Transcripts For CSPAN Ranked Voting Discussion At New America 20240713

Including if americans think president ial candidates should be required to release tax returns, and if citizens should be required to show government. D to vote ranked Choice Voting is a system that takes voters preference among candidates into account if no candidate receives a majority. Only 37 of voters prefer ranked choice over winner takes all systems. This is an hour and 20 minutes. Hello, good evening, and welcome to new america. I am glad we have such a nice room. I am the director of the Political Reform Program. I want to welcome you all to a discussion about the possibilities of ranked Choice Voting, potentially solving a bunch of different challenges. This is an event in a series of events for new americas 20th anniversary. It was founded in 1999. We are creating a home for new generation of people and ideas across a wide range of Public Policy questions. I am kind of an of the oldtimers, although i was not here in 1999, although i knew the founders and saw the creation of it. And fundamental ideas about the political system had been part of the dna of this organization from the beginning, as my colleague reminded me that ranked voting was in the book that the founders wrote called the radical center. It was one of the ideas that they promoted. That book is not viable for what we do, but it is part of it. And then i came back to inform the Political Reform Program in 2014, and our founding idea is that we introduce fresh and getting into the conversation about reforming american democracy and getting beyond some stale solutions. As we have evolved, we have found that ideas around ranked Choice Voting and Electoral Reform have really taken on a far more salience and attracted new constituencies and have begun to seem like a viable solution both when we look at it from the top down, and we see communities turning to the set of ideas as they look for themselves for how to strengthen democracy in their communities. We thought we would pull together a panel of people who are working both at the big level, and in the field on talking to people about these ideas in promoting these ideas, and helping understand the problems that it would and would not solve. One thing i always say is that no reform is a super magic bullet. There is a great essay that came out that said there are no silver bullets and political reform. There are a set ideas that have to work together. Any kind of reform idea gets refracted to the culture and demographics of a community, and we want to touch on some of those ideas. Without wasting more of your time, let me introduce the panelists. I will start with one question and get us going. And, then we will have discussion. And then we will open it up. Starting from my immediate right is grace ramsey. She is working with a lot of communities who have worked a long time with the Organization Fair vote. Evan mcmullen is the cofounder and executive director of standup republic. He has from utah where there is a lot of interest in these ideas as well. To his right, christopher lamarrs Legal Counsel of the Campaign Legal center. That is founded around the time of this one, and i have had a long connection to Campaign Legal center and they are helping a lot of communities figure out not just political but the legal challenges facing these reforms. In my colleague, lee, who is a senior fellow. He is the author of a book coming out in january called breaking the two Party Doom Loop the case for multiparty democracy in america. What i want to do for you you in the room and the cspan audience, i want to make sure we have clarity about what we are talking about. I will start by asking grace to talk about when you are out in a community and people are curious about the idea and have not heard much about it, how do you describe it . I will let you do that and then we will do the rest of the panel. Grace for a little bit of context, i came to this work in 2013, in minneapolis where they use ranked Choice Voting. They had passed it in 2006 and had used it in 2009, none of the races have been competitive. In 2013 there was an open seat for mayor, and plenty of Competitive City Council races. They came in a Voter Education campaign to make sure the first time it was going to factor into the results that the voters were aware of the system being used and how their vote was going to work. In that case, if i was talking to a voter planning to vote, i would say ranked Choice Voting while it may be a new term is what it sounds like. Voters rank their choices in order of preference. He would say the first choice is the candidate you love, the second choice is a candidate you like, and the third choice is a candidate you can stand. When we count those votes, you only take the votes for the favorite candidates to make an accurate view of where the voters stand. Where it differs is that if no one gets a majority. When you are electing one seat you want to elect a candidate with a majority. If no one reaches the threshold we eliminate that voter with the fewest votes and the voters who selected that candidate, their vote goes to their second choice. This continues until a candidate has a majority. For different cities and different systems who use it to elect, there are different ways you can apply it. For the voter, the basis is that you will rank the candidates in order of choice. Mark when people talk about it and say what problem are you solving . Grace one thing to be frank that i found is that if you talk about politics people will provide you that the problems that they see quickly. I have not come across a voter who says that everything is great, let us not change everything. In different circumstances eight can apply differently. In minneapolis the situation we saw was that there was in august primary that narrowed the field to two. We saw turnout from 15 to 5 , the students were not back yet. This is a large cost to the city to open up the polls and do all of this, but it is not an accurate view of the voters. You are having 15 narrow the field and there is disproportionate power. So the city decided to eliminate that