PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. We apparently have only seven years left to start taking climate change seriously, so go research which candidate does and which one doesnt. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. I don't have the time, the resources to do any kind of comprehensive list. I mean, he even made the most basic error of referring to our database, which is just a sampling of cases. For us, 80% of our voters voted by mail, 20% voted in person. As the coronavirus upends their lives, two detectives doggedly pursue those responsible for an abduction they realize is part of a sinister pattern. MARC E. ELIAS, Attorney, Democratic Party: The DNC filed the initial lawsuit when it became clear that there were going to be serious problems with availability for voting. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. I talked about it with author Ari Berman, whos written extensively on voting rights. Dir., Milwaukee Election Comm., 2012-20: I would say profound disappointment. Elections arent just a measure of what parties and candidates people prefer; theyre a measure of who counts in a country. But when I was at the Justice Department, I worked in the Civil Rights Division, and my job there was enforcing federal voting rights laws, including the Voting Rights Act. As one of our interviewees put it: Theres no such thing as forever in a democracy. Its just up to the American people to decide whats next. Running for office is expensive, but deep pockets alone can't secure a win. Many people spent their entire evening at a voting location wondering why it was taking so long. STEPHEN STIRLING, Columbia Journalism Investigations: Sure. And they certainly weren't interested in a mail ballot. For Native Americans, voting rights were hard-won. And then that's what's required for the ballot to be counted on Election Day. You can read our recap of the show's previous one-off special episode by clicking these words. And for him not to be counted, it justit's doing something to me. FRANK C. "BUTCH" ELLIS JR., Shelby County Attorney: I think the Voting Rights Act made a tremendous change. 1. Well, voter suppression is a made-up term that's used by those who oppose very common sense measures to make sure that, one, everybody who's eligible is able to vote. It tapped into a fear that the push for absentee ballots would favor Democratic turnout, and Wisconsin became their early battleground to resist it. I just felt like we're in 2020, but it felt like 1867. In 2010, Republicans swept the midterm elections. Voters can stick to the traditional way of mailing it, or they can drop it off at secure drop-off boxes in their county. The right to vote is at the foundation of America's democracy. Our volunteers reached out millions of times with text messages, with phone calls, with posts on social media, reaching out to people that they knew in their own lives. With Columbia Journalism Investigations and reporters from the USA TODAY NETWORK. In fact, I thought it was completely fair to not have to risk getting COVID-19 by going to vote in person. I heard the expression of a present-day reality and a historical sentiment. And it was just not justified by the facts. For the rest of the country, voters have to request a mail-in ballot and give a reason as to why they cannot vote in person; in four states, the pandemic is not a valid reason to vote by mail. The judge said we can't do this, now the judge says we can do that. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); 2022 Hollywood Insider Corp. All rights reserved. We are simultaneously faced with a global pandemic, climate change, systemic racism/inequality, and a lack of competent leadership in the White House. JILL KAROFSKY, Candidate for WI Supreme Court: Im Jill Karofsky. In the third episode of Whose Vote Counts, Explained, leading experts discuss the effects of the electoral college and how it misrepresents the American people. If you choose to vote by mail, make sure to follow your states procedures and request a ballot before the deadline. The memorial is informally known as the national lynching museum, and it's filled with thousands of names of Black Americans, many of them killed amid the push for voting rights. Sending out 80 MILLION BALLOTS to people who arent even asking for a Ballot is unfair and a total fraud in the making. Sometimes people send us court judgments, convictions and other information like that. We're talking about uncharted territory tonight, gone from the Democrats to the Republicans. You can use your certified birth certificate, a pay stub and your Social Security. However, redistricting is left to state legislatures, where the party currently in the majority often redraws the lines to help their candidates win. More and more Black Americans were registering to vote, and both parties agreed that voting should be easy. Videos Whose Vote Counts, Explained Trailer: Whose Vote Counts, Explained Episodes Whose Vote Counts, Explained Limited Series Release year: 2020 The right to vote is at the foundation of America's democracy. Every state runs its own election process, and as Wisconsin was moving forward, others were pulling back. So when we talk with people in Milwaukee and thereabouts, what we got was a lot of the opposite. JUSTIN CLARK, Dep. We sat down in September for an at-times tense interview. Only two states have same-day voter registration and North Dakota does not have a registration process. Follow. Many of the experts we spoke to were hopeful that we may be at an inflection point heightened awareness and renewed will might have the power to bring about significant