watching tonight after getting on in our last hour. thank you as always for coming on. that will do it tonight for kasie dc. coming up next "american swamp." for now, good night from washington. i never thought in elementary school that one day i would be talking about the world's greatest democracy vietnam. >> vietnam has the best voter turnout. they put us to shame. >> vietnam, bolivia, turkey and then at the end the united states. >> keep going. keep turning the page. >> the united states is between -- >> boosnia and singapore.

america is the most renowned democracy on the planet, a government that is supposed to be for and by the people. and, yet, so many of us take a pass on exercising our most fundamental right of all, voting. a little more than half of the people in this country who can vote bother to show up at the polls, even when the stakes are highest, in a presidential election. in non-presidential years, turnout is much worse. >> so what's wrong with our democracy? as we head into the 2020 elections, that question couldn't be more urgent. voter turnout as well as trust in the election system itself could play a huge role in deciding who becomes our next

president. >> drain the swamp. >> with our most basic democratic process in crisis, katie and i are wading back into the swamp to see just how deep it goes. from allegations over existing, to alleged election fraud. >> if you're confidence you won, don't you want to call for another election. >> to the folks that think the swamp in washington d.c. runs so deep their votes don't matter anyway. we're starting in new york city, outside the united nations to try to find out what we're doing wrong. >> excuse me. are you a delegate. what country are you from? you're the third highest voter turnout in the world. 97%. >> 97%. >> why? >> australia also has compulsory voting. >> how does it feel to have

better turnout than the greatest democracy from the world? >> well, i think a lot of people look at the u.s. and wonder why you have that system. >> where are you from? >> denmark. oh, please, talk to us. you do a great job. >> are you from sierra leone? we're 18th place in the world. do you know what our turnout is? >> no. >> 122nd in the world. >> we all learn, even in kinder garden to make decisions. >> there you go. >> yeah, because our elections are on tuesdays. what days are your elections. >> on saturday. >> go figure. >> if you were to give us advice, what would it be? >> start from the young ones. >> so start with this guy? >> yes. >> are we a democracy? >> i'm not so sure. >> wow. wow. andy!

>> un elections consul substantiate helped organize elections around the world. he says america's voting problems aren't exactly a secret. >> when you are overseas and you are saying this is the way we do it in america, are you met with pushback? >> oh, yeah. many times. and people are sort of angers that the u.s. would come and tell them what to do. >> are we this giant hypocrite when it comes to democracy that we are able to go around the world and set up democracies, yet, ours is in shambles at home? >> the real challenge of all the experts in the u.s. is to take into places and to offer in a humble and engaging way choices and options. don't do some of the things that we do, but copy soft of the good things. >> would it help if more turned out to vote. >> absolutely. but people turn out when they feel invested in the process, and they have access to voting. >> with another election around the corner, the questions about

our electoral system are more critical than ever. >> the majority of people in this country abide by the rules of the this country, but they don't participate. they don't have a say and they choose not to have a say. >> that is the question. most people feel like their votes don't matter. but what does that mean? does it mean they don't have faith in the elected leaders that come here no the washington, d.c.? or is it that people have legitimate gripes about getting to the polls. >> voter suppression. >> so the biggest question is how does it get better? >> if i knew, we'd have 100% voter participation by now. >> let's figure it out. >> in raleigh, north carolina, people have a good reason to think their votes don't matter. that's because even though there was an election for congress last fall, the results are still up in the air. >> it is a rigged system, folks. it's a rigged system.

>> it's a rigged system. it's a rigged election. >> since the 2016 campaign, donald trump has been promising to drain the swamp of what he claims is rampid voter fraud on the part of the democrats. but here in north carolina, it's the republicans who are accused of election fraud. >> how are you, sir? how are you feeling? >> on the morning we arrived, poll workers were getting ready to testify at a new hearing to see if a new congressional election should be calling. >> was this a fraudulent election. >> we'll have to see, won't we? >> there is new political drama in north carolina tonight. >> gop house candidate mark harris beat his rival by a razor thin marginment right away allegations of ballot tampering emerged. >> basically, this whole thing is about whether or not this election was decided fraudulently. it is like a 900 vote margin.