primary election and have one general election using ranked Choice Voting, essentially having the same conversation when more voters were present. Mark you are talking about nonpartisan. So, instead of two rounds you are going to one round. Grace there are several other situations where cities adopted this because they had a runoff election. One place where i have heard a lot of discussion and we have not Seen Movement is primaries generally even if they are partisan. There are several examples where there have been fierce partisan primaries with several candidates. You can get outcomes that are not intuitive, like people getting through with 25 when a majority did not approve of them as a candidate. This can be a way to work this, and for party unity, you can build to rather than having a knockdown fight before you have gone up against the other party. Mark you want to take it up . Evan how i talk about it . Mark you can talk about it and how it relates to your experience . Evan the way we view life is through a prism of what we have already experienced and, not to get all philosophical, i spent over 10 years with the Central Intelligence agency, so i often see a lot of the challenges the country faces from a National Security frame. This is one of them. I look at the country and the Political Polarization that we are experiencing that is not my own assessment, pew has great data that they have collected that show our parties are moving towards extremes or at least away from each other. The more that happens, the harder it becomes for us to govern ourselves. We are in this grand experiment of selfgovernance but we are failing to govern ourselves. The world is so dynamic now, whether it is changes in industry, changes in climate, it is the way changes the way we communicate with each other, the way information flows, opportunities and risks that are associated. We live in a very dynamic world, and, especially now, we have got to be able to have a functioning government, but we do not pass budgets, we do not appropriate appropriately. We do not have solutions for infrastructure issues. Health care, Information Warfare threats and so many other things. And, that is, i look at that and see a National Security threat, we are failing to govern ourselves because our parties are so divided, and our adversaries abroad are seeing this and exploiting that. Opportunistic politicians are exploiting the divisions and the result is that we cannot govern ourselves and that his rise to fear and more extreme leaders that will come to power capitalizing those divisions and that lack of effective governance. I am one that believes that we have got to change the incentive that shapes the way our leaders lead. My idea is that ranked Choice Voting is a couple of reforms that offer the best opportunity to change those incentives, so that leaders are more incentive vibes to find Common Ground with their rivals and them and straight the Common Ground to build on it. How does that impact policy . Grace and i are running against each other and she has strong supporters that will never support me as a first pick, but i had the opportunity to show Common Ground and hopefully win second choice, and may be the same is true in return, and that can give way to ways forward on even the most divisive policy challenges that the country faces. And so, that is what motivates me and why i am so passionate about this. I think the country is facing a real weakness associated with Political Polarization and that ranked Choice Voting to change the incentives to remedy that. Mark chris, how do you see ranked Choice Voting evolving . Chris almost piggybacking off of evans philosophical view. The thing i am really concerned about is the responsiveness of politicians to voters. With ranked Choice Voting, one of the things that you see is that instead of having to choose between two candidates who are sort of on the polar opposites of the very end of the spectrums in terms of political positions that are maybe not actually that popular within the electorate, with range Choice Voting the thing that you see is the politicians coming back into the center and talking about ideas that are actually very popular amongst the electorate. Again, getting into policy positions is one of the things i am really concerned about. You will see elections where if something is hyper polarized you will see politicians saying i want to make sure that the 15 people who vote for me, i want to make sure that those 15 of people come out and vote for me instead of making sure that i do not care less about the 15 of my group and focusing on the remainder of the city that i am trying to get their elections from. That is my main concern. Mark in a way, there is a problem that elections are primarily about mobilization and create a different tone than elections about persuasion of undecided voters. Chris i have heard stories of people talking about campaigns when they are going doortodoor where not going to door and say who are you voting for in this election . Someday already has their first choice. Normally, the door slams in your face and you go into the next one. But, with ranked Choice Voting you could have your second and third choice. That is the way to keep the conversation going. Mark one of the things that we have not discussed is the challenge in certain places that in addition to mobilization you could have a winner without a majority. Which is what led people to the idea, which is another potential. It is interesting that none of you described that as part of the problem to be addressed. You assure that the winner has some kind of support. Do you want to talk about it . I think you kind of have a bigger ambition for where all of this could go. Lee well, i agree. I think we have a large consensus on the panel that we are at this moment of really destructive hyper partisanship that is a fundamental threat to our system of government, which demands a high level of compromise, and give and take. The way our two party system is currently operating is everything is about destroying the other party for an electoral gain. We are having this Panel Discussion as the storm clouds