Trevor Noah has a brilliant plan to stop voter suppression

published 19 October 2018

Voter suppression is an issue across the United States, but the most egregious example is in Georgia, and Trevor Noah on Thursday's Daily Show made a suggestion that might just turn things around.

The governor's race in the state is extremely close, between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp. Kemp happens to be the secretary of state, overseeing elections and voter registration, and Georgia has a law where voter registrations must match exactly to DMV and Social Security information. If not, the registration is put on hold. "It's funny how this happens with voting, but it never stops the IRS," Noah said. "The IRS is never like, 'Oh we have 'Trevok Noah,' I guess you don't have to pay taxes this year.' No, they'd be like, 'Hey, Trevor Noah, you misspelled your name dumbass, and you owe us $20,000.'"

Georgia's population is approximately 32 percent black, and a list of voter registrations on hold is nearly 70 percent black. "Well, well, well, my old friend racism, I've been expecting you," Noah said. You don't have to say who you're targeting to target someone, he added, "you just have to know which rules are likely to hit them the most." If he wanted to block white people from voting, he said, all he'd have to do is say "no pumpkin spice lattes in the voting booth."

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In order to ensure that they can vote, Noah suggests that every black person in the United States register as a Republican. "Just say you're gonna vote red," he said, but do whatever you want once you've got a ballot. "I guarantee you, if the GOP thinks that black people are voting for them, they will make sure that your vote counts. They're going to be waving Trayvons into the voting booth like a third base coach." Watch the video — which uses Kanye West's love of the MAGA hat to prove Noah's point — below. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.