What Next - The Right’s Poll-Watcher Army
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2022
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Republicans who still haven’t accepted that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 are recruiting “a volunteer army” of poll watchers and poll workers for upcoming elections. For those who want transparent and fair elections, an influx of enthusiasm is theoretically a good thing. But if new poll workers and poll watchers have an agenda— chasing after fraud that didn’t happen—can they hurt more than they help?
Guest: Alexandra Berzon, investigative reporter for the New York Times.
Guest hosted by Mary C. Curtis, columnist at Roll Call and host of its Equal Time podcast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sam Mendes presents Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, an audible original drama. |
| 0:05.6 | The young gentleman's name would be... |
| 0:08.3 | Oliver, Oliver Twist. |
| 0:10.7 | ...with Brian Cox as Fagan. |
| 0:12.9 | What have you seen? Street boy. |
| 0:14.9 | Nicola Cochlan as Nancy and Daniel Caluia as Bill Sykes. |
| 0:19.3 | Oh, look at me like a hello to my lawyer. |
| 0:21.3 | I love you, baby. |
| 0:22.3 | ...with original music by Dan Gillespie Cells. |
| 0:25.7 | Subscription required, see audible.co.uk for terms. |
| 0:36.3 | Sometimes I think back to November 2020, and that limbo we were all in as we waited for the |
| 0:42.0 | presidential election to be called. |
| 0:44.4 | A day or two after voting closed, Trump supporters started massing at a ballot processing center |
| 0:50.0 | in Maricopa County, Arizona. They were agitated and suspicious about what poll workers and |
| 0:56.3 | poll watchers were doing inside. |
| 1:03.8 | I wondered where all that energy would go after the election was concluded. |
| 1:08.0 | And in recent months, I may have gotten an answer. |
| 1:10.8 | Some of that energy may be not as loud, but just as intense, is going toward election administration. |
| 1:20.8 | We need to be present. We need to have you as election officials, as poll watchers, |
| 1:26.7 | researching what's going on in the election offices. |
| 1:30.3 | Clea Mitchell, a Republican lawyer, has made her mission to tell stop the steel supporters |
| 1:35.6 | to lay down their signs and apply to be poll workers and poll watchers. |
... |
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