of impeachment cover this town. It is amazing to see what republicans are doing right now to support donald trump despite the stream of revelations of offenses that he has committed. That is a function of this binary hyper partisanship that republicans in congress cannot break with trump because there is no other party for them to run, except for the democrats and a lot of them are not going to run as democrats for obvious reasons. If there was another party, a centerright party, a ranked Choice Voting system that created space for third parties, who would not be treated as spoilers because voting for a third or fourth party in a range Choice Voting system is not wasting your vote it is expressing your voice. I think you would see a lot of republicans breaking with the president and may be forming a new party. I have a book coming out in january called breaking the two Party Doom Loop a case for multiparty democracy, in which i advocate for ranked Choice Voting and multiwinner choice policy and it would allow districts were maybe five representatives go to congress and the top five after a ranked Choice Voting process and that creates space for multiple parties. One of the things, when we look comparatively around the world. The u. S. Is rare and strange with a two party system. It is not that americans wants two parties, it is because we have electoral institutions that make it hard for third parties to compete. We have winner take all, plurality, Electoral Systems. Multiparty democracys allow for more flexibility, more fluidity, voter choice and engagement, because voters are more likely to find a candidate and party that represents them. And, every election is competitive. In our winner take all system, we have 90 of congressional districts that are not even competitive because when partisan voting is high it is clear who is going to win. Ranked Choice Voting, multimember districts, that would be less certain. Parties compete and voters have an opportunity to express their voice. Although, it is not a silver bullet, because there is no fixing politics, i think ranked Choice Voting and multi winner form will bring us to proportion representation and would fundamentally solve a lot of the problems that are really in our democracy this moment. To me, is the most important reform that has a chance of happening in the next five to 10 years. Mark you are almost envisioning the mechanism of ranked Choice Voting as opening the door to the possibility of multimember districts and multi winner systems, and multiparty democracy. I assume, like grace, and you are talking to the people in the community and most of the people who are potentially supporters are democrats or republicans as they start out, that might not be the best starting point. Is that a solution that people are looking for . Yet . I am just curious. I am curious if any of you have have had that vision work . Grace the easy answer is not quite. I think a few things are true. Since the 2016 election, for whatever reason, people on both sides of the aisle are awake, whether they are motivated or scared, whatever their reasoning is. I have seen that across the country. We have seen turn out up in municipal elections which we have not seen in 20 years. We are seeing more activity than we have. One thing we have realized, i think for a long time you do not think to question the status quo. These were systems that you were raised to believe were always around and we do not think about how young democracy is and if the system was right for us. We were not taught to reconsider those unless you are talking about redistricting. I think once you give people the opportunity to think about it, i have seen a positive sponsor. One thing that has been interesting, this work has largely been in and educational space. Once you introduce people to the ideas and say this is a problem that you are seeing and this is the solution that i am providing you, education is what is necessary to sate this is a system that exists and this can be changed. People are welcoming to that conversation, it is a matter of presenting it and in a way that people can digest. I do not use first past the post very often, or plurality. You use it in a language that people will understand and make something where it doesnt feel the reticle, but very real. People are open to changing. Mark we have this audience in the cspan audience. Let us define these. It is not hard to do. Just so we are clear. First past the post is a nickname, it comes from horse that whoever is ahead gets the most votes wins. Now, that does not necessarily mean a majority. You can get 30 of the votes and when if the other candidates get less than 30 . This was a 1430 innovation coming from the british countryside and it replaced consensus voting which turned out to be difficult. The framers, who were debating a lot of things in 1787 did not debate Electoral Systems because there is only one at the time, it was a candidate based, whoever gets the most votes wins. That was what elections were. And, it was not until the mid19th century that Electoral Reformers started innovating and coming up with different ideas. Ranked Choice Voting wasnt innovation in the early 19th century. Janice mill was a tremendous proponent of it. Over the course of the early 20th century a lot of the systems caught on. Australia has used it, ireland has used it. That was probably more than you bargained for. Mark it definitely was. I said anyone could do it. But, not like that. Let us pull back to that Bigger Picture that we were talking about of what is the potential of a system with rcv in place. What is the big dream that you have of what becomes possible. Chris for me, it is the enactment of policy that the majority of voters agreement. It is as simple as that. That is a goal for me, just seeing politicians responsive to the things voters want and politicians enacting things that voters actually want. Mark good. Evan we have to realize that there are politicians, many of them, as a matter of political strategy try to divide us. We know that, some of them are visible, some are less visible. It is a strategy, think about that and our