what over these this and that and that i will go all out how you out a mile out and out out out will will know i don't think so kick or top your headphones but i think this will help think this is so vague my heirs are so smaller i don't know i feel like my ear is flopped out my ear like really doubt do not have it on right like my ear should be puffed out like that you i.

afterwards is next, this week's former u.s. of a rights commissn chair mary frances berry. she discusses illegal voting practices with spencer overton,. >> i enjoyed your book, $5 and a pork chop sandwich. i thought it was original. just in terms of opening it up. could you tell us what it is about. >> the title came from, a fellow named greg malvo who is the chief fraud division for about four years in 2000-2004, where talking recently, not back in the day. he ran into me one day in city hall when i was down there doing research and he said i have been looking for you, i have all of these boxes of documents i want to give you. i want you to write something. and i said, what is it about.

he said -- nothing clicked. and i said you can bring a little by and i won't read it. he brought about ten boxes of stuff to the place where i was staying. i read them. this was about when he was head of the fraud division and they discovered one a lot to the campaign in the state and local election were in fact the pain people for their boat. >> host: so this is 2004? speak. >> guest: this was 2004. >> host: so after bush v gore. >> guest: yes. so i looked at the documents and

the he went by the house of this old black woman, she's probably 99 and told her that he had heard there is some vote to buying going on. he said well, do you votes and she said yes. this preacher comes by here and picks us all up in the car and he takes us down to the polls. he gives us a piece of paper and tells us who to vote for with numbers on it in louisiana. we go in and he tells us to talk to a particular clerk and their and tell her we need some help with voting. so we go when and we both these numbers. we come out and we go back in the car and drive us over to a shop in louisiana. and he buys us a pork chop sandwich and a drink. he drives us us home and gives us $5 apiece. she said i've been doing this since i was a girl. i did not know it was illegal. she said

these politicians don't do a thing for you. they say they're going to put a roof on the schoolhouse and they don't. or they will fix the road and they don't. but at least you get your $5 and pork chop sandwich. so i thought $5 and a pork chop sandwich, this is corruption. i was at first thinking that what i would do was to write about the people who sell their votes and how long that is and how it violates the law in every state. for that to happen. but then i thought thought about it and i thought these people, these are the most marginalized people, these are poor people who have enough problems. of people in nursing homes, chicago where they have absentee ballots they get them to sign. and then they give them good things, may be a little flask of whiskey on the side. to use their name for votes. places like wisconsin one of the places i looked at where they say people who are looking for public housing, if you want to be on the list then you have to give me your absentee ballot. so i said no, they're not at fall, is the campaign. is the campaign.

and i don't mean the legal stuff of that campaigns do, but i mean to get turnouts using what i call chump change to buy people's vote which i think undermines democracy. >> host: so this book is about fraud in voting, you are not known as a conservative, tell us about your background before we go on. >> guest: first thing i will tell you is this is not about the stuff that republicans talk about when they say there is a voter id fraud. it has nothing to do with that. that is one kind of voter suppression which we should do everything possible to get rid of whether it's litigation, protesting, or whatever it is. this is something that both parties engage in at the state and local level and it is done by people in the wards and they usually use go-betweens who are respected people in the community, like a teacher, preacher or somebody or in my hometown of nashville there's a

guy who was award boss who had a barbecue change who could deliver 300 votes through absentee. this was all a way of stimulating turnout because turnout is hard to get and you want to turn out your voters. it happens everywhere, it is bipartisan, it is it is not anything that has to do with one party or anything. >> host: you are an academic, we are going to have an academic discussion but i think there will be a lots of democrats would say, why are you bringing up this fraud thing, this is just gonna latch onto this and say even mary frances berry says of voter fraud and we need id and therefore we need all this other stuff. >> guest: exactly when i told my good friends, my good democratic party friends that i was writing

this, some of them were in office and somewhere my students, they said you can't write that because it's going to be used. and i said no it's not against a voter id fraud. it's not about people pretending to be someone they're not, what it's about is taking advantage of poor people by giving them a few dollars and a sandwich, or public housing, or things that they should be able to get anyway without you stimulant in turnout and other cities call it walk around money, baltimore, every place you go there are valid campaign expenditures and what i'm talking about is taking advantage of the old, the poor, the minorities and so on. and the republicans can try if they want to to say this but

