美国国家公共电台 NPR How To Vote In An Election（在线收听）

MILES PARKS, HOST:

This is NPR's LIFE KIT. I'm Miles Parks from the NPR Politics team. In this episode - how to vote. I want to start with a story for the people who say, my vote doesn't matter. Why bother?

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Well, good morning, everybody. I don't think I've ever seen so many people at a board of elections meeting before.

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PARKS: We're going to go back a few years. The date is January 4, 2018. We're in the Patrick Henry government building in Richmond, Va. Dozens of journalists are clicking their cameras. The room is packed with members of the public staring impatiently, on the edge of their seats. All eyes are on a lady with her hand in a big blue bowl.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Madam Vice Chair, will you give the bowl a stir?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Cook in the kitchen. OK. There you go.

PARKS: If you couldn't tell, that's the sound of democracy. After elections in 2017, control of the Virginia State House of Delegates hinged on a single seat - the 94th District in Newport News, Va. And that race was close - really close.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: This board certified results on November 19. That certification reported 11,601 votes for Ms. Simonds and 11,591 votes for Mr. Yancey. Ms. Simonds then filed for a recount.

PARKS: The recount had Shelly Simonds in the lead, but a court stepped in.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: That hearing ended with a recount, results tied - 11,607 all.

PARKS: Completely tied, dead even, which gets us back to the glass bowl. Virginia law says that in situations like this, the winner gets chosen at random in a drawing. And then - and I cannot emphasize this enough - they decided which party controlled an entire body of government for a whole state with a population of 8 million people by picking a name out of a bowl.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The winner of House District 94 is David Yancey.

PARKS: The incumbent, real estate developer David Yancey, won. Republicans would control the House of Delegates for the next two years. Shelly Simonds was the name in the other canister.

SHELLY SIMONDS: I found it really disturbing to run a serious campaign where we talked about serious issues and we went to enormous lengths to get people out to vote, and to have that settled by a random drawing, I think was very, very disturbing. I've had people come up to me in tears telling me that they were ill that day or their spouse couldn't get out of bed that day or they didn't time it well in terms of their workday and they couldn't get off work to vote.

PARKS: Just one more person voting could have shaped the Virginia House of Delegates with their single vote.

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PARKS: This is your NPR LIFE KIT on voting. Whether it's because you don't feel like you have the time or you don't understand the process or you just don't think it matters, we're here to help. We'll get you from registration all the way to casting a ballot, and we'll have lots of takeaways and tips for any problems along the way.

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PARKS: OK. So without sounding too cheesy, I do want to note just how big of a deal voting is. You go back to the Revolutionary War, and then you look at the civil rights era, and just think about how many people fought and how many people died so we could all have this right. It's a powerful thing, and that's sometimes easy to forget. Jocelyn Benson has a long history with it. In the late '90s, she cast her first ballot as a college student in Wellesley, Mass.

JOCELYN BENSON: And so my - some of my earliest memories are watching my parents get ready to go vote and go with them to vote and seeing it as something that was celebratory, something that was exciting, something that I was looking forward to doing when I was able to do so.

PARKS: OK, so what? Lots of people vote when they're 18 or 19. But right after that, in the next election, she ran for office.

BENSON: And I ended up running a write-in campaign, getting elected as the first student to serve on the town hall.

PARKS: She's now in charge of elections for the whole state of Michigan as the state's secretary of state. She even wrote a book about being a secretary of state called "Secretaries Of State: Guardians Of The Democratic Process." She's pretty into it.

BENSON: So the beautiful thing about our democracy is that everyone is promised an equal voice, an equal seat at the table in our Constitution. And only when we decline to take that seat by not voting, do we then open it up for decisions to be made that affect us that may not have our best interests at heart.

PARKS: She'll be one of our guides on getting you through this process. And it's worth noting here that the process isn't scary or hard for most people. NPR did a national poll with Marist College last year that found that the vast majority of people get into and out of their polling places quickly, and they don't run into issues. But mostly, issues that do come up have to do with our first tip - get registered to vote, and do it early. And even if you think you're already registered, double-check.

BENSON: It is never too early to register to vote. So yes, you can register now. You can check now to make sure you're registered to vote.

PARKS: Most voters don't start thinking about registration until close to when it's time to vote. Well, guess what? That's when everyone else is thinking about it, too. Your election officials are inundated then, and every state is different on how close you can cut it when it comes to registering before an election. Some states allow registration on the same day as an election, but some you need to register weeks in advance.

BENSON: Well, deadlines for registration vary from state to state. Nearly all - in every single state, if you register 30 days prior to an election, you're good.