leaders, in order to gain power for themselves are trying to divide us as a strategy to gain and hold onto power. It used to be that this would happen in deep red or deep blue districts where you only had to worry about your primary, we have gone beyond that. You see moderate republicans in the house, and i could name names, but i do not want to shame them in this moment. Even republicans in the house generally thought of as responsible and forward thinking and moderate still conservatives. Even they now are adopting a divisive approach. They are abandoning the strategy of i am going to do what i need to do to get through the primary and turning to a unifying campaign. They have won that in the past and they use to win on that. You watch their rhetoric and it is not that. They find a way to get on board with more Senior Division of dachshund divisive leaders and their message, including i will say the president , in my view. That is a very alarming fact. It is something that should concern us all. Our leaders should work to unite us. It just seems so basic. We are a weaker country, our system of selfgovernment fails when we are so divided. It does not mean that we have to agree on everything, we will not and we should have vibrant debates, at around for example our values, and the health of our system of selfgovernment, there needs to be Greater Unity than there is right now, and we certainly cannot have leaders who are trying to divide us and weaken the country. I am genuinely worried that if we continue we may lose the america that we have known, even in its imperfect state. We may lose what has been good about america. And, it may not take that much longer. What my vision is, and i like lees vision of opening up the political process. I have run as an independent. I think there should be more competition and players. Maybe as a more immediate impact, or con current impact, i want leaders who work to unite us, and work at their full strength in our country and help it survive modern challenges and thrive. Lee yes. The binary political system has a zerosum logic that if i make my opponent seem evil, and corrupt, then i win. It is a lesser of two evils logic. In writing my book i did research and i tried to find out if there was a phrase the lesser of three evils, and i did some research on the internet, and i found it. It was the original title of a martial arts film, which did very poorly under that title, and they change the name to fist of the warrior. There is no lesser of three evils, because in a three or four person race, you start attacking your opponent, you look bad too. So, obviously candidates should draw distinctions, but you look really bad when you go negative, and you start questioning the patriotism and loyalty of the other candidate. And that is what all of our politics have become, and it is so destructive. There is a pew survey that shows that the level of how partisans thought about each other it was bad in 2016 and now partisans are more hateful and 2019 than they were in 2016. Where does it go from here . Mark in the past couple of years we have had successes with ranked Choice Voting. We have had maine. It kind of snuck up on me that it is on the ballot as a charter reform in new york city. I am so sorry to do this, but i sense we are shifting to another part of the conversation, can i build on this . There is talk about how ranked Choice Voting could make the tone of campaigns a little less negative and lee mentioned that. I think a lot of people dismiss that as when a democracy it is roughandtumble and there will be intense debates and we should not worry too much about the tone, and maybe that is a pollyanneish desire to concern yourself. I agree that it is so important, and enough to interrupt. And, i want to say that the tone of our campaign does really matter. The reason why is because it impacts the way our leaders in their campaigning mode and otherwise impacts the way we think about our political rivals and the other side. And, if it is negative, or too negative, it closes us off to listening to the other side. When we stop listening to the other side, first of all our ideas get weak because they are not challenged. We have our ideological purity that we apply to ourselves and others and we are not sending to anyone so our ideas are not challenged so they get weaker. Ironically the weaker they get the more committed we are. We actually start breaking apart and all of that, and we become more vulnerable to disinformation, and we know we have domestic and foreign entities pumping information at us all day long. It is a major challenge we face. The extent to which we demonize the other side in a way that we stop listening and our minds are closed. We are not trying to understand. We become vulnerable to lies about each other, and that impacts even further our ability to govern ourselves. I hope that was worth it. Mark totally worth it, because i think it is a great idea, but there is a lot of factors that create the negative tone. The attention environment is so tough to get through, so the idea that i demonize and then broad discourse with everybody. And that everybody is participating in listening, it is a hard thing to do, and that is not just because there is fox news. It is a lot harder to get through manic use to. In either direction. It is harder for voters to get through to politicians and vice versa. I guess, is it enough what does it need to go along with . To have that effect of changing . Grace i want to share how we archers talking to candidates. And a few things that will provide a look at what we are looking at. The conversation has become more about how you are campaigning against than who you are trying to represent. When we shift the incentives we find out that when you have to talk about policy more than you are prepared to. If you are busy talking about your opponents previous life in whatever way it has manifested itself, you are not presenting a plan, you are presenting an alternative to a bad thanks. And these conversations that we have with candidates, the way we largely view elections now in the way you approach them is a venn diagram of these are the