The Breach

Fighting Trump's Efforts to Suppress the Vote

Episode Summary

Natasha Merle, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to discuss how false allegations of voter fraud are being used to suppress the votes of communities of color. Merle and her organization are suing Donald Trump’s handpicked electoral commission for intentional discrimination against Black and Latino voters. Merle explains how voter ID laws have become the modern-day equivalent of poll taxes, imposing undue burdens on vulnerable people seeking to exercise their franchise, and how citizens can take action to combat these efforts.

Episode Notes

Natasha Merle, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to discuss how false allegations of voter fraud are being used to suppress the votes of communities of color. Merle and her organization are suing Donald Trump’s handpicked electoral commission for intentional discrimination against Black and Latino voters. Merle explains how voter ID laws have become the modern-day equivalent of poll taxes, imposing undue burdens on vulnerable people seeking to exercise their franchise, and how citizens can take action to combat these efforts.

Recommended Viewing:

"Charlottesville: Race and Terror," by Vice News, August 2017
"Difference Makers: The Free Keane Squad," by The Colbert Report, November 2014
"Nazi Christopher Cantwell Crying," by Peter Case via YouTube, August 2017