Welcome to Justice by Design. I'm Kimberly Atkins Store. Don't forget to click here to

subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcast and don't forget to like us to to help others find us. You know I've

been thinking a lot about voting rights. Ever since I was a kid I knew voting would

be important and I never wanted to miss an election.

And that's because I learned that it took not one, but two constitutional amendments to

ensure my rights as a black woman to be able to cast that vote.

But I didn't realize the barriers that would still be in place

for so many people, particularly people of color, people who are poor, people who live in

far-flung places in the United States, indigenous people, still in 2024 to have access to the polls and have the

confidence that their vote would be counted.

You know, when I covered the Supreme Court as a reporter,

one of the most gob-smacking decisions that I covered

was the Shelby County case in 2013.

I was really appalled when Chief Justice John Roberts in his opinion

made it seem like racism and bigotry and voter suppression were only things of the past and

we couldn't use those things that happened in the past to protect voting rights in the

present.

And so he stripped a key part of the Voting Rights Act

with his opinion by making it impossible for the Justice Department

to be able to check and ensure that any

change to voting systems in places in our country, particularly in the South, that had a long

history of voting rights violations were not going to violate more

...