people with me, these are the people against me and this is who is in the middle and that is who you go after. You are scrambling for the folks in the middle who may be undecided and they are disappearing rapidly and the tactics that you will take to get people to that space are ugly, quite frankly. What we tell candidates now, a key phrase is distinguished. You will have to present ideas different from your opponents. We talk about how this can pull people to the middle. There is something there for sure, but maybe not back to the middle but you have to present people with an idea. I think a lot of times we are saying do not vote for this other person and that is not a vision. What we tell candidates that instead of thinking of a venn diagram you are thinking of concentric circles. This is the base of support, these are the people who will show up for me. I know that they will going to rank me first. And then you think if that does not get me to 50 , how will i build on the base and bring more people in and convince them that the vision i am presenting is one that appeals to them. It shifts the incentives on how you are viewing your constituents. If you are viewing 40 of the people against you, even if you win the race you are not viewing them as your constituents. Some elected officials do. I know several people will hear the concerns of constituents who may be of the opposite party, but it seems to be disappearing rather quickly. I think when you shift the incentives, you shift not only what i Campaign Looks like, what voters expect. It is a job interview, we should be interviewing these people. You are doing this, i think changing the incentives puts it back on the voters, what are the things that are affecting the community that i want you to legislate on, and then shift the incentives for the candidates to say i need to Pay Attention to what is going on and i need to be responsive. By shifting those it is less us versus them and what does the Community Need . Mark we had a big discussion in this room a few months ago, and i think one of the things i learned was that there is not only talking to the voters about the idea, there is also talking to the candidates. It is not automatic that the candidate say different system have to communicate differently. It is a change, it is a challenge and there is education on two levels. Grace you do not want candidates accidentally acting against their own interests. It is a shift in culture, in campaign culture, and also in governing. Preparing voters and candidates for that, seeing voters hold candidates accountable is something that has been cool to see someone who works on this. We had a candidate in 2013 throw a jab in the debate, and this is in minnesota, so it was nice. It was like i do not like this idea potentially, maybe. And people were like, oh my god. You see people reinforce that but they have to understand the intentions for candidates in the understanding of the system, the leverage that they have is voters and the power, and that takes education. We are accustomed to feeling voiceless or trying to yell as loud as possible and showing alternatives can be helpful. Mark while we are on this, obviously money is a big factor. And, how does ranked Choice Voting intersect with either how money and politics works now, or how it might work with some changes. Some of you work on that issue also. Grace do we all look at chris . Chris the answer is i do not know how money and politics have worked in the maine congressional elections. That is what i was thinking about. Im not sure yet. The most interesting experiment is that if they do it in new york and new york city has what i think is a kind of ideal system of matching funds for small contributions, that will be interesting. Of course, more candidates means that the money is potentially mattering more if a bunch have too little to get to the gate, but maybe ranked Choice Voting will help. Grace at the same time you are eliminating the cost of a runoff election. Citywide, you are also saving money to fund the candidates. Mark i did want to talk a little bit about what you have seen go into the idea catching on, and what seems to happen and what seems to click in a community where people get interested in the idea, and move it forward, and then i want to talk about challenges. Any of you. Grace there is a lot of different places where we are talking about this so i will highlight a couple talking about why it was right for the community. Santa fe, new mexico used it for the first time in 2018. Before that they had a one round election in march. Their turnout was pretty low. Not surprisingly, but they were having people elected with far less than a majority. And so, a lot of times it is finding the problem it exists and why it is a solution. For folks there it was you should not be punished for having more choices. There should not be unintended consequences for people wanting to represent their city. Having a system that allows those people to run, but also making sure that a candidate elected is supported by the majority of the city is important for the representation of the voters. That is one example. In maine, our political system is designed to work well if there are two candidates. When there are three, and all three are viable you can have all sorts of stuff happen. For voters in maine, i think it was nine of the last 11 elections were decided or won by a candidate without a majority. Mark 11 gubernatorial . Grace yes. That was an interesting place to phone bank, because i stopped looking at partisan designations and was just calling people and finding that if i presented the problem they provided me with whoever they were mad about, whoever it was, there was always an answer. When you have situations like that, particularly seeing that the system that exists does not reflect the political realities, this is a logical solution for a lot of people. It is seeing how the system is not accurately representing the world. I think there is a real opportunity at the municipal and city level where elections can be less partisan anyway. And so, there is less of a partisan fight to begin with. In utah now