it's not. and when i let let people read it they say oh it's not about that at all. >> host: you just talked about are you saying it's just limited to big cities, what are you saying all over the country, south texas, latinos, they do exactly the same thing and when people ask about it they say well we just do it the whites do, that's how you get turnout, you give people a little something and you get them to turnout, alaska, and any place you can imagine, i looked at all sorts of places, west virginia, kentucky, kentucky, florida, and in many of these communities especially rural areas you have family systems who want everything, the family has had

these offices, whatever party it is and what they do is take care of their folk with a little bit of something and then entire families go and vote for them. and that is what they do,. >> host: just so people understand the problem, tell us about, you talk -- who is henry anderson jones? in nashville, jelly jones had a barbecue joint and what he did was he would get money from the people who are running from office, that are campaigning he would take that money and he would promise to deliver to them on election day, about 300 votes for each of the candidates from the poor black ward. in south nashville. what he would do is he would take care of people all year long, that's what they do they take care of you on election day but also someone in

the family sick or you can afford to take him to the dr. or whatever, they might get someone to come see you work give you something, if someone gets put in jail, so so good jelly to care of his people. because he took care of them, they had to vote and go vote. all of this required either using absentee ballots which you collect from the kurt clerk and paid or having someone in the clerk's office who is in cahoots with the person who is doing it and is getting something from the campaign. >> host: that's just to verify that the person actually did what they said. >> guest: in nashville we had good jelly and little evil jacobs. he did the same thing for a number of community. community. he actually ran for office himself and got on the council. so the kind of thing that he did was something that was pretty

common all over and places that i looked. >> host: leslie in chicago, an older woman she had a raffle or something? >> guest: she had a raffle, not to tell people they had to vote for someone in particular, but if you just turned out, because in the last election in chicago where the republican governor got elected they were great worries that he was going to win and they wanted to increase democratic turnout to get people to get out and vote. so what she offered was the idea of let's have a raffle. anybody who gets i voted sticker can participate in the raffle. but she was attacked by an opponent in the race that says that is fraud. in chicago, the way way the lotteries in chicago, it sounded like you are not supposed to do that even though you are not encouraging people to vote. so she backed off.

so i thought it was a good idea. i think raffles, lotteries, getting lotteries, getting people free coffee vouchers, free anything, once they vote and have an i voted sticker in your town, but that's great to get people to come out but they said no, this is wrong. and she did not want to fight it so she backed off on it because it sounded like she might be doing something wrong. but i thought it was a good idea. >> host: so how about la quinta schuler? >> guest: the schuler's were down in florida. what they did was control the school board, control the council and control all of the local governments. so if you control the local government you control patrons. you control all the jobs. so what you do is you tell people and there is one particular family that i would

write about the extended family that complained, that in fact if you don't get your entire family to vote for me, you're going to lose your job. you can lose your job because you didn't get everybody to vote or you can claim and they never did anything for the people in that community. the kinds of things they need. people often forgets that most of what you need on a daily basis comes from state and local government. presidential elections are exciting and all of the rest, and, and is in the congress and so on, but your day-to-day living depends on then. >> host: so let's just talk about local government piece for a minute, you get into a little bit of ferguson, we know we know about policing in terms of local, court fees, a variety of civil rights issues, tell us a little bit about turnout in

terms of local elections is it in a tory sleeve low across the country especially when we talk about people of cold color. >> host: yes and like the woman i talk about in louisiana, the politicians don't really do what they say they're going to do so they campaign and they tell you that they're going to fix the school or whatever but their senses but. >> host: but can't you make the same thing about presidential across the country, could be even lower in particular areas and as you know it ferguson large turnout in terms of presidential a few months later in 2013 turnout is like 6%. >> guest: you're making a good point but it's totally different. at the local level you don't have a huge registration turnout

that is the ground game or whatever it's called, that's put into play for presidential elections also, presidential elections are widely advertised in the media, everywhere, the ads, the spectacle of the election, how can you escape the great spectacle of the election, the turnout in the presidential election is nothing to brag about even when obama got elected twice, although turnout was high it was not nearly as high as people thought it would be when you look back and retrospect. but you get more people interested because there's a greater ground game. also, the people who do the registration and who get people to vote, they educate voters and

