Americanswers… on 5 Live! Why is Lindsay Clancy’s mistrial dividing America?

**Justin Webb** (0:00)
Hello, it's Justin, and you're about to hear Americast. We are delighted to have you with us, and if you enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast. That way, you'll never miss an episode. Now, on with today.

**Sarah Smith** (0:12)
What is Donald Trump's game plan with the midterm elections? He's made an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court, and it's all about limiting who's allowed to vote by mail.
And this is happening while ballots are already being sent out through the US postal service in several different states. And lots of you have been asking about that today as we answer your questions with Matt Chorley on 5Live, along with Sumi and Marianna. And we'll also talk about why one of the biggest murder trials in America has ended in a mistrial and conspiracy theories, the trial of Lindsay Clancy, who has admitted to killing her three children. Welcome to Americancers.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:48)
Americast from BBC News.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:50)
Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth because she's way out of your league.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:56)
The tide is coming and this time we intend to win it all.

**SPEAKER_7** (1:02)
See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.

**Donald Trump** (1:14)
When I'm not around, you're going to be broke. There's not going to be anybody to report on. Nobody gives a damn about anybody else.

**Matt Chorley** (1:27)
OK, let's start with voting. Donald Trump is making an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court about who he thinks should be allowed to vote by post, or as the Americans call it, mail-in voting. Dee in Dublin sent us this voicenote.

**SPEAKER_10** (1:42)
We here are bracing ourselves for Trump's upcoming golf visit next week. And I've been reading in the news that the Supreme Court is thinking about helping Trump take another step towards achieving his hobby horse about limiting mail-in voting.
Over the years, I've seen footage of long queues of people waiting to vote in parts of the US. And for an Irish person, it astounds me because I've never needed to queue for more than about two minutes, if even that. And I was wondering if people cannot mail their votes in, and they have to go to the ballot boxes in person, what provisions, if any, are being made to expand the times and locations for people to vote in person, if that mail-in voting is curtailed?

**Matt Chorley** (2:24)
Great question. Sarah, explain the process and what it is that he's trying to do.

**Sarah Smith** (2:29)
Yes. So this is quite complicated. And the first thing to say is, Dee is absolutely right about voting in America. Every polling day that I've been here covering elections, I've gone out and seen really, really long queues of people, sometimes in inclemently hot weather, it has to be said, they come down in the South standing for literally hours in queues waiting to cast their ballot. And that's treated as absolutely normal. People just assume you've got to write off half the day in order to go and cast your vote. And they seem to be prepared to put up with it. So they answered to the question whether or not any provisions being made to make it easier to vote in person. No, not as far as I can see. But there is a huge controversy about the mail-in ballots as they're known here, the postal votes. Donald Trump tried to change the rules essentially. And he said that all states who are in charge of their own elections had to upload a list of voter names to a post office website, which isn't finished yet and isn't ready. And they would have to upload these names several times a day up to, as they were keeping up to date with the voter rules. And they would have to design special envelopes with unique barcodes on them to send out the ballots. Now, a lot of the individual states say it's simply not possible to do all of that between now and polling day, which is only 60 days away now.
A couple of states have already started mailing out their ballots anyway, including North Carolina. And so basically, there is an unholy row going on between Donald Trump and the states over whether it's necessary or possible to implement these new rules. And that has gone back and forward through different federal courts. The Supreme Court has now been asked to rule on it. And it's, Sumi, you know better than me. Is it Wednesday we're expecting to hear back from the Supreme Court on this?