Background Briefing: November 7, 2022

 

Efforts to Stop Democrats From Voting and Why It Will Take So Long to Count the Vote

We begin with what to expect in tomorrow’s election in terms of how difficult it is to vote in some states and how long it will take to count the votes in what is expected to be a close election. Joining us is Ari Berman, a senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering voting rights, and a Reporting Fellow at The Nation Institute. His latest book is Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America and we discuss his article at Mother Jones, “Democracy Is Hanging By a Thread in Wisconsin. Blame Extreme Voting Maps.”

 

Although Not on the Ballot, American Democracy is What is at Stake in Tomorrow’s Election

Then we look further into the electoral landscape ahead of tomorrow’s critical midterm elections in which the fate of American democracy is not on the ballot but looms over this most consequential contest even if it is not on most voters’ minds. Joining us is Dr. Michael McDonald, a Professor of Political Science at University of Florida. He is a principal investigator on the Public Mapping Project, a project to encourage public participation in redistricting, and also is the Director of the United States Election Project. His new book is From Pandemic to Insurrection: Voting in the 2020 US Presidential Election.

 

Putin’s Election Interference Was All About Ukraine and Still is Today

Then finally, with Prigozhin, Putin’s cook with the mercenary army the Wagner Group who ran a troll farm to help elect Trump admitting that “we interfered, we are interfering and will continue to interfere” in American elections, we speak with Scott Horton, a professor at Columbia Law School and a contributing editor at Harper’s in legal affairs and national security. He serves on the American branch of the International Law Association, and has represented a variety of journalists and whistleblowers. We discuss the important article by Jim Rutenberg in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine “The Road To War” which makes it clear that Putin’s priority in helping Trump was all about Ukraine and the Quid Pro Quo was I will help elect you if you help implement my partition plan to annex eastern Ukraine which was first proposed by a GRU agent Kilimnik to Paul Manfort on July 28, 2016 and was exactly the same plan recently announced by Putin.