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. I asked the Republican Party chair in Wisconsin to explain his thinking at the time, why they were so intent on in-person voting. In a two-part documentary, FRONTLINE and Forbidden Films explore how the powerful spyware Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by the Israeli company NSO Group, was used on journalists, activists, the wife and fiance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and others. And I said to them, "I don't know that we have a path to win this election. Kansas voters sided with abortion rights in August. Millions turn to Vox to educate themselves, their family, and their friends about whats happening in the world around them, and to learn about things that spark their curiosity. By 1985, that number would grow to nearly 4,000. America ranks 26th in the world when it comes to voter turnout rates, with only 55.7% of all eligible voters participating. So you have polling locations across the state, and they're all local, so in these smaller communities, we know who the locals are. It's an African American community. What would that look like for me? I think people's concerns about contracting illnesses are definitely valid. 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. And he insisted that the database shows a wide variety of election fraud cases. Its been a roller coaster in the last few hours. Our series outlines some of the proposed solutions out there to make Americas democracy represent all its citizens better. A lawyer turned private investigator takes on a missing person case, propelling him on an unexpected and life-altering quest. In America, some votes count more than others, and the balance of power is unequal. And it was just not justified by the facts. Whose Vote Counts, Explained was released on September 28, 2020, on Netflix. New mail ballot rules, extensive publicity over how to vote correctly by mail and broadened opportunities to fix minor errors on a ballot before it was discarded worked to limit wide-scale absentee ballot rejections. Good morning, folks, and thanks for joining us on this Monday, April 6. Especially when it comes to such a hot-button topic. As a DC resident, I was sent a ballot without formally requesting it, and I didnt think it was unfair. We're here to see if you need help with registering to vote. Wisconsin is the only state stupid enough to have an election April 7. 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.". On top of that, Ellis said, even making small changes like the location of a polling place required time-consuming paperwork and costly legal fees, a hardship for the county. 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. Bryan Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which created the National Memorial. 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. 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. When you don't want somebody to vote, you create various kinds of things. If you want to register by mail, a required copy of your ID or a copy of your energy bill or a copy of your bank statement. I don't have the time, the resources to do any kind of comprehensive list. And what's your response to that? Republicans dont care. Most of the bills that I've worked on have been making sure that dates and times and processes and procedures are in place. And if there is litigation about the election in November, that litigation is going to end up at the steps of the Wisconsin state Supreme Court. Summary. Open that door! Netflixs recently released a docu-series made by Vox called Whose Vote Counts, Explained in late September 2020. The Turners were facing decades in prison. He pointed to a critical time in the early 2000s when the idea began to take off inside the George W. Bush administration. 1867. When I heard Melody McCurtis say that, the drama in Wisconsin came into sharp focus. A drama series about the origins of the opioid crisis. The elimination of late-arriving absentee ballots. Or requiring a witness address for an absentee ballot. The response was, "If I would have done it three weeks before it would have been the same result." Many of the same kinds of problems showed up in other states that held elections in the months that followed. Heading into Election Day, a promising bloc of young voters students remains unpredictable, despite high registration rates. For Republicans, though, this all spelled trouble. Related article:The Power of Positivity: Ikorodu Bois + Chris Hemsworth + Russo Brothers + Sam Hargrave. Thats about 44 million ballots not 80 million and they will be going to Republicans as well as Democrats and independents. As America chooses its next president in the midst of a historic pandemic, FRONTLINE investigates whose vote counts and. Three of those states (Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) have done the same thing in past elections, and two others (California and Utah) have done something similar.. As we look at this, the projected numbers of absentee ballots that are rejected are higher than the margin of victory for the president in Michigan and in 2016. One of them said, its a rigged game, so dont play. While I agree that the electoral college should be discontinued, I dont think that disagreeing with it justifies somebody not voting. Within months, it led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act. Vox continues solid work with Netflix on Whose Vote Counts, Explained, a three-episode primer on American democracy that seems more crucial now than ever. States that were notorious for voter suppression now had to get federal approval if they wanted to change any laws regarding voting. There has been for some number of years a virus in the Republican Party about wild claims of voter fraud and the need for suppressive laws. 