So much of what's being proposed here, to me feels like it is coming from a place of deep paranoia and deep cynicism

that a mistake is always a fraud, that a limitation is always needed because human nature is inherently bad,

that the vast majority of Americans, if given the opportunity to cheat the system would do so,

I just don't start in those places.

This is Sarah and Beth, your listening to Pant Suit Politics, the home of grace filled political conversations.

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Pant Suit Politics. If you are new here, thanks to the Apple Spotlight program,

we are so pleased to have you. You know, the community surrounding our show is just the driving engine behind everything we do here.

Today's show comes out the day after the one year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

So we're all thinking through that anniversary. Now on Tuesday, we're going to be talking about the impact of the pandemic,

but Dr. Carla Vermillion, who is an expert on mental health and disasters, which is such a fascinating and important angle to examine this anniversary through.

And then if you're new to the show and you haven't heard our community COVID-19 episodes from last summer in those first few months of the pandemic,

we featured stories from our listeners who were facing the pandemic in their own voices and deeply personal ways.

And we're really proud of that work. So check that out as well.

Before we talk about the anniversary and more depth, we are actually going to spend the majority of the show on the state legislative efforts to affect voting rights across the country.

Both efforts to suppress the vote and efforts to expand the vote.

We're going to be talking about federal legislation in cases before the Supreme Court with regards to voting rights.

And then we're going to wrap up the show as we always do with outside politics.

And I'm going to give you an update on my sore sad little hip.

So I know y'all are just done for that update. That's coming later in the show.

But first we really did want to talk about this anniversary.

Anniversary is such a hard word to mark something like this. It's the best word that we have.

It's a year since things got very real for us in the United States.

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