there is a statesponsored Pilot Program and two cities have taken advantage of it and are implementing ranked Choice Voting. There are a number of municipalities who have considered it who may adopt it in the next, and that is something that we and others are working on. I think there is an opportunity. Also, another piece of this that i am passionate about is how empowering this is for voters, for republicans and democrats, and for everyone. I find that the argument that it empowers voters and puts more in the hands of the people resonates with people across the political spectrum. And, i think that is important because i have had conversations with moderate members of congress who i was sure would be supportive of ranked Choice Voting and, at least for now or initially i was wrong, and the reason why i thought they would support it is because i thought they would fair well. I do not think it is a way to support moderates exactly, i think of it as a way of unifying leaders. I think that ranged voting incentivizes people unifying leaders. I have gone to them and said what do you think about it, and ive actually been surprised that they havent been as supportive as i thought they would have been because they were elected under the Current System and they would like to keep that system. When you go talk to actual voters, and you tell them that you can make a change to the ballot, i think it is wise to not over complicate what this is. We can change the ballot so that when you go in to vote, you get to more fully express what your preference is. It is crazy that now you only get to choose one person. Life is not like that in any other way. We rank where we like to go out eat, our sports teams, friends. [laughter] parents, family members, children, everybody. It is such a normal thing. We go through life with a set of preferences that are evolving and we are considering these things. It is part of being free. Somehow, when we vote we still have to pick this one boring way to just say who are one pick is. I think voters, you talk about it in terms of empowering them, whether it is people far on the left, moderate, centrists, or people on the left, there is in a norm is possibility to build strong passion, not just support for this change. Mark i think one of the good Public Education exercises that people have done our those things where you rank the different beers. People have all kinds of tricks like that. Chris in new mexico it was lunch foods. In utah, we did desserts. Those things help distinguish different states. Grace we couldve done here with the beers. Evan stick around for the happy hour. If you are watching at home, get it out of your fridge. Mark before we open it up, i want to get your sense of what you worry about. What you worry about, and what you think we should know more about. I know we have talked a lot with political scientists about the areas of research we should be looking at. What do you think fears and unknowns about ranked Choice Voting . Chris i think my fear right now is in the implementation stage. The federal Agency Responsible for certifying election machines, they recently certified the software that is actually able to do ranged voting. I am worried more broadly about how states, once you are really in the weeds about Software Programs and making sure that people understand what happens when you were involved in a voting space, there are various ways about the surplus boats, and what happens if we are talking about multimember districts if candidate a is over 50 plus one, what happens with the votes that are over 50 plus one for the candidate. Do they go to other people . If they do, how do they figure that out. Trying to explain that to people. I was trying not to say quota. Grace i was going to say you lost anyway. Chris it is very easy when we are talking about a mayor or what do you want for lunch between these three options. Once you get into the weeds, i am trying to explain that people is difficult. We talked about the constituency and voters. Election administrators are important and it changes their lives significantly. What they do in ireland as they make it a big National Event where everybody is following it and they are reallocating preferences and people get into it in ireland. How is the education for 100 years ago . They were at war 100 years ago. Mark what do you worry about or what do you want to see . What i worry most about is those who have risen to power in the Current System coming to office in the Current System, fighting for the status quo because it served them. And, they have enormous megaphones, and they can use them to beat back reforms that the country needs because they are afraid that their interests will be harmed. That is what i worry about most, but i will say that i am not afraid, because i think that there is, even with regard to that, because there is so much potential to generate so much Popular Support cross partisan for this reform. I think it is very powerful, i do not think it is as hard to sell as some people would like you to believe. But, i think those sort of trying to protect the status quo because power is wrapped up in the status quo, that is the real opposition, they are the real opposition, not republican, conservative, or democrats or progressives. I think we can all be united and there is a possibility and potential to unite people around the reform. I think the opposition will be officeholders. Mark why do you worry about . What do we want to dig into . Grace the work im doing is educating voters, and i think, as i said, a lot of what i do i do not feel the need to advocate, education does it by itself. I think we need to invest in that in different ways, and i worry that if i am coming in at this point when you changed your election system but you are not educated on what your city council or state legislature could do. I worry where we are at with folks knowing what is going on. The National Level thats a lot of attention and there is a circus pulling focus when there is a lot of things happening on ground level. If you are talking to a nonvoter in the midwest, when you tell them your City Government decides what