PARKS: This is a good time to mention an important point - voting isn't run at a national level; it's run by states and also by local governments, like counties and townships. So the rules are different everywhere. If you're looking online for information, make sure it's from your state or your government. There are lots of websites that can actually tailor the results once you tell them where you live. Jocelyn mentioned vote.org. The last important note is that you need to change your registration every single time you move.

MARCIA JOHNSON-BLANCO: And this is important because your registration is tied to which precincts you're going to vote in.

PARKS: That's Marcia Johnson-Blanco. She's the co-director of the Voting Rights Project with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Her organization runs an Election Day hotline that helps people who are having problems voting. She says long lines at polling places are often caused by people not updating their registrations, which delays check-in.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: If you don't update your voter registration and you've moved and you see, oh, everyone in the neighborhood goes to this elementary school over here, if you didn't update your registration and you go to that elementary school, your name is not going to be on the rolls.

PARKS: And you want your name on those rolls. So your first tip - get registered early. You literally can't be too early on this. Unless you're going to be younger than 18 on Election Day, then you're too early. But if not, you can do this today.

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PARKS: Our next tip is about getting informed; that way you know who and what you're going to be voting for. In election season, presidential races get all the attention. But like with Shelly's race, state and local elections are where your vote actually has a lot more sway. In 2018, 88 seats for statewide legislatures were decided by half a percentage point or less, 16 were decided by 10 votes or fewer, and two were decided by a single vote. Here's Shelly again.

SIMONDS: You don't know, when the election comes around, when that could be your vote. And I think if people don't at least go out and cast their ballot, they don't get a chance to shape the future.

PARKS: So if you want the most bang for your buck with your vote, you've got to participate in these races as well as the presidential. But the tough part is the national media on a whole doesn't really cover them. So you're in a tougher spot when it comes to figuring out who and what you're voting for. Jocelyn says nonprofits like the League of Women Voters often put out candidate guides.

BENSON: And then local newspapers as well, particularly in the weeks up to the election, often provide a lot of reliable information on local candidates, local races - ones that may not be getting as much national coverage or statewide coverage but are critical and of importance.

PARKS: Wherever you get your news, you just need to make sure it's reliable. The 2016 election highlighted just how easy it is to spread misinformation online.

BENSON: There's a lot of focus on hacking of the machines and hacking of the ballot boxes, but really, where we need to have the most focus is attempts to hack the minds of our voters and manipulate our ability to get reliable information about the decisions we have to make.

PARKS: That could be false information about a candidate or issue or about the actual rules of voting. Marcia says that part isn't new; it's just evolved with the Internet.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: In 2014, it used to be on fliers in neighborhoods, and now it's getting to social media.

PARKS: Fake messages like...

JOHNSON-BLANCO: The Republicans will vote on Tuesday, and Democrats vote on Wednesday.

PARKS: Or don't waste your time in line.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: And you can actually vote over the phone.

PARKS: You can't vote over the phone or the Internet, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Jocelyn says being an information-seeker and not a passive consumer will protect you from these types of scams.

BENSON: I think the key is to be proactive rather than reactive to information we may be getting. It's when we're reacting to links that are sent to us or are posted and simply relying on them to be official and reliable that we set ourselves up to be misinformed or manipulated.

PARKS: Shelly says it's also important not to get intimidated by this step.

SIMONDS: Nobody should feel that they're not educated enough to vote. But if new voters feel that they do need to do their homework, they can look at their local newspaper and see their endorsements or they can look at a candidate's website, social media like Twitter and Instagram and, honestly, scrolling through the photos of these candidates and see what kind of events that they attend and what they're really doing in the community.

PARKS: So our second tip is to be armed with good information. It could be from your local paper or your local public radio station. There are lots of ways to get you ready for Election Day.

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PARKS: Now for the fun part.

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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Well, thank you, Bob. Election Day is here, and Americans, they head to the polls.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: A record number of Americans, upwards of 67 million, go to the polls to elect...

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: For several million of us Americans, this is a most extraordinary election.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: And the battle for every last vote is on this morning.

PARKS: Every Election Day, Facebook pops up a photo of my first time voting in person. I'm 21, and it's a picture of me and my dad. I look very nerdy. It's pretty awful. But I'm beaming, like I just won the lottery or something. It reminds me that this whole democracy thing is pretty fun and exciting, and it makes you feel like your say matters. And you only get to be like nerdy, happy Miles if you vote. So let's make it happen.

