Welcome to You Op to Know, The Daily Orange Opinion section’s weekly podcast.  

This week, Assistant Editorial Editor Michael Sessa and Moderate columnist Lauren Spiezia discuss New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s role in reintroducing the Voter Empowerment Act.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to submit a letter to the editor at opinion@dailyorange.com.

LEARN MORE:

• America needs voting reform before next election
  
• Video: You Op to Know | Moderate columnist discusses Voter Empowerment Act

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TRANSCRIPT

MICHAEL SESSA: Welcome to this week’s edition of You Op To Know, The Daily Orange’s Opinion section podcast. I’m Assistant Editorial Editor Michael Sessa and this week I’m joined by our Moderate columnist Lauren Spiezia.

LAUREN SPIEZIA: Thanks for having me.

SESSA: Yeah. Tonight we’re going to talk about the Voter Empowerment Act, which is  a bill that Sen. Gillibrand is working to reintroduce to the floor. What would the act do if it became law, and why do you think she’s trying to push for it to be approved right now?  

SPIEZIA: So I think she decided to reintroduce it especially with the 2020 presidential election coming up, and especially because the Mueller investigation was just recently released, and there’s just been a lot of talk about transparency and accountability in the voting system. So that was something that I kind of discussed in my article is kind of how voter turnout and voter reliability can increase if the Voter Empowerment Act is passed.

SESSA: You wrote in your column that with voting reform, the results of the 2020 election could be more representative of what the American people actually think. Do you think past elections haven’t been representative?

SPIEZIA: I think, especially, I think yes and no, especially for some groups because there are some groups I talk about specifically, you know, especially with people that are overseas and maybe younger people and people with disabilities. They have maybe not been accurately represented, or their voice hasn’t been accurately represented because they face certain obstacles when voting. So one example is if someone lives in a rural community, the voting, the polling places could be few and far between or they’re not accessible for people with disabilities. So that’s something that I think is really important, is just making sure everyone’s voices are heard regardless of what demographic they’re in.

SESSA: There was another stat that only 57 percent of eligible voters actually cast a ballot in the 2016 presidential election. What specific changes do you think could raise those numbers?

SPIEZIA: So I think definitely modernizing the voter registration system because, to make it online, which would make it so much easier for college students, or maybe people who, you know, might have difficulty, especially talking about those rural communities that may not necessarily have access to a ballot, or people overseas. So I think that just making the process easier could also encourage more people to vote because a major issue is transparency in the voting system, and because there are, you know, there’s examples of voting caging, voting suppression, I think it’s really important to making sure that it’s just as easy as possible to cast a ballot because it could just make more voices heard and make people just trust the system more.

SESSA: Cool. Thanks for joining us. And as always, if you have any comments or questions, or if you’d like to send us a letter to the editor, you can email us at opinion@dailyorange.com. We’ll see you next week!

Published on March 25, 2019 at 7:20 pm

Contact Michael: msessa@syr.edu | @MichaelSessa3