reform. Audience Reviews for Whose Vote Counts, Explained: Season 1 Dec 02, 2020 A huge disappointment. And what's your response to that? We believe in peaceful/non-violent protests and I would like to request the rest of media to focus on 95% of the protests that are peaceful and working effectively with positive changes happening daily. Justin Clark, the Trump campaigns senior counsel, led the Republican strategy in Wisconsin. "Whose Vote Counts, Explained" takes a close look at the United States' political system and attempts to get voters engaged and informed before the 2020 general election. Additional funding forWhose Vote Countsis provided by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. Netflixs recently released a docu-series made by Vox called Whose Vote Counts, Explained in late September 2020. The evidence does not show that. If you look at the polling, they agree with other Americans that voter ID is a common sense reform. It's a very bad system. Do Consumers or Corporations Impact Climate Change More? Due to biases in the criminal justice system, poll taxes and literacy tests soon became common, preventing many Black and non-English speaking people who could not pass the test or afford the tax from voting. All lean Democratic, with large communities of color. My campaign manager called and he said, "If you're in fleece and jeans," which is what I was in, "You need to put something nicer on because you're about to go on TV, and you're going to be the next justice on the Wisconsin state Supreme Court.". How does the system work, and can it be fixed? Throughout that hundred-year history between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement, the inability to vote is what shaped Black life. Butch Ellis was the county attorney. Summary. The seeds of all of that were laid by Hans von Spakovsky and other conservative activists dating all the way back to the 2000s and the George W. Bush Justice Department. The ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, otherwise somebody could cast their ballot on the day after the election.". newsletter. with some people waiting five to six hours to cast their votes. And we woke up the next day and I saw a sight I didn't ever imagine seeing. But not every vote is created equal. Whose Vote Counts, Explained was released on September 28, 2020, on Netflix. None of these things will be improved by staying home and watching the world burn. Four out of the nine justices on the court today were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote. Untangling fears about the voting process being rigged by powerful donors and corporations, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, voter suppression, fraud at the ballot box, and the ways votes. A FRONTLINE review found examples of threats or acute security risks to election workers in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan and Georgia. What the Republicans began in 2011 with voter ID grew and grew. Some states have created drop-off boxes to restore faith in the system. With the election underway, I interviewed both candidates. The right to vote is at the foundation of America's democracy. He also enjoys writing about current events in the entertainment landscape, and is always looking for interesting topics to cover. With reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and USA Today, we examined the voting, especially the absentee ballots, how they were used and counted, and the political and legal fights around them. They absolutely do not exist. These modes of suppression arent used by accident, its because people in power dont want citizens to vote against them, as they state in the episodes. With their constituents at risk from in-person voting, Democrats began pushing for something that would ignite a political firestorm: an absentee ballot drive. What would that look like for me? Claire Woodall-Vogg was second in command at the Milwaukee Election Commission when the absentee ballot requests started coming in. Fewer Rejected Ballots Seemed to Be a Win for Voter Access. Can you talk a little bit about your ideas around voter fraud and election integrity? You can change your cookie preferences. In places like Montgomery, Alabama, home of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Its tempting to see them as three distinct concerns, but they're inextricably linked to a legacy of inequality and an ongoing struggle. None of these things will be improved by staying home and watching the world burn. People were going to get sick and those people were probably going to be Black and brown people who are disproportionately impacted by the virus. What's being fought over? When you vote folks in office, you have a say-so on what you want your community to be. But as we were making this series, and the election season heated up, we were surprised at the new dimensions they took. JELANI COBB: I've been studying American elections for years, but I've never seen anything. We talked to Hans von Spakovsky about this, and he said, "He has no idea what he's talking about. It was really my job as chairman of the party to make sure that all the rules were followed, that we preserved the integrity of our vote, because changing things at the last minute, changing the laws on the fly, can lead to so many problems. College Vote Unpredictable Heading into Election Day. The crush of absentee ballot applications added chaos to an election that included not just the presidential primary but thousands of local races as well. 10 months ago. CLAIRE WOODALL-VOGG, Exec. that's what the Voting Rights Act was intended to stop, and it does. Judge Jill Karofsky