>> they were accused of alters ballots to help the republican ticket. and until it's sorted out, the congressional seat is empty. >> there is no representative. is there any evidence that harris knew about this? >> well, that's what they're trying to find out. mr. harris -- >> while jacob and i were talking, harris's team took a break from the hearing. we wanted to get some answers straight from the source. >> mr. harris, what do you have to say about the illegal ballot harvesting? >> did you know about it? if you are confident you won, don't you want to call for another election? >> harris declined to comment, but we did speak to the executive director of the north carolina republican party, and even though he counted 22 cases of ballot tampering to favor republicans, he said mark harris was still in the lead. >> so you still say harris is

in. >> this was happening on the other side. >> exactly. >> it's interesting that you say that. >> we constantly are hearing republicans say that democrats are guilty of voter fraud. there is almost no evidence of that. right here you are holding a board of at least 22 cases of voter fraud. >> in one congressional district in one election. >> 22 cases of voter fraud by republican. where are the democratic cases of voter fraud? >> i'm not keeping score of that because i'm interested in mark harris's lead. here is what i would tell you. if people did illegal things, and i think there are people that the testimony shows, they should be prosecuted. >> mark harris maintained he did not know anything about improper collection of ballots. but on the next day of the hearing, his son john a federal prosecutor took the stand and revealed his dad not only knew about the plan but that he warned his dad it was against the law. >> i told him that collecting

ballots was a felony. >> it was a stunning admission that by the end of his son's testimony had the congressman-elect in tears. the following day when mark harris took the stand, he agreed the election results should be thrown out. >> through the testimony i listened to over the past three days, i believe a new election should be called. >> shortly after the hearing, a harris campaign worker named leslie mckra dallas jr. was charged with multiple crimes including perjury, obstruction of justice and illegal possession of an ten tee ballots. he has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. a new election will take place this september, but until then, the seat will remain empty. >> this small district might be an extreme example of electoral dysfunction, but it makes you wonder if this is why so many of us don't think our votes matter. >> did you guys vote?

>> no. >> you don't? how come? no. >> you don't how come

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if you measured the health of a democracy by how many people vote, then america is in serious trouble. houston is the biggest city in texas, but here in the suburb of bell air, the lowest participation of the city. >> guys, can i ask you a quick question? can i ask you a question? hi. are you a voter? do you vote? >> no, i've never been. >> never in your life? >> do you guys vote? >> no. >> you don't? how come? >> politics is something i don't want to get into. >> in this area not many people vote. and i'm trying to understand why. >> it's going to be only one vote, your vote. i don't know. >> you don't feel like it makes a difference. >> exactly.

>> you have a restaurant business and you're stuck in the restaurant all the time. do you feel like the politics that goes on day-to-day affects your life. >> yes. but things take a lot of time. >> trying to convince people that voting is worth the time and effort is a challenge. and that's at least in part because so many potential voters feel disconnected from the process, especially when it comes to the unique way we choose our president. >> we are the popular vote. >> because of our system, we don't vote directly for the candidate. instead, each state is assigned a number of electoral votes. the candidate that gets 270 electoral votes wins. but is this real hi the best way to elect a president? >> hello. hello.

are you open for business? >> for you, we're never closed. >> i'm hoping that election night guru might have some answers. what is the point of the electoral college? >> that goes all the way back to founding the country, the idea that the interest of each state would be represented in an electoral college. >> we saw for the second time in recent history in 2016 the person who won the electoral college was not the person who won the popular vote. why? >> take a look at this map right here from 2016. you got areas with large populations, rural populations tend to be blue collar white voters. he inspired huge turnout. so it allowed clinton to win the popular vote national, but for trump to pick off pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. >> and you need those states along with florida. >> you can lose the national popular vote by upward of three million votes. but because you have such a

concentration of your type of voter in those places, that's 46. that's what made him president. >> a wall street journal poll shows that 53% of americans want to elect our president with a popular vote. before he won the presidency, donald trump was one of those people. he called the electoral college a disaster, but after his victory. >> the electoral college is genius. >> it's do you kngenius. >> not surprisingly, several of the 2020 democratic presidential candidates would like to see the electoral college abolished. >> we get a little bit closer to one person, one vote. >> do democrats think getting rid of the electoral college give them an advantage in 2020 and beyond. steve warns they should think again. >> it feels like a permanent thing that only helps republican. i'm not convinced there is a permanent long-term republican

