Good evening and welcome to what could be an important week for democracy. By this

time tomorrow, Senate Republicans will likely have blocked even opening debate on a major

voting rights bill, forcing a number of key Democrats to make a tough decision. Will they

advance the measure, or perhaps a more limited version of it with no support from the opposition,

or let it die for want of the kind of bipartisanship that no longer seems to exist, no matter

how hard the American people might wish it did?

So by this time tomorrow or sometime this week, a judge in the state of Georgia could

green light a re-examination of 2020 ballots from in and around Atlanta, part of an effort

by supporters of the former president to cast doubt on the outcome. And by Thursday, the

company that doesn't actually seem to have an office and calls itself Cyber Ninjas is

expected to be done with a significant portion of their so-called ballot audit in Arizona.

The concern is that it and other dubious efforts by election doubters could already be

stoking fresh violence, and even boring that, be accelerating the push for legislation

restricting the vote in the name stopping non-existent voter fraud. Today, a former president

Obama weighed in on what he sees as a dangerous path for the country.

The violence that occurred in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, just a few months ago, should

remind us that we can't take our democracy for granted. Around the world, we've seen

once vibrant democracies go into reverse, blocking in power for a small group of powerful

autographs and business interests, and locking out of the political process, dissidents and

protesters and opposition parties, and the voices of ordinary people. It is happening in

other places around the world, and these impulses have crept into the United States.

We are not immune from some of these efforts to weaken our democracy.

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