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. Last edited on 19 November 2022, at 00:44, "Whose Vote Counts, Explained review a star-endorsed exploration of a crucial topic", "Netflix's Whose Vote Counts, Explained Review: The Grim Reality of the Voting System", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whose_Vote_Counts,_Explained&oldid=1122684721, This page was last edited on 19 November 2022, at 00:44. It required them to get federal approval for any voting law changes. Your audio is fine, Jelani, on this side. Netflix and third parties use cookies (why?). She's one of the fanciest ladies in the neighborhood and all of this. Explain how the vote by mail process works. Many people in the U.S. feel that their vote will not matter because of how politicians rig elections in favor of their party. So to make sure I understand this clearly, you're saying that voter suppression does not happen in the United States? Google Pay. They didn't want people to go out and vote, but I know I needed to. It goes back all the way to our nations infancy when voting was considered a privilege, not a right. Our family was always about activism. If youve been reading the news, you know that President Trump has, mail-in voting as a scam ahead of next months election. There are cases of voter fraud here and there, but it doesn't happen in the numbers necessary to show that there's some sort of great conspiracy out there to steal elections through voter fraud. And so when people say "the north side," that's really code for "Black folks." Whose Vote Counts, Explained Whose Vote Counts, Explained is a 2020 docuseries. We were hearing advisements from health officials that any sort of community gathering was risky to the public. When filling out the ballot, read the instructions carefully. That kind of outcome where its driven by the minority is okay as long as its infrequent, said Danielle Allen, a political scientist from Harvard. : I started to notice our inbox was really filling up. Many voters are concerned about how they can safely vote and make sure their vote is counted. They had been helping Black residents fill out their ballots and mailing them. Most of what's being fought over is the ability for voters to have access to the polls and for their votes to count. Well, I cant do an interview right now because Ive got another one Ive got to go to. JUSTIN CLARK, Dep. It premiered in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election and is a three-episode spin-off of Explained, a documentary series produced by Vox.The first episode, narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, explains the history of the right to vote in the U.S..The second episode, narrated by Selena Gomez . One, I'll ask you, do you think that Congressman John Lewis, who was bludgeoned in the attempt to secure the right to vote, was wrong? Leonardo DiCaprio, Selena Gomez and John Legend lend their voices to this incisive, informative deep dive into U.S. voting. I think that you've got to give the Voting Rights Act credit for some of the change that's occurred through the South. In eight states, ballots are mailed to every registered voter. Unlike other places, where the Trump campaign has pursued statewide recounts, the Wisconsin request was limited to Dane and Milwaukee Counties, where Biden held solid leads. The Democrats favorite, Jill Karofsky, had won, the unexpected result of the wave of absentee ballots. I was too afraid that what if I got sick? However, redistricting is left to state legislatures, where the party currently in the majority often redraws the lines to help their candidates win. If the person is registered to vote, why is it unfair to send them a ballot? 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. In the electoral college system, the candidate with a majority of votes in a state will receive all of the states electoral votes. More than 10% of those rejected ballots were from Milwaukee. Although a presidents term is only four years, the Supreme Court justices he or she selects serve for life, often for decades after the presidents term ends. These are the ones that Trump has a problem with. The documentary joins FRONTLINE's 'China Undercover' among this years Peabody winners. PROF. BARRY C. BURDEN, Dir., Elections Research Ctr., UW-Madison: That law required a voter to have one of about six or seven forms of approved photo ID. We find them through press releases from law enforcement officials, state attorney generals and others. You can watch all three episodes over on Netflix, launching on Monday, September 28. With Joe Biden projected to win the state by a narrow margin, the Trump Campaign said it would seek a Wisconsin recount. One series that caught my eye was Whose Vote Counts Explained. In this box, these are all ballots that were received by the election commission on April 10 but were postmarked after the April 7 election date. What does this look like? Lets face it: this upcoming election is unlike any other. Rather than gossip, he focuses on how events in the entertainment world reflect on society at large. / 54m. My auntie marched with Martin Luther King. Three new Explained episodes on the ways our democracy is broken. Half a dozen changes after the Shelby decision. Pennsylvania gave Joe Biden the 20 Electoral College votes needed to push him over 270 and secure a presidential win. I talked about it with author Ari Berman, whos written extensively on voting rights. So I think you can look at various moments in history, but to me the critical moment was the election of President Obama and the ensuing internal civil war within the Republican Party about what to do about it. Today's decision apparently clears the way for several high-profile laws to take effect, including stricter voter ID requirements, in Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. The presidential primary here is a go tomorrow. Can you talk about the role the safeguards may play in confusion about how to vote by mail? In a state like Florida, this means there would be fewer Democratic representatives and more Republican representatives, but the Democratic representative would represent a larger population than the Republican representative would. Wisconsin is very, very likely to be the tipping point of the presidential election in November. Due to past gerrymandering, some states decided to use independent commissions to redraw lines, rather than the legislature. You can read our recap of the show's previous one-off special episode by clicking these words. Because it wasn't postmarked by April 7, it wasn't counted in the election. These people wanted to vote this past April in the battleground state of Wisconsin, a primary that would turn out to be a telling dress rehearsal for the election chaos the rest of the country is now engulfed in. Whose Vote Counts, Explained - Se1 - Ep01 - The Right to Vote HD Watch HD Deutsch Are Aging Politicians and Supreme Court a Rising Gerontocracy. 