one reason they don't educate them and i don't want to be cynical about it but most candidates like the same people to vote over and over. we always talk about new voters, most state and local campaigns that i look at, people don't like new voters because they don't know what they are going to do. >> host: so just to take it from the candidates, increased turnout is going to mean more money is required to run the selection. we are going to have to identify more people and there will be more problems because the cost of these elections are going to go up and i will have to raise more money. and if you do the kind of vote buying that i said, first well it's not that expensive. you still still need campaign funds that you get from the candidates and the guys that are doing the buying and all the rest of this

are middlemen. they get a cut from from it, so they're making money off of it but you can buy a voter cheaper, more cheaply then you can actually then educating voters and all that and you run the risk if you were to educate the voters they may hold you accountable. they may say what are you doing over there at the legislature. you didn't vote for medicaid extension. what's your problem. and you better vote for it or we will not center next time. you are free to wheel and deal with other people who have greater resources, another donor class and you have freedom. with the one that's a voting over and over again and it's cheap which is why call it voter suppression on the cheap. that's what it is your servant pressing choice and real democracy and you're doing it

cheaply. >> host: so just to be clear over 90% of local elections are at a different time than the presidential so we will large turnout in terms of presidential at least in terms relative to the local and then these local elections have very low turnout. >> guest: now much publicity. >> host: so what part of the country, you have examples from a few different places in the country, but how widespread is this? i would say in the book there is a study done by some political scientist or social scientists that say illinois has more of this kind of corruption. i don't know, can is i don't how you measure it. i do know that i have the documents to show that it exists in these places that i saw it. i do not look at every county in every precinct of the country, not not going to pretend i did,

but enough places focusing in on louisiana because i have affidavits, i have materials and witnesses and even wires where people wore wires the reported information to the investigator and so on. so i know that. it doesn't surprise when you say louisiana politics is corrupt. they all laugh and say let's go to new orleans and get a drink. but elsewhere and in other places like florida and like west virginia, and like kentucky and like wisconsin all those places you can see it happening there and nashville, and atlanta, and other places, and if you think about it, people who read the book or think about what's going on in their time town, they will realize that they have street money in their town or people do stuff like that, it happens, now there would be some people who would

say that we need to understand the scope of the problem to deal with it. in other words you have people like --dash mac who would pick up the stories that you say and they would say, because because of this vote buying or this fraud we would need a photo id or because of xyz we need to purge a voter rules regularly. so isn't the scope issue, how big it is important? >> guest: it's important and i would think some researchers would do it. it's one of those things that if you think about it no matter where you live or what you're doing, and if you have any experience at all with voting you know that it happens are ready in your town, you may not know how much it is or whatever, but you know that it happens, it's not one of those things that when people think about it they say, well i could

never imagine, they say oh yeah, i remember and anybody can tell you that in chicago they know what happens, i mean who gets their snow shoveled first, on what street people can tell you in those towns what has happened to them but it would be great if a budget researchers could find out in detail every indicator, i would think a a person like john, someone in that category would be interested in debunking or trying to figure out that only one party did it or something given the history of that research that he does. so it would not matter how many places you found it in. >> host: so you just said that issue is buying rather than impersonation. so in other words it's not a

situation where id or something like that is going to necessarily prevent this problem. >> guest: rights. >> host: i think some have said we need id, not maybe to stop fraud but because of the appearance here of fraud and corruption. it makes voters feel better and legitimate voters will stay home if they feel as though there is corruption. so an id actually makes them feel better i hear, that has been a rationale, this making this making people feel better, even if it's not connected so wouldn't some folks say you're elevating the stories, and again the stories are going to lead to , it's not going to work to

prevent fraud but it's going to make people feel more comfortable about election. >> host: it's going to make them feel more uncomfortable. but in fact, here's my take on ids. yes, i support litigating these oppressive laws. i think it should not be hard to get id. but i also think that our organizations and groups who engage in voter registration ought to help people who cannot get ids and do not have the resources, cannot get to the place, don't understand it, it's too expensive, where in fact to get a driver's license license or to clear your record, whatever it is that in fact there ought to be just as much of the campaign to help people get id, to to raise money, to do it, to educate them and sororities and fraternities and local organizations, and the aclu and all of those

