Station Selected:
At the start, judges both federal and state presiding over criminal and civil proceedings from coast to coast in the United States—including the seditious conspiracy trial of the Oath Keepers in Washington, D.C., the criminal fraud prosecution of the Trump companies in New York City, the punitive damages proceeding against Alex Jones in Connecticut, the state sentencing of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooter in South Florida, and the oral arguments before the Justices of the Supreme Court on whether colleges and universities may use race as a factor in admitting new student classes. Then, in anticipation of the mid-term elections in the coming week, a review of the ways in which the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) historically prohibited discrimination in polling practices—until the High Court eliminated the clearance process that prevented historically-offending jurisdictions from enacting and enforcing dis-enfranchising rules and diminished the key provisions of the civil rights law previously meant to ensure voting access for people of color; much related, the possibility that the Supreme Court may strike another blow at the VRA in June—and the attempts, unsuccessful in Congress to date, to restore and reinvigorate the statute to promote voting opportunities for all Americans in the years ahead. Finally, an interactive discussion with the executive director of a local civics-advancing organization—focusing on the practical trappings of what to expect at polling places, including the mechanisms for same-day, on-site registration and the prescribed roles and conduct limitations of election observers, among others with official responsibilities to make voting reliably accessible and integrity-based.
