How Democracy Itself Ended Up on the Ballot in Wisconsin

The Daily

The New York Times

News, Daily News

4.5 • 97.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the last decade, Wisconsin has become an extreme experiment in single-party rule. Republican officials have redrawn the state’s election districts and rewritten laws to ensure their domination of the state’s legislature. In Tuesday’s elections, those officials are asking voters for the final lever of power: control over the entire system of voting. Guest: Reid J. Epstein, a reporter covering elections and campaigns for The New York Times.

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro.
0:04.7	This is a daily.
0:07.6	Over the past decade, Wisconsin has become an extreme experiment in single-party rule.
0:14.8	Despite being an evenly split swing state, Republican officials there have redrawn the
0:21.0	state's election districts and rewritten its laws to ensure that they disproportionately
0:28.2	dominate the state's legislature.
0:31.6	Now those same Republicans are asking voters for the final lever of power.
0:38.2	Control over the state's entire system of voting.
0:44.7	Today my colleagues, Reed Epstein, Rob Zipko and Rachel Cuesta go to Wisconsin to understand
0:52.5	how democracy itself ended up on the ballot.
1:02.8	It's Tuesday, November 8, Election Day.
1:11.3	Reed my sense is that you have basically moved to Wisconsin over the past few weeks.
1:16.0	You're almost a resident.
1:17.5	You know Michael, this is my fourth trip to Wisconsin in the last month.
1:21.8	Explain why?
1:22.8	Because it seems to me you're beaped during these midterms has been for lack of a better
1:27.0	phrase, the state of democracy in the US.
1:30.5	How exactly does Wisconsin fit into that question?
1:34.4	It has seemed for a while that democracy is kind of sitting on a knife's edge in Wisconsin.
1:40.9	It's a 50-50 state in statewide elections for the last six presidential elections have
1:46.4	been decided by less than percentage point.
1:49.4	But Republicans here control the state legislature with such a tight grip that there's almost
	...

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