organizations ought to be just as interested in trying to help people get ids because why we fight it out in the court, it takes a while, their primaries are going on, elections going, elections going on, people cannot participate in, and people need as we all know voter ids for, picture ids for lots of things other than voting. those who do not have it are marginalized. >> host: so you are not necessarily supporting id, you're basically saying there is a reality out here. >> guest: and if you want to help poor, marginalized people you ought to be concerned. i saw a man the other day who could not get in a building where doctor's office was. he was sick. because he did not have any id. >> guest: yes this was the argument made by others, that we

should just go ahead and have a photo id because poor people need id anyway, i i think my biggest concern was let's look at numbers, let's let's look at the amount of impersonation fraud and compare that to the number of people who do not have id or will not be able to vote. so let's look at the data and once we get that let's make some decisions about id. this was the argument that was made. poor people need id anyway therefore let's go ahead and be proponents of voter id. >> guest: was your argument they didn't need them? spee1 know i wanted to look at the facts and across benefit analysis and just because poor people need id, we can start up a campaign to give them an id without saying, you you need an id in order to vote. >> guest: i would agree with that but i'm saying those who argue against the id laws and don't say anything at all about

all the poor people who don't have any and can't get into the courthouse, can't get into the doctor's office and they are not the least bit interested in trying to figure out a way to help them to do that, then i think that is wrong. >> host: but isn't that always the case, when you're talking about energy assistance for poor folks, you can be of further for that to get people heat in the winter but also say let's look at the underlying causes as to why people don't have resources to figure out. so anytime you're dealing with folks who don't have resources isn't there the immediate issue, but then there's this underlying structural thing and just because you want to deal with the immediate issue does not necessarily mean you're not dealing, that you're against dealing with the underlying issue as well. >> guest: of course. if i were making a great intellectual argument and my classroom, we would debate this. but i'm saying the reality is,

while poor people do not have ids, or whoever it is that's marginalized. while we are litigating, and i support the litigation both financially and otherwise, i've been on the boards of all these organizations. there are elections going on that they cannot participating in. there's primaries and general elections. i'm saying, we we ought to be thinking about isn't there some way we can do something while we make the argument that this is wrong and that it ought to be struck down, which it should be struck down. but in fact as a practical matter when going to sit back and say oh well, it reminds me of people who say don't worry about medicated pension, not been put in the affordable care

act to because eventually the governors will come around to it. and i say will what about the three, four, five years when there are poor people who don't have help? and they say well will come around to it, you have to look at the problem more globally and i'm willing to do that, but i'm just saying that there is always in the meantime what is going on with people issue. >> host: let's shift away from id because we have the voting rights act and then it just dies down to this id discussion that sex the air out of any. and you're talking about something different. so let's definitely spend more time on that on your book as opposed to the bright shiny object. >> guest: and why i think this is important. i i have done voting rights most my life. both in terms of protesting bush v gore, the whole thing.

so there is not any part of this issue that i think i have not touched, aside from what i wrote about in this book which i had no idea as going to write about. the reason why why i think it is important is because anytime i find people taking advantage of marginalized people and getting away with it, big time like the people i talk about in that case and sartre martin and louisiana, we did not hold the local council election for 12 years because if they did hold one, black person would have gotten the seat and black's would've had a majority of the council and they would have controlled the patronage. they were not going to put up with this, they did not have any election until they were forced to. and then even when they were forced to what they did was use a lot of shenanigans and what i talk about in the book to pretend there are voters who live there and paid money and they were not going to give it

the patronage. if the federal government had not been invoked, he got the feds to come in because the locals were not going to do anything. the local da was part of it. and enforce that woman who was sitting in the seat who her whole family held that seat from the time anybody could remember, nothing happened. then even after they did all of that, the mayor who gets to appoint someone to the office says you black people want them in the office i have just the black for you and appoint someone who he knows, he's a sweet guy and i love him but he did not know his way out of a paper bag when he came to try to do anything for the people there. so when i look at all of that, i say that this part of the system, folks do not understand. if you understood that it you would understand why some people in town say they do not want to vote or they are not interested in voting.

