A Wave of Voter Suppression Bills in State Houses Imperils the Ballot Box

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just two months after Georgia voters handed Democrats a majority in the U.S. Senate, state lawmakers there are proposing laws that would curtail weekend voting hours and impose ID requirements for absentee ballots, among other restrictions that critics say disproportionately affect Black voters. Attempts to restrict voting are not limited to Georgia. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that as of February 2021, lawmakers in 43 different states have introduced over 250 bills to restrict voting. Meanwhile in Congress, the House, with its Democratic majority, recently passed the For the People Act, a historic voter protection bill, that along with the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Mina Kim talks with Nse Ufot, Dale Ho, and Eliza Sweren-Becker about why legislators are trying to make it harder to vote, and what is being done on the ground to combat these restrictive measures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQED podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport.
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0:18.6	Support for forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:25.9	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:32.5	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime,
0:39.2	it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion. The riveting
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0:59.4	From KQED.
1:04.9	From KQED, Public Radio in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim.
1:16.2	Coming up on forum, after Georgia sent two Democrats to the U.S. Senate and Joe Biden
1:21.6	became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in nearly three decades,
1:27.0	Georgia's GOP-led state legislature
1:29.3	is proposing a raft of laws that would make it harder for people, especially black voters, to vote. We'll
1:36.7	learn more about what's happening there and across the country as 43 states introduce more than
1:41.5	250 bills, including two in California, to limit voting access.
1:47.1	And we'll learn about the status of efforts by congressional Democrats to pass H.R. 1, which would
1:52.0	put in place uniform federal election standards. Join us.
1:55.6	This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
	...

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