2023 Hollywood Insider News Entertainment & Culture. One of these ways would be through challenging Black voters absentee ballots through accusations of fraud. He said that he felt like his vote didn't matter. Four out of the nine justices on the court today were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote. In Whose Vote Counts, Explainedseries, fears about the voting process being rigged by powerful donors and corporations, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, voter suppression, fraud at. Along with colleagues at Columbia Journalism Investigations, we began doing remote interviews there when the pandemic was just taking hold. And then the witness signs, provides their address as well. These are the ones that Trump has a problem with. ANDREW HITT, Chmn., Republican Party of WI: We believed that with the right amount of preparation, we could hold a safe election. Whose Vote Counts, Explained is a 2020 docuseries. 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. For us, 80% of our voters voted by mail, 20% voted in person. As the country has become more divided, fraud and voter suppression have become part of each party's get-out-the-vote mechanism and inspiration and motivation to get its voters out. This makes it easier for younger people to register since they can easily do so when taking their road test at the DMV. Claire Woodall-Vogg was second in command at the Milwaukee Election Commission when the absentee ballot requests started coming in. For April 7, a lot of people was not able to vote, so thats why we're trying to avoid this and we're not trying to have April 7 happen again. Now we actually understand how much work goes into disenfranchising people. We continued to invest 14-, 16-, 18-hour workdays, all with the hope that that election ultimately would be postponed. We have seen a lot of changes to election law over the past 10 years. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. MELODY McCURTIS, Dep. These 16 FRONTLINE documentaries offer context on some of the biggest challenges the new administration faces. Media has a responsibility to better the world andHollywood Insiderwill continue to do so., More Interesting Stories FromHollywood Insider, Do you know the hidden messages in Call Me By Your Name? Whose Vote Counts, Explained (Limited Series) | Official Trailer | Netflix, Nepotism Babies Continue To Spark Controversy. But not every vote is created equal. With the election underway, I interviewed both candidates. Open that door! Dir., Milwaukee Election Comm. This article relating to a non-fiction television series in the United States is a stub. I started focussing on the state because of its pivotal and deeply partisan natureits split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats, and it gave Donald Trump the presidency in 2016 by the exceedingly thin margin of 22,000 votes. Pennsylvania gave Joe Biden the 20 Electoral College. Just a reminder, that the Black Lives Matter movement is about more than just police brutality and extends into banking, housing, education, medical, infrastructure, etc. According to "Whose Vote Counts, Explained," 18 of the 25 countries with the highest turnout rates hold elections on weekends, unlike the U.S. Belgium, Australia, Mexico and Greece consider voting to be a duty similar to jury duty. His ultimate goal is to help the reader learn something new. And when people in the Bush administration got in there, very ideological, very right-wing people, they began to change the mandate of the Department of Justice from instead of protecting voters who were facing disenfranchisement, they started talking about voter fraud. And also that's the same group of people that can make and break an election. Whose Vote Counts, Explained (2020) Full Cast & Crew See agents for this cast & crew on IMDbPro Series Cast Series Produced by Series Music by Series Cinematography by Series Film Editing by Series Art Direction by Series Production Management Series Animation Department Series Editorial Department See also America is the world's oldest democracy, founded on the radical idea that governments "derive their just powers from the consent . An example is ex-convicts, a group represented in the episode by Florida resident Desmond Meade. She was drawing a line straight back to the post-Civil War era, when African Americans risked their lives for the right to vote. Well, basically they felt it was important to have the election. CLAIRE WOODALL-VOGG, Exec. It is not a comprehensive list. This march will not continue. 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. The series criticizes the outdated electoral college, explaining how the popular vote would be a fairer method to use in elections. As a divided America prepares to vote and fears of political violence continue, these FRONTLINE documentaries show how U.S. politics reached this moment. Joshua Valdez is an entertainment journalist who likes to write about the complexities of his favorite movies and TV shows, often relating them to real-world issues. 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