>> .. >> what relevant laws are on the books to deal with this problem? >> vote buying is illegal in every state. there are state statutes in every state. we have to remember that under the constitution the mechanisms of elections are controlled by chieftains, not the federal government. so every state has the vote, you're not supposed to sell your vote, you're not supposed to sell your vote

or whatever. it is not a question of the law not being there. the local district attorney's are there in the local district attorney's would not want to prosecute they get best buy the same people. therefore they find reasons not to. so the system just goes on the way it always has gone on unless you make a federal case where there is discrimination of some kind. there is a proposed constitutional amendment that folks have introduced into congress.

explaining to poor and marginalized people what you would give collectively the 1st one a better interim solution than trying to wait around to see if you will get a constitutional amendment. >> let me ask you from an enforcement standpoint. that say we enforce the state laws. figure out a federal statute. prosecution for bribery a state officials even though they are not federal officials. said it was a prosecution here, as in their problem

with authorities investigating political activity? >> you can use that as a weapon, that authority to chill political participation it's like using the irs. you can always figure out a way. weapon against the people who they considered their opponent. >> isn't that a concern? we don't regulate speech, should not regulate campaign finance much. some we will be on a witch hunt to chill legitimate participation by their

opponents. >> which is why it is a better remedy to come back to my proposal. the organizations concerned about voting should educate the people on talking about. bits of geddes and often vote. that is the way democracy also works and why this corrupts democracy and why i don't think the law will pass anyway.

>> churches, sororities, fraternities, all the organizations get out the vote. picking candidates and holding candidates accountable. >> the role of race. there is this common narrative, civil rights narrative, access and inclusion. this kind of a law and order they are fraudulent in terms

of their voting. there is this racial narrative. how does your book play or navigate to have his race factor into a concern? >> it is obvious that the black people in the latinos being taken advantage of. that in fact it is the folks who give the big money is in use the money to dribble out little bits for all these people. it is not -- and these are not colored folks.

a little mind a passpass through these people were all the candidates were running. so it has nothing to do with the black people being crooked. the donor class of the people who are in office and running for office in the same people over and over and the ones who are corrupt they have the once worked corrupting democracy. the the other people are not getting the benefits of it because they are not acting collectively. >> so now what would you say to the argument, the founders argument, the civic republican are that this is why we want to limit voting

to those who cannot be bought will vote their conscience command this is one of the problems with these progressive reforms that expand the franchise. they did to negative things. people are paying attention to the issues and another argument would be we have all these campaign-finance problems because we have to communicate with all these people and persuade. before we just had a few folks voting they were making decisions. men have the campaigning. people make decisions. >> is inaccurate. there is no end to greed.

in power and conflict which occurred in our early history. people going out having tools and killing each other stuff like that happen. without having property that tells you that nothing to do with race or black people. they expanded the suffrage. >> not expand this.

>> and even the wealthy class the noise voters conscience. you're right throughout our history, throughout our history that always been people in favor of limitations and limiting suffrage. at every turn evil mirror expanding suffrage. the same time there are efforts to try to constrain it. where people live one language is not educated. those who don't know enough and certainly the illiterate the argue that out throughout our history.

>> so let's have a little academic. why is it a problem? founders paid for beer and refreshment. doing something that similar. what's wrong with $5 and a pork chop sandwich? >> nothing. what's wrong is getting people that.

it would be better for them. i don't care if they get $5. you could handed out. until then we are not going to do anything for you.you. we'll have to do anything for you. probably the interest of whoever else, there are

significant others if they care about and all you get out of it is this: that is supposed to be enough. >> the difference between $5 and the pork chop sandwich to vote a particular way in a campaign promise, we will build this new bridge are putting this community center here? isn't there a quid pro quo in both? >> getting a campaign promise to build a new bridge that the community needs is responding to the needs of the community. if the community needs a bridge. if they are not just doing it because someone they know wants to make some money. that individual voters and then you don't don't do

anything while you get is that that is what thewhere the problem is. the voter is not educated enough. don't educate them enough to me to get better police community relations for whatever it is you really need when the guy comes by us aboutis not the way democracy is supposed to work. >> i assume no problem with the lottery just a good turnout.