advantage. >> i wonder if our system works, though. we were talking with some folks at the un from various countries and when we asked them about our politics, a lot of them expressed total shock that we can have a candidate who wins the popular vote but doesn't win the election. >> yes. welcome to u.s. politics. >> democracy shouldn't be this complicated, right? if we want more people to participate, shouldn't we make it easier to vote? we're heading to washington, d.c. to ask a seemingly simple question. it turns out even that is complicated, too. full disclosure, before i was a journalist, i was an election reform advocate. and the question that i always liked to ask first was why do we vote on tuesday? quick question for you, congressman. >> do you know why elections are held on tuesdays? >> i really don't. >> as a former political scientist i should know the answer. >> i don't have a clue.

>> congressman. >> i'm not sure. >> why are you looking at me? >> well, jacob knows. >> because in 1845, it took a day or longer to get to the county seat to vote, a day to get back and you can't travel on the sabbath, so tuesday was the only day. still today we vote on the tuesday after the first monday in november. but not in the constitution. >> do you have any more obscure knowledge? >> that's not obscure. >> if i was elected on tuesday, keep it on tuesday. >> that's the problem. members in congress don't want to change the way they were elected. >> maybe congressman king is kidding, but every joke contains some truth. those in power aren't too invested making it any easier for americans to vote. in some places, that can take an ugly turn. to get that story, we're headed to one of the biggest political battlegrounds past and present.

>> they were pulling people over, stopping folks. it appeared to be a tactic to discourage folks and focus on the african-american community. the african-american community

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the debate over election form is nothing new. throughout our history, the struggle for voting rights exposed disturbing truths about one of the most complicated issues in america, race. >> we will dramatize the whole situation and seek to arouse the conscious of the federal government by marching by the thousands on places of registration all over. >> in the 1960s civil rights icon martin luther king jr. led marches, including the end of legalized discrimination at the polls. she says it's a fight that continues today. >> you know, while i wasn't quite born during the civil rights movement, a lot of my work was really around continuation of that work. and what's really awkward and crazy to me is many of the

stories i heard that happened in the '60s, i'm dealing with that now. so i will work with black voters matter to engage black voters who we feel have, particularly in the south, but throughout this country, you know, have been marginalized and there is all of these layers of voter suppression we see. >> hello. >> commissioner. how y'all doing. come on in. >> she is introducing me to a college that says he personally experienced voter intimidation in southern georgia. in 2018, he borrowed a limousine from a funeral home to drive people to vote. >> let me just stop you there. i mean, that's pretty creative. you went to the funeral home to take people in style to the polls. does it work? did people show up? >> it worked. it worked. it was very successful. >> while he was driving people to the polls, roy said he had a

run-in with state troopers. >> is it unusual to see state troopers in the city center. >> most definitely. most definitely. >> right as the election is coming in. they're present. they were pulling people over. they were stopping folks, asking for their driver's license. so it appeared to be a tactic to really discourage folks and particularly to focus on the african-american communities. >> rois was parked on the wrong side of the road when a state trooper approached him. >> i looked at him and i said, you know what, i'm sorry. being parked on the side of the road, if you'll give me a moment i'll move the car. he yelled at me. he said, no, you're not going to move anything. you are going to stand right there. he called for backup and probably seven or eight, close to nine troopers showed up. >> a woman shot this cell phone video from down the street. >> if there was like a bank robbery in progress -- >> exactly. >> and then what happened. >> the commander instructed a

guy that if he was going to give me a ticket to give me a ticket. if he wasn't, let's go. >> and? >> he gave me a ticket. >> did you ever say, hey, look, i'm just trying to drive people to the polls. >> they was aware of what i was doing. i pulled up aside people and said, let's go and vote today. no, i don't want to have to deal with the police. >> that is crazy to me that maybe it shouldn't be. that in the united states of america, the first reaction to some folks before they go and vote is, i don't want to deal with the police. the georgia state patrol office said the trooper followed proper procedure and we requested backup because there was so many bystanders on the street. >> we have to protect our democracy. >> stacy abrams ran for governor that same year and lost by less than 55,000 votes. she believes that voter suppression and other tactics were at least partially to blame. >> do you think the vote was stolen from you, the election

