A look at new barriers at the ballot box

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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today, journalist Ari Berman, has spent the last decade covering the battle over who gets to vote in America and who gets to write the rules that govern our elections. With just over four months until the midterm elections, he's tracking the latest wave of court rulings, lawsuits, and new laws that are reshaping how elections are run. In just the last week, the Supreme Court preserved mail-in voting in a 5-4 ruling, allowing Mississippi to count ballots postmarked by Election Day.

Days later, the court struck down decades old limits on campaign spending, a rule expected to reshape how our elections are financed. That's only part of the story. In April, the Court weakened what remained of the Voting Rights Act, after which states across the South quickly moved to redraw congressional maps. And the President wants Congress to revive a law that would require a passport or a birth certificate just to register to vote. Ari Berman is a national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and the author of several books, including Minority Rule and Give Us the Ballot.

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