This is another thing that's really different everywhere, but in general, there are three ways to cast a ballot in this country. No. 1 is in person on Election Day, No. 2 is in-person before Election Day, and No. 3 is by mail. Let's focus on voting in person first. Jocelyn says the No. 1 question her office gets around election time is, where do I vote?

BENSON: Most secretary of state websites enable you to just go online and enter your address, and it will tell you where your polling place is. Or you can go to a national site, like vote.org, and that will also enable you to enter your address and find your precinct. But regardless of how you find the information, it is important that everyone make a plan, plan ahead, so that even if there are surprises or snafus on Election Day, you're ready for them.

PARKS: That planning is important. Think back to Shell's election, where if just one more person had made a plan to vote, the outcome would've been different.

SIMONDS: Thinking through your day and making sure that you've got time in between jobs or in between picking up children from childcare - there are a lot of logistics that people really need to think through before they vote.

PARKS: That includes transportation. How are you going to get to and from your polling place? In terms of timing, precincts are often the most crowded first thing in the morning and at the end of the day, so try to come in the middle of the day if it's possible. The other aspect of planning is what to bring paperworkwise. Here's Jocelyn.

BENSON: There are a few states where you may need photo identification. Many states just need some form of identification. It could just be a phone bill or showing that your residence is where you said it was when you registered to vote or simply your signature; every state requires a signature as a form of identification as well. So the best start is to go to vote.org and see what your state requires. And again, if you have a photo ID, certainly bringing that helps. And - but if you don't, you can check ahead of time to make sure that your state is in the majority of states that only require some sort of residential identification or no identification at all.

PARKS: ID laws have been changing a lot over the years. So even if you're 99% sure you know your state's, it's worth checking one more time. Once you're signed into your polling place, you're going to cast a ballot, either with paper and a pen or on an electronic machine. Now, you might be tempted to snooze through this part. But this is actually where you need to be on your A-game. It's not a test. You can bring in notes or your voter guide, too. Read the instructions, and make sure you fill out the ballot correctly.

BENSON: If it's an oval, fill it out completely. If it's an arrow, make sure that it's a straight line. And above all, read the directions on the ballot or that are posted in the polling place or that may be available on your local election clerk or secretary of state's website. Most times directions are easy to follow, and they clearly state what a countable vote is and what is not.

PARKS: If you don't, you run the risk of having your vote not count. I covered the midterms in Florida in 2018, and the election board there that I was covering had a public meeting where they literally held up ballots with all sorts of weird markings and took public comment on what they thought the voter was trying to say. You don't want to be that voter. You went through all the trouble to get there; you might as well make your vote count.

In terms of the electronic machines, make sure you double-check to make sure the machine recorded your vote right. Voting equipment in a lot of this country is old, and a common malfunction is a problem with something called the calibration. This basically means the touch screen misunderstands what you were trying to tell it. So just confirm your selections before you submit your ballot. That's the broad strokes for voting in person on Election Day.

More than half of the states also allow you to do all of that but earlier. Jocelyn says early voting is a way for people who might have inflexible hours or some other reason to vote when it's convenient for them, and your vote counts just the same.

BENSON: And when you do so, it's the same ballot. It's just as identical as if you would vote on Election Day itself.

PARKS: The big difference, even in states that allow early voting, is the amount of days the polls are open. So just check with your state secretary of state website. The last way to vote and the way that is getting a lot more popular is voting by mail. In the 2016 presidential election, the number of people voting this way doubled compared to 20 years ago. In Oregon, Washington state and Colorado, every registered voter gets mailed a ballot no matter what. But in a number of other states, you can just request one.

There are a couple of things to watch out for when it comes to mail ballots. The biggest one is deadlines. In voting - and in all of bureaucracy it seems like - deadlines are a common theme. Here's Shelly.

SIMONDS: I was really surprised that ballots came in after 5 p.m. on Election Day that were not counted in Virginia. And there needs to be some education along those lines in other states. It's the date that your ballot was postmarked, not the day it arrives. So different states have different laws. That makes it very confusing.

PARKS: Some states also have signature-match rules for your mail-in ballot. That means they'll check your signature to make sure it matches whatever signature they have on file for you, which could have been from many years ago. Marcia brought this up to me, and you could see how it would be a problem. My signature, for instance, happens to be terrible.

Oh, my gosh. If you saw my cursive right now - I'm not kidding. I could do it for you right now. Like, it's like - it is a squiggle. It's a full-on squiggle.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: (Laughter) Exactly.