>> controlling their vote. still be a problem. i now my people are and therefore will give them out. the if his big turnout so the thing we can get them they're bridge and acknowledge that is not optimal. >> all the people each person a pork chop and told them you were going to do a bridge and they all came out, that is just a little something on the side.

you don't tell them. and andthem. and you know he's not going to even try to get the bridge built or anything else. >> you are undermining choice, you are getting people to vote for someone who they probably would not have gone to the polls and voted for this by giving them something like that. >> an academic. you don't even know.know. here are the things you need to improve your community. they have to get you to the polls and using any means necessary.

the classic political. as a political classic. this is politics. in order to give we need to get we have got to kind of engaging and this is how we get you come out. >> i don't mind turnout incentives. >> it is a choice issue. democracy is supposed to be about making choices. >> you have told us what your take is. let's talk about solving this problem. mandatory voting.

all of our problems will be taking care of. and by the time i wrote that in the book, right at the end of the page for the next phase that i don't think that's a good idea.a good idea. i guess he thought about it because i thought about it. what mandatory voting does is make people vote even if they don't like the choices. >> it makes them go out of vote and in some cases there is not. i don't think people should be forced to make a choice

probably they all had to come out of vote no matter what you do. >> as an academic matter you know, the only change the game for manipulating turnout whether they are mobilizing, to politicians making arguments on the merits this is about caring turnout.

>> talk about -- >> the notion of taking the suppression piece off the table. >> you would take. >> the issue will be taken off the table. whether or not it will make the politics more responsive is why we have to look at. my myat. my feeling is based on just a couple places that i know

that the debates about that anymore for more accountability than they are here. >> money and politics. >> the legal street money. that's where the money comes from.

and if we had more money than we could not -- knock on doors five times a year and engage these people in real discussion so that when

it came time for the election they would be engaged and want to vote anyway and as a result we would need more money so that we could engage them with more than just a pork chop sandwich and $5 and engage them with civic engagement. >> the people who are campaigning most of them are not interested in engaging and education. and they are not interested in enough that they would be held accountable. it is against the interest of the local candidate to do what you just said. too burdensome,burdensome, intrusive means that they have got to bring a burden on them in terms of figuring out what they want to do after they get in office than they would otherwise you are just making it harder. it is easier just to get the

person to vote for you. >> you complicate. now, as a law professor i have a hard time accepting the fact that there is not a legal solution to this problem. talk about all this other type stuff. >> look, the community, if the community -- i was thinking about ferguson. if the people there were educated, to understand how you put the pieces. i don't mean they are uneducated. uneducated. organized in such a way that they understood that by putting these particular pieces together and voting this way we can get better policing or whatever it is then that would be a solution to the problem.

i'm not going. a lot of young people say that. >> so what is your response to a person whoa person who says frankly it is naïve to educate 200 million people about why they should vote and participate, the political science suggests the primary reason people vote is because someone asks them to and some people were coarsely say this, there are some people who are followers and she father

people who are leaders and mobilize folks and we want to change the way that they mobilize. they should mobilize them in other ways, and it is naïve to say that we are going to educate 200 million people about the virtues of civic engagement, so that is the paternalistic way to put it. a lot of these people are busy. >> theybusy. >> they don't have time. >> they have made the cost benefit analysis, political science on this would doing what they have to do in their day. >> you are absolutely right to make the argument.

you're not going to educate them about civic engagement. you're not even going to use that word. adding going to use the word educate. what you are going to do if you did say small places where people live, churches, other organizations would say here are the issues,, police, school, water, whatever it is, and how we fix it is one way we can fix it. go over there in the council but we want to do is pick somebody. don't have ids. litigating that, but in the meanwhile where it is we need you to vote and if we

do that that we might have a chance to get one of the three things that we want here in this community. it must be done committee by community, social organization by social organization. and they should do that. if they do they can make progress. using words like civic engagement. >> civic engagement and indoctrination is not going to do it. >> i would not even try it. >> i just enjoyed our time together so much. a great book, fresh and unique which is one of the

great things about this. thank you for taking the time. >> thank you for asking me those wonderful questions. >> it was great. >> appreciate it. >> when itunei tune in on the weekend usually is authors sharing new releases. >> the best television. >> they can now a longer conversation. >> they give the author after author of the work of fascinating people.