Background Briefing: June 20, 2021
The Layered Republican Electoral Strategy to Cheat Rather Than Compete
We begin with an overview of the electoral landscape ahead as the Republicans launch a multi-layered strategy to first gerrymander and suppress the vote to the extent they could win the next elections before a vote is cast. Then after voting day, partisan Republican legislatures in key states would count and certify the vote to their liking regardless of who won, ensuring GOP victories. Then to control the very mechanisms of voting in the country, a campaign is underway financed by the Koch brothers and the shadowy Opus Dei operator Leonard Leo who has stacked the Supreme Court and federal bench with right wing judges via his dark money group, the Judicial Crisis Network. Together they are financing the GOP capture of polling places and vote counting operations traditionally run by neutral poll workers who are now being driven out of their jobs often fearing for their lives so that QAnon crazies like the Cyber Ninjas conducting the bogus recount in Arizona, can take over to make sure Republicans win. A leading investigative reporter specializing in election issues, Ari Berman, joins us. He is a senior reporter at Mother Jones covering voting rights and a Reporting Fellow at The Nation Institute and the author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America and joins us to discuss his article at Mother Jones, “14 GOP-Controlled States Have Passed Laws to Impede Free Elections.”