PARKS: Then there could be a problem. Or Marcia says you can follow up with your election supervisor to make sure it's fine.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: You know, we talked about verifying your voter registration; you also want folks to verify that their absentee ballot got into the election official and that it will be counted.

PARKS: So when it comes to casting your ballot, we've got a couple of tips - make a plan, read the instructions and, if you're voting by mail, make sure your ballot is in the mail on time and signed.

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PARKS: OK, so we've painted a pretty rosy picture. You registered. You read up on your candidates. Maybe you attended a forum or two. Maybe a meet-and-greet. You went and voted at the church down the street. Like I said earlier, the data says this is how it goes for most people. But there are also times when it goes wrong. A poll worker says you're not registered. You can't physically access your polling space because there's no wheelchair ramp. Someone is harassing people at your polling place. We want to help with those times, too.

Maybe your No. 1 resource in this section might be a single phone number. The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law - this is Marcia's group - they have a hotline for anyone with any sort of voting question or problem. Imagine a sort of "Star Wars" control room.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: Filled with hundreds of lawyers who are on hundreds of phones taking hundreds of calls from voters. And it's constant. As soon as they hang up, the phone rings again. On Election Day in 2018, we had over 31,000 calls.

PARKS: They have hotlines for different languages, too, and field programs in 30 different states.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: They're not just answering the calls but interacting with volunteers on the ground who can follow up on issues that come up.

PARKS: Have this number programmed in your phone when you go vote, just in case.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: 866-OUR-VOTE.

PARKS: That's 866-687-8683. The most common problem people run into, Marcia says, involves registration. If, for whatever reason, you show up at your polling place and you aren't on the rolls or even if you show up and you don't have the proper ID to vote, you'll usually be asked to vote on a provisional ballot. And this is a ballot that's exactly what it sounds like. Basically, you just need to do one more step to make your vote count. Maybe you have to bring a document into your election supervisor within a certain amount of time, or your supervisor might have to check that you're actually registered. Either way, it does not mean that your vote won't count.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: No one should walk away empty-handed from the polling place if they believe that I am indeed eligible, I did register, I did what I was supposed to do - for some reason, my name isn't on the rolls; I can fill out a provisional ballot. And then they're supposed to give you the information about what you need to make sure that ballot will count, and they also are supposed to give you a number to call to verify that the ballot did indeed count.

PARKS: Another problem that gets a lot of media attention is voter intimidation. This is where someone is actually at your polling place harassing people trying to cast their ballots. The bottom line is that this sort of behavior is illegal everywhere.

JOHNSON-BLANCO: Every state has laws against intimidating voters at polling places. It's in the federal law and in state laws as well.

PARKS: You can call the Lawyers' Committee hotline to report this sort of behavior, or you can file a complaint with the Justice Department. They have a voting rights complaint hotline that we'll link to in our show notes. Voting should be easy and accessible, and anyone who's making it hard is in the wrong. So our last tip - if you have a problem, use the resources that are available. Call 866-OUR-VOTE and don't be afraid of provisional ballots. Almost 2% of all voters use them in presidential years. Just make sure you follow up with your election supervisor.

And that's it. It's pretty easy if you have a plan and you're early in your deadlines because this matters, your voice matters, and it can make a difference. Democracy, Marcia says...

JOHNSON-BLANCO: Is not a passive government; it requires voter engagement. And if you're not voting for your interests, someone is voting against your interests.

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PARKS: Let's go back over our key takeaways. No. 1 - get registered and do it early. Update your information with your local elections office if you move. No. 2 - get informed. Make sure the information you're getting online about your candidates and about the voting rules are legit. No. 3 - actually go do the thing. Make sure you plan ahead; know where and when and how you're going to vote. Don't wait till the last minute. And once you're filling out the ballot, double-check your work. No. 4 - have the hotline number burned into your brain or just saved in your phone. Just in case something happens or if you see something sketchy, you have a resource to go to.

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PARKS: For more NPR LIFE KIT, check out our other episodes about how to get a good night's sleep and how to start saving money. You can find those at npr.org/lifekit. And while you're there, subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss an episode. And here, as always, a completely random tip, this time from Margaret Schneider (ph).

MARGARET SCHNEIDER: If your silver jewelry is tarnished, your toothpaste is excellent silver polish.

PARKS: If you've got a good tip or want to suggest a topic, email us at [email protected]. This episode was produced by Alissa Escarce. Meghan Keane is our managing producer. Beth Donovan is our senior editor. Special thanks to Brett Neely for his help. Our digital editor is Becky Harlan, and our project coordinator is Clare Schneider. I'm Miles Parks. Thanks for listening.

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