Okay, 2021 may not have been an election year, but it was in no way a quiet one on the voting front.

We saw a very aggressive push to restrict access to voting in many states.

That's Wendy Weiser. She's the vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice,

a non-partisan think tank.

So the 19 states that passed laws restricting access to voting,

making it harder for eligible citizens to vote is a major development and much more aggressive

than anything we've seen in literally decades and decades.

She told NPR that there were two examples in particular that really concerned her.

The first in Georgia.

The famously the legislature has empowered a new partisan board to fire local election administrators

for very little cause, even mid-election cycle and replace them with even partisan operatives

of their choosing.

And the second example that concerned her is in Texas.

It is now a crime for an election administrator to truthfully tell people,

encourage them to apply for an absentee ballot and to truthfully tell them what their rights are

under Texas law to submit an application for an absentee ballot.

These new laws and policies are fueled by the big lie,

the fabrication that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

It was not. But an NPR Ipsos poll from earlier this week shows that two-thirds of Republican

respondents say they believe this and that 64 percent of all Americans believe that American

democracy is quote, in crisis and at risk of failing.

I am worried that if we don't pass federal legislation,

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