roads get plowed when. People need to know what is happening. In places where this is happening we are finding that coming in with Education Programs and making sure voters are aware or doing a lot of the work. What is scary is that it is not already happening. If people were being taught more about the systems these changes would be happening faster because they would be taught to question those. Mark you are talking about more than education about Electoral Reform could work, but education on who is responsible for what and how to think about your relationship to democracy. Grace common with the intention to teach about a system and then saying this is why you should dissipate with it. I feel really good about the work we are doing and when people are given the opportunity they take to it. It is alarming that it does not happen anyway unless there is a change. Can i get one concern. This is maybe a little bit inside baseball, but it is useful in that these efforts to educate the public about reforms like ranked Choice Voting, and then to drive the reforms forward, it costs money. They are in the political philanthropy space, and there are people who are contributing to these efforts and supporting conversations and efforts like those of our organization, but i still think that the political philanthropy space is collectively still considering how far to go in supporting ranked Choice Voting as a reform. They are still feeling it out, and they are seeing forward progress and it is already happening in maine and elsewhere. It is still a very cautious posture, i would say, and i would of course like to see it be less cautious, and let us get on with it and after it. I think that is something that still needs to happen. Mark we will not be too cautious or slow, and continuing on the status quo, with each election, we are running a higher and higher risk of some sort of fundamental legitimacy crisis. As for the downstream effects of this, i think they are positive, democracy is not something to be solved. It is a living, breathing system that is creating new problems, if it is not than it is not working because democracy is how we settle our disagreements. And, as long as there is a diverse, complicated society, we will have disagreements and we will seek to resolve them. The electoral system that we have now is antiquated, it does not work for a modern, complex democracy, and it is creating perverse incentives that are playing out. We are just around the corner we talk about this being good for the voters. Partnershiplevel of with organizations working to extend Voting Rights with consistently marginalized communities, like africanamericans, rural communities, American Indians indians and so on. Is that even a metric that the r cv Community Holds itself against . And if not, why . What is the fault lie and is there a movement to affect to effect that change . Good question. There are two parts to that, in a lot of the space when im working in historically marginalized communities and talking to candidates and elected officials, there is a im trying to think of the diplomatic word. They do not like this. This new thing they believe is going to lead to them losing their seats and then these can unities not having someone to actually represent them in their communities. On the other site, what im talking to voters about this issue and you explain it to Africanamerican Community groups, they understand it pretty quickly and it makes a lot of sense to them. There is almost a dichotomy of who in these communities actually really likes these proposals. Ranked choicejust voting. It is other things. You go to the candidate and they are not listening. Then i go to the community that invited me there, and it is like, that makes total sense to us. To make to understand why arent we doing this a long time ago. In my experience, there is this dichotomy and i cannot grasp why this is or how to get over that difficulty with the elected officials but that is what i have been seeing so far. Evan that the same thing it talked about, that they know that system . Yes and the historical marginalization and the fear mostlye thing i can compare it to is when it relates to independent redistricting conditions and gerrymandering. The idea of these candidates are concerned about losing their seats are being written out of their seats because of whatever the rules are are the criteria are in these independent redistricting commissions. Even with partisan gerrymandering, you will still pack an africanamerican district and that will still be 100 africanamerican district matter what happens, in certain states. That seat for that community will is be there and they will always be represent a by his darkly the same person. Represented by historically the same person. Getting over that has been hard. [indiscernible] community a movement that is grown drastically within the last five years. A few things are evident. One, for a long time these were small cities where one person can go and if they bother their city council enough to get them to change the law, that is a couple places that have done this or it is one person really getting after it. In those situations, you may not be someone who is an organizer or familiar with White Coalition building is or who thinks about where the different stakeholders are in the community and bringing them along. Those people who have done a good job the back end and talking with people especially with Education Programs. At the movement has gotten bigger we have gotten better at campaigning and understanding that we want to create an inclusive democracy with more people at the table, being able to run and be viable, we recognize we need to build campaigns that look the way we want our movement to an the way we want our electorates to that is something that has grown a lot. Having infrastructure for campaigns and making the something that are built. Also, as part of the sustainability of a movement, winning is half the battle. Mentation is where the real fight is part making sure you have brought people along on the journey, and whether they are on board or not. If you win, you may need to make sure the