has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Look at whats going on right now! Are mail-in votes actually fraudulent? Rather than gossip, he focuses on how events in the entertainment world reflect on society at large. ", Sanders' clients were voting rights activistsAlbert Turner, who had marched with John Lewis in Selma. I can tell you from that experience and being the co-chairman of a presidential commission on election administration in 2013 and 2014, where we looked for this, that the widespread fraud that would allow a conclusion of "elections are rigged" is not there. Hank Sanders was elected state senator in Alabama thanks to the Voting Rights Act. The important part is that we have the safeguards in place to make sure that people have confidence in the electoral process and that our electoral process has integrity. Ive had conversations with peers where they explained why they wont vote because of the electoral college, and how it gives certain states an unfair amount of power. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. That people felt that their vote was being suppressed by having to go out and potentially contract the illness by going to a polling place. The final margin was over 10 points, and if someone had told me before the election that we were going to win by more than 10 points, I would have told them they were absolutely crazy. It's an African American community. Within a year of its passage, a quarter of a million African Americans had registered to vote. We were fully prepared for me to potentially have to sleep down here if I had to, because I can't afford to get sick. Dir., Equal Justice Initiative: The first lesson that Black people had to navigate in this country was that voting is dangerous. And so the challenge really is making sure that all the clerks are aware. Seeing the White House behind a chain-link fence, the fence itself a memorial to African Americans killed by police, made me think about the connections between Wisconsin, the countrys history of disenfranchisement and the coronavirus. like Indiana, which have had photo ID laws in place now for more than six years. It is not a comprehensive list. So Section 5 was a very powerful tool to keep those in power from suppressing the right to vote. BRYAN STEVENSON, Exec. If the person is registered to vote, why is it unfair to send them a ballot? What they said was that voter fraud does occur in the U.S. and it could make a difference in a close election. Wisconsin is very, very likely to be the tipping point of the presidential election in November. Netflix and third parties use cookies (why?). For the three episodes in this series, "The Right to Vote," "Can You Buy an Election . Thats about 44 million ballots not 80 million and they will be going to Republicans as well as Democrats and independents. At every chance he got, he was talking about voter fraud, voter fraud. There's no end in sight." And he insisted that the database shows a wide variety of election fraud cases. Neil Albrecht took us to the room where theyre kept. The documentary miniseries, produced by Vox Media and distributed by Netflix, examines the various aspects of democracy in the United States, the way our representatives are selected and the history Democrats tend to live in urban areas whereas Republicans live in suburban areas. is provided by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. I tried for a couple of weeks to convince the Legislature to changing around, make it an all-mail ballot or at least push it out to a different date. The United States Postal Service lacks much-needed funding, leaving voters feeling uncertain about mailing their ballots. How can the system be fixed? Then we talked about reducing those to 45. The April election brought it all out. He keeps of a database of alleged voter fraud cases that fuel the Republicans' claims. We are a severely poor community. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker and the Republicans began passing a flurry of new voting laws. Videos Whose Vote Counts, Explained Trailer: Whose Vote Counts, Explained Episodes Whose Vote Counts, Explained Limited Series Release year: 2020 The right to vote is at the foundation of America's democracy. Good morning, folks, and thanks for joining us on this Monday, April 6. I do believe that there is an attack on our democracy right now. America is the world's oldest democracy, founded on the radical idea that governments "derive their just powers from the consent . Hes a former Justice Department lawyer and an architect of the Republican position on voter fraudand a frequent speaker at events like CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, where I met him last winter. Melody was expressing a fundamental principle about democracy: one person, one vote. There was basically no interest. Whether one plans on voting in-person, early or by mail-in ballot, it is important to decide ahead of time which method you plan on using. Can anything change Americans minds about Donald Trump? I will not let you down. But by then, there was also a growing backlash that would give rise to new challenges and place new obstacles in front of Black voters. In the beginning, voting was a privilege that only white male property owners could have. Our starting point: March 17, the day Wisconsin said the coronavirus pandemic would not affect its upcoming primary election, scheduled for just three weeks away. The reason voter suppression exists is that people in power often like to resist progress for the general population in favor of their own selfish agendas. 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