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Checks and Balance from The Economist

Checks and Balance: Voting wars

Checks and Balance from The Economist

The Economist

Politics, News & Politics, News, Us Politics

4.61.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Primary season is in full swing but more than a third of voters and a majority of Republicans still believe the last election was stolen. At the centre of this struggle is Georgia, which in 2020 had the tightest presidential election results in the country. It has since passed restrictive new voting laws, locking both Republicans and Democrats into a fierce fight over electoral fairness. We explore why the parties have so much power over the running of elections in America and ask what it will take to restore voters’ faith in their own democracy. 


John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Idrees Kahloon. Idrees has been reporting from Georgia where he spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger about what’s at stake for Georgia voters this time around. We look back at why the mechanics of how Americans vote have changed so much and so frequently over time. And we hear from Nse Ufot, head of the New Georgia Project, a voter-registration organisation, about the impact of new voting laws on the coming elections. 


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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:01.8

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0:06.8

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0:10.2

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0:16.6

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0:25.4

In the 80s, Americans went a bit mad for stickers.

0:29.2

They collected them in books.

0:30.4

You could buy them by the yard.

0:32.2

And for the first time, you could even get one for voting.

0:36.0

An I voted sticker would show the world you'd done your civic duty.

0:40.0

Maybe prompt others to vote too.

0:42.6

Most I voted stickers have changed over the years.

0:45.6

But in Georgia, for about a quarter of a century,

0:48.0

people who've gone in person to the polls

0:50.0

could come away with the same badge of honour.

0:52.6

A round sticker bearing the image of a plump peach

0:56.0

and stamped proudly with the motto

0:58.2

I'm a Georgia voter.

1:00.4

In recent elections, they've even been encouraged to hashtag post the peach.

1:06.0

But in the last general election,

1:07.8

and in this year's midterms, that peach looks a little different.

...

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