was stolen from you? >> i think the election was stolen from the people of georgia. i don't know that i would have won. but if you add together the thousands of people that faced extraordinarily long lines, who faced hurdles that should not happen in a democracy, the votes that we know were not counted, the secretary of state who was also my opponent in the race purged more than 1.4 million voters over basically an eight-year period. >> the opponent is gop governor ryan kemp, urging voters from the roles is not illegal. the law that allowed kemp to do it was passed years ago by democrats as a way to remove people who had moved out of the state or died. but abrams says kemp office perjed voters in a way that impacted african-americans. >> isn't there a law that defines how you get purged. >> but the aggressiveness and the fault in the database. people were purged that had not

matched any of the criteria. >> the voting rights act of 1965 is supposed to guard against racial discrimination at the polls. but in 2013, the supreme court decision erased a key provision in the act, and weakened those protections. >> shelby versus holder, do you think 2018 would be different if that court decision, 2016 would have been different, 2018 absolutely would have been different. >> why? >> we saw that happen in georgia. georgia passed many laws. and we saw hole pleasures and purging no longer governed and regulated because there was no oversight. >> she accused the election board of racially motivated voter suppression tactics and took the fight to court. >> in the coming days we will be filing a major federal lawsuit against the state of georgia for the gross mismanagement of this election and to protect future elections from understand constitutional action.

>> is there going to be a point in our history when we can say we have moved past those times. if it's 50 years later, are we not there yet? >> african-americans were denied humanity for the better part of 200 years and denied agency for the long history of america except for the last 50 years. we cannot undue centuries of oppression and centuries of bad action with good intention and good will without being placed to force. >> abrams lawsuit is still ongoing while the georgia board of election is fighting the allegations. >> while voting rights activists fight back, it turns out there are all sorts of legal ways for lawmakers to pick and choose the voters they want to show up in the polls. to get that story, we need to get back to north carolina. >> we are walking up on the line. >> so in a second we will be in a district. >> you are already in another district. >> oh. district. >> oh. but allstate actually helps you drive safely...

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i'm richard louie. five children are dead after a morning fire in pennsylvania. authorities are trying to determine if the victims were staying at the licensed day care operating at a home. and the medical examiner completed an autopsy of jeffrey epstein. multiple people briefed on that investigation tell nbc news that suicide remains the main theory, but no official cause of death has been determined. now back to "american swamp." you might think a state with an e maul number of registered voters for each party would have an equal number of to efficients representing them in congress. but that is not the case at all. take a look at north carolina. republicans hold 9 out of 13

seats in congress. >> to understand why, jacob and i met with student leaders at north carolina a and t state university. they say their political power has been undercut by what's called gerrymandering. >> so we are walking up on the line that gerrymandered district. >> so in a second we will be in another district. >> so if i'm over here, then i'm in district 13. >> wait a minute. hold on a second. so kasie is in the 6th district. >> yep. >> and like me and you are chilling in 13. >> in 13. >> gerrymandering is tactic used to draw congressional districts to help one party win. and it's legal all across america. >> north carolina is one of the most gerrymandered states in the union. >> where is the actual dividing line? >> basically where the sidewalk

cracks. >> i would say that. >> so there has to be a good reason that the school has been split in half. >> they believe that the republican party is better for north carolina than the democratic party. >> who is they? >> the folks who -- >> state folks. >> the north carolina general assemble. >> before republicans redrew the map in 2016, the 10,000 students here were all in one voting district, represented by a democrat. that meant students here at the nation's largest historically black college or university also known as hbcu could have had the power to swing an election. >> so you think the legislature is purposefully dividing the largest hbcu in half in order to dilute the power of the student body. >> two republican. >> we're represented by mark

walker. >> jacob and i have been having this debate. what stops people from voting? is it voter suppression or voter apathy? or are they one in the same in some respects? >> i would say both. >> what would this country look like in everyone, the vast majority of people or even the majority went out and voted. >> i think it would look like a no, ma'amsy and what it is supposed to look like in theory, which in theory a dmom sick is a participatory process where everyone is encouraged to participa participate. right now that's not the case. >> we asked to speak with a republican representative who led the redrawing process for the current district map. in an e-mail statement, lewis said dividing the campus, quote, was not done intentionally and no one on the committee, democrat or republican, realized that the campus was now split. >> it is not a coincidence you see the greatest amount of extreme positions inconsistent

