'BradCast' 9/11/2020 (Guest: Courtney Hostetler, Senior Counsel at Free Speech for People)
On today's 'BradCast':\xa0 It was not a good day for free and fair elections \u2013 but a great day for Republicans. In Florida, the 11th Circuit Court's new conservative majority (installed by Donald Trump) upheld a new "pay-to-vote" law, passed by the Republican state legislature to specifically undermine the overwhelmingly voter-approved Amendment 4 restoring voting rights to former felons. The appeals court's rightwing majority ruled that the new law's additional requirements ensuring only those with money can afford to vote \u2013 a blatant poll tax on former felons \u2013 is just fine. In another affront to democracy, Wisconsin's rightwing state Supreme Court ordered a last-minute halt to absentee ballot mailings until it decides whether to add the Green Party's presidential nominee to the ballot, inserting chaos into the election as WI election officials warn they won't be able to print new ballots in time to meet deadlines set in state and federal law. In Texas, some good news:\xa0 a federal judge has ordered the state to notify voters of any 'perceived signature mismatch' in their absentee ballot and give them a 'meaningful opportunity' to correct any issues instead of discarding it. COURTNEY HOSTETLER, Senior Counsel at the non-partisan Free Speech For People, joins us to discuss these and other disappointing preliminary court rulings on lawsuits in Texas, Pennsylvania and North Carolina that attempt to address what voting rights groups describe as unconstitutional, 'unsafe and unequal voting conditions' during the COVID-19 pandemic that put voters at 'increased risk of coronavirus transmission, which in turn will result in voter suppression.' Hostetler urges voters to fight like hell to ensure they can vote safely, and to reach out for help: 'Nobody is alone in this. There are a lot of people fighting, and we can always use more.'