to this. “They had things, levels of voting, that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” he said.
Let that sink in. The president — who himself voted by mail — openly views the right to vote as a threat to his presidency and party.
Americans shouldn’t have to choose between their health and their right to vote. In the midst of this pandemic, states with overly cumbersome processes for absentee voting are complicit in voter suppression. Period.
To fix this, we need to ensure no-excuse absentee voting in the next coronavirus bill — and that’s the bare minimum. Beyond that, we also need pre-paid postage for mail-in ballots and an extended early in-person voting period.
We need accessible, in-person polling places with public safety standards that are up to snuff. That means election workers must know they’re safe, and must have access to personal protective equipment.
We also need to develop and bolster online voter registration systems, and run public information campaigns giving voters localized, up-to-date voting guidelines.
To complete this nationwide, we’re looking at a $2 billion price tag. That’s just 0.1 percent of the $2 trillion package Congress already passed — and if it ensures our democracy doesn’t die in this pandemic, it’s worth every penny.
Robert P. Alvarez is a media relations associate at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he writes about criminal justice reform and voting rights.