with what the people want where you see the greatest amount of gerrymandering. >> he sees it as a national emergency and a moral threat to our democracy. >> do you think gerrymandering is at the root of the problem for voting issues in this country? if gerrymandering was fixed, we would have fairer elections. >> it would have fairer elections and policies put in place that were consistent with the desires of the people. you would have more say in gun laws, more say in efforts with the climate concerns. you would have better approaches to dealing with reproductive rights. it is not a coincidence that you see the greatest amount of extreme positions inconsistent with what people want where you see the greatest amount of gerrymandering. >> i'm here to end the practice of gerrymandering. >> shortly after the 2016 election, he launched the national democratic redirecting committee, which is working to ensure districts are drawn

fairly. >> this isn't just about democrats getting more power. you think this is going to be fairer for everybody because that's a hard argument to convince everybody of that are not democrats, that are happy republicans. >> so, yes, you have to have democratic participation in the same way i would look at some democratic controlled states. what happened in maryland with the creation of the gerrymandered district and made republicans sue per flewous. >> in june the supreme court ruled that gerrymandering is legal and redirecting decisions should remain in the hands of state legislatures. >> and there is another battle threatening to impact every election in america from town counsdowcouncil to the presiden united states. this one has a twist straight out of the twist. >> boom, suddenly we have a smoking gun. smoking gun. ♪ limu emu & doug mmm, exactly! liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need.

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you're watching msnbc. the way we vote for our representatives starts with a pretty simple question. how many people live in the united states? >> the census, which is taken every ten years doesn't just count heads, it determines political power. if a state loses population, it loses seats in congress. and inputs in the electoral college, a shift that could decide the next presidential election. there is a lot at stake as we gear up for 2020. and so far under the trump administration, the simple act of counting people hasn't been so simple. in fact, it is a swampy mess. >> i have come to the rio grand valley in south texas to find out why. >> okay. >> martha and maria are members

of a nonprofit community organization that encourages latinos to respond to the census. >> who else lives here? >> well, many families. many families, yes. >> it's in total it's about 79. >> the constitution says the census must count everyone, so that means noncitizens, too. but that's a challenge in parts of the country like this where there is a fear of the government, a fear that has only increased since president trump took office. >> what are people so worried about? >> because of families here are mixed. some of them may not have their documents. some were born here. so you are giving addresses, yours personal information, where you live. so i think that could be intimidating to the community. >> while it's always been hard to get an accurate census count here in south texas, activists like martha and maria say 2020

could have been devastating because the trump administration wanted to add a question we have not asked since 1950. is this person a citizen of the united states? it's a question that career census officials have said could lead to a huge undercount in communities already living in fear of even the most routine contacts with the government, not to mention possible deportation. >> i know families every day, they give the blessing to family members because they really don't know if somebody is going to come back, they're going to stop by the church, by the border patrol, by the gps, by the police department. all these departments can stop a family for a blinking light, for a wrong turn and the family can end up being deported. >> and that's the reality of life here and the idea that the census bureau becomes another one of those agencieagencies.

>> u.s. commerce secretary wilbur ross says the request was requested by the justice department to enforce the voting rights act of 1965. voting rights activists weren't buying that explanation. more than a dozen states filed lawsuits to block the question, saying it was a blatant attempt to give republicans an advantage by undercounting traditionally democrat communities. the case eventually made it all the way to the docket of the supreme court. around the same time, congressional democrats called a hearing to demand answers from ross. >> thank you very much. >> ross stuck to his story. >> doj sought census block level citizenship data for use in voting rights act enforcement. >> and supports like this republican representative argue the citizen question is necessary. >> every working tax paying citizen should want to know how many people are living in the united states. your tax dollars go to things to

build infrastructure, pay for education, law for law enforcement. we need to know how many people are living here. >> people who work, career professionals within the census bureau have already said during the last census in 2010, 1.5 million african-american and latino people were undercounted and this will only increase that number. why do you support snit. >> i believe that we should know if people that fill out the census are citizens or not. people ask me all the time, when you're talking about the wall, which is a huge subject. >> we're talking about the census bureau. >> people say how many illegals are here? i don't know. nobody knows. we can take a census every decade and determine how many illegals are here. and the census isn't going to say go out and hunt out people that are here illegally or not. the democrats are trying to use scare tactics and play the race

card. and let me say this, it is not just minorities. people in my district don't like the government knowing their business. but it is important to know how many people are living in the united states. >> as the debate in congress continued, a bombshell dropped shattering the trump administration's entire explanation for adding the citizenship question. the senior editor and legal correspondent for slate has been following the census story from the start. >> when i sat in that house oversight committee hearing and listened to ross say the reason they wanted to put the question on the census was because of the votes acts right, at the same it seemed suspicious and it turned out there was good reason for that. >> yeah. it was beyond suspicious. it was audacious because this is a trump administration that has not done anything in any other context to enforce the voting rights act. the notion that suddenly there is this burning need to protect minority voting in america from this administration, it's not

only sort of paradoxical in light of how they treated minority voting, it is also just a flat-out lie. >> that lie was exposed on tom hawford died and his daughter discovered these documents. >> his daughter finds these zip drives with information that shows that he had engineered this as a plan explicitly to suppress minority votes. >> in the files, a citizen question would help republicans in the redirecting process by discouraging hispanic communities responding to the census. he grabbed the talking points to support his arguments used by the justice department in an official letter asserting why the citizenship question was needed. >> it is right there and quite literally they are scooping up language that he had used. so, boom, suddenly we have kind

of a smoking gun. >> with a looming july 1st deadline to print the census questionnaires, voter rights advocates presented the documents in a last-minute filing before the supreme court. >> they are getting ready to print this thing. and then the supreme court weighs in. what happened? >> so there are four solid votes to say this is absolutely fine. ross did nothing wrong. and john roberts who writes the majority opinion, he says i don't believe it. he's lying. and he doesn't use the word he's lying, but he essentially says, i think the reasons given are pretextural. i have no problem in principal with what he was trying to do. but the way it went down makes me meal kind of kweezy, so he sides with the liberals. >> soon after, trump announced he was dropping the citizen question from the census. >> it's deeply regrettable, but it will not stop us from collecting the needing information. and i think even in greater detail and more accurately.

>> while activists were successful in getting the question blocked from the 2020 census, he warns it might not be a total victory. >> the sad part of the story is that if the point of this was to terrorize hispanic voters into not voting, the damage is done. whether or not that question appears on the census, what matters is you are in our sights. and you should be afraid to participate in this democracy. >> we don't know yet how the fall-out from the census fight will affect the 2020 election, but what if the government made it easier to vote. two civil rights leaders have a novel idea. >> it's called the trump party. i handed it to him. >> you took his picture and put it on there. it never questions the tasks at hand. but this year, there's a more thrilling path to follow.

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if we learn nothing else from former special counsel

robert mueller's testimony to congress, it is that our election system is vulnerable. >> in your investigation, did you think that this was a single attempt by the russians to get involved in our election or did you find evidence that suggests they'll try to do this again? >> oh, it wasn't a single attempt. they're doing it as we sit here. >> even after mueller's warning, congress hasn't done much to make our electoral process more secure. and that is in large part because senate majority leader mitch mcconnell won't bring the most recent election security bills to a vote. >> oh, i'm not going to let democrats and their water carriers in the media use russia's attack on our democracy as a trojan horse for partisan wish-list items that would not actually make our elections any safer. >> even if we make our elections more secure, the fact still remains only about half of us will likely go to the polls. but as discouraging as that sounds, we were able to find some signs of hope.

>> texas historically has some of the worst voter participation in the country, but it turns out there's only part of the story. ♪ i'm meeting with rice university political science professor mark jones who researchers what drives voter turnout. we're in a neighborhood in houston where most people do vote. >> this is a very high turnout area, one of the highest turnout areas in the entire houston metro area. >> in this neighborhood three-quarters of people voted. >> right. >> in other neighbomaybneighbor >> one-quarter. >> one of the biggest cities in the country, one of the most diverse populations in america. where was everybody? >> i think there's a large portion of the population that doesn't feel that elections affect them and feel somewhat alienated from the political system and, therefore, they don't turn out to vote. you have another group of people that simply are too busy with life. >> you're talking about survival. >> yeah. they care about survival. they care about the children

being able to go to school in a safe way. they care about jobs. they care about effectively having enough to eat. they don't care about donald trump. they don't care about russia. if anything that drives them away from politics because it's so much noise and so much negativity that it just leads many people to turn off. >> professor jones says it is possible to boost turnout among the historically disenfranchi disenfranchised. it just takes some work. and that is exactly the work voting rights advocates michelle and brianna brown from the texas organizing project are doing. what is the texas organizing project? >> so we found 3 million people of color who currently sit out elections who could be voting. >> in 2018, we turned out over 270,000 unlikely voters. >> that's a big number. >> we run a highly intensive program. we do a minimum of three knocks on the door. usually, at least three phone calls. >> and on election day --

>> and on election -- >> no, during early vote and election day. >> so, yes, if you made a commitment to vote, we will continue to call you and knock on your door. >> basically you ask people -- >> um -- >> inspire people. >> we inspire people. >> to the polls. all joking aside, when it comes to getting out the vote, inspiration and voter engagement are critical. but equally important, we need to remove the barriers that keep so many voters away from the polls. >> back in new york city, we met with civil rights activists bill and martin luther king iii. their fathers fought together to expand voting rights. >> dad used to say that a voteless people is a powerless people and one of the most important steps we can take is that's your step to the ballot box. >> now the sons are continuing their legacy and are looking for a solution to one of the obstacles many voters face. on martin luther king day 2017, 4 days before donald trump's

inauguration, the president-elect invited king and waktel to trump tower. they saw the meeting as a chance to pitch trump on what they believe is a novel idea. >> we said, mr. president, what we have here is an idea that's going to make it easier for all americans to vote. presidents carter, president clinton, president bush, have all said it's a great idea and you have the opportunity to prove that you can be bipartisan and do something for all americans. we call it the trump card. i handed it to him. >> this looks like a picture of a social security card with donald trump's picture on the front and the back. >> 35 states require voters to show some form of i.d. at the polls, and their pitch is that every citizen had easy access to a free photo i.d. then more people would be able to vote. you actually took his picture and put it on there. >> he said -- >> great idea. >> said, let me make it easy, you own hotels. as president, you're going to own voting booths. you got to fill it with voters. you're a businessman. you understand the practical

common sense solution to getting people into voting booths and that is a photo i.d. >> so far, president trump hasn't turned king and waktel's idea into action. >> but, look, the reality is that no one is really interested in trying to make it more convenient for people to vote. >> to get more people to the polls, we'll need to do more to restore faith in a system that has left so many disenfranchised and disillusioned. but sometimes, before you can build a better future, you need to look back at our past. have you ever seen this picture of your grandparents? >> a few minutes ago, my dad was explaining it to me. >> so you guys tell us about this picture. >> sure. this is the group that went to the nobel peace prize in december of 1964 and it's basically the starting line of the civil rights movement. >> do you feel like looking back on this photo and all that your parents were trying to do that they would be happy with where we are today? or disappointed? frustrated?

>> i think there are areas where you look and you see great things happening and i think my mom and dad will be happy about it. i think everyone who takes a moment and looks at where we are and what is happening in our world should be very concerned at this particular moment and i believe dad and mom would be. but they'd be out there challenging us. >> for most of our history, america has struggled to live up to the ideal of a government for and by the people. but we, the people, have to do our part, too. we need to stay informed. hold our elected officials accountable. and, yes, vote. that will at least give us a chance to strengthen our democracy and get out of the swamp. next time on "american swamp" -- roads getting better or worse? >> i'd say getting worse. >> the crumbling states of america.

>> fix the damn roads. >> politics and potholes. >> why washington loves a ro roadblock. so the gridlock is a welcome thing for most lawmakers. >> for most people here, absolutely. i come before you as a member of a new generation. ready to step into the highest levels of american leadership. >> a young candidate with a standout pedigree. >> american left-handed episcopalian gay war veteran -- >> in a crowd of presidential contenders trying to unseat donald trump. why you? i mean, why are you the guy to take him down? >> i think it wouldn't hurt to have somebody from a new generation. >> he's a polite midwesterner who isn't afraid to deliver a blow. >> you will not see me exchanging love letters on white house letterhead with a brutal