relationships exist already. Because if it is the first conversation youre having, that can be difficult. The movement is learning a lot in that sense. Id it is doing already well would say in cities where it is being ample meant it. Especially having done the work on the front end to ensure that once the win happens you have brought people along with you and they understand the value both for their community and generally, and pushing that forward once has passed. So you are seeing the results youre hoping to and the culture shift. I persist question further. We talked about elected officials as a category. And the people. As a category. All of the intermarried or organizations, Voting Rights groups intermediary groups, Voting Rights groups, unions, how do they fit in to and rcv conversation . They have been at the table in those conversations in my experience in the states where we are working. Just been meis not and a table full of old white people kind of thing. Thats been a conversation is not 100 reflective of the community but there is not presence and representation coming from those immunities. There is that presence and representation coming for most medias. Case as a talk about Voting Rights remedy . The background is in point, michigan is a city that used to be called east detroit. They did not want to be affiliated with detroit so they changed the name to eastpointe. In 2017, the department of justice, the voting section, brought a section to claim under the Voting Rights act. That they were saying that the city of eastpointe was violating the Voting Rights act, because minority communicate minority can unities were not able to elect someone who represents them. I think in 2000, the city was 4 black. And in 2017 it was 35 black. Dramaticallymped in the span of 17 years. In that span, they were not able to elect a single for candidate. Seminole u. S. Up in court case is thornburg versus jingles. To demonstrate a section to claim it you first have to show the Minority Community is compact enough to actually have a district. The second thing you have to show is the Majority Community historically votes together to act the second element is ,hat, the white voting block the Majority Committee voting block votes in a way to actually stop them or nardi community to stop the Minority Community from representing themselves. Theres a third one i am now forgetting, drawing a blank. The point was that this went to District Court and the District Court agreed. On summary judge on summary judgment. Saying you demonstrated these two elements but not the third. It was getting ready to go to trial on the third issue. On the third issue, before they went to trial, they entered into a consent decree, an agreement not sure theyim agreed they were violating the section to claim. The point is, eastpointe reach an agreement with the plaintiffs , in this case that a prophet, in thishat we agree case the department of justice, to say we enter into a ranked Choice Voting agreement to remedy the section to claim under the Voting Rights act. I have been talking to voters in eastpointe. This is a unique situation. Most of the cities i worked in have not been Court Ordered two youths the system. One, seeing the dedication of people who work for City Government is fascinating. Because it is often so thankless and these people are working so hard to put the best election together that they can in a very short time span. So i cannot say enough about the work they are doing. It is a tough situation. And it is ok to be honest about that. Not only are you using a system you have not heard from, i was not put to the voters. This is the only situation i entered into where there was not public discussion about what happens. I think the city council had several potential remedies put in front of them and this is what they came up with. But it has been a process to make sure people understand. They think every time we have a conversation i think we get further. I think there is a better understanding. But it is a unique circumstance with a ton of potential. But also there is risk involved of making sure that people feel they are all being brought along. There has been so far great work being done by the city i hope im helping in the ways i am. Voters are receptive. But it is very, very jarring in this situation. And im glad there are measures put into place to make sure people are being brought along. For reference, this is the first case where the doj considered ranked Choice Voting as a remedy. That was the thing that caught almost everyones attention about this consent decree. Little bitou say a about the potential for multi member districts to reduce the situation where you have representatives of color and representatives who can ignore nonwhite constituents. With ranked Choice Voting it was a element. The remedy we have used for minority representation is to carve out geordie minority districts. Majorityve out minority districts. That has worked to create this scripted descriptive representation. But it has secondorder challenges. One, italy works to serve communities that are self worksated one, it only to serve communities that are self segregated. That has worked pretty well for African Americans historically, the less well as more africanamericans moved to the suburbs. And it has never worked particularly well for hispanic voters who are more dispersed. It has not worked at all for asian voters. The advantage of multimember districts, particularly with ranked Choice Voting is that you do not have to be segregated in a community to elect your candidate of choice. Also, the ranked Choice Voting element is particularly important here because it means that candidates are not just reaching out to their ethnic community, youre trying to build a broader base of support, which builds across coalitional cons of partnerships. Countries that have experienced Ethnic Violence and are rewriting the constitution, it is often recommended that they have ranked Choice Voting for precisely this reason. It forces folks to get out of their own ethnic group and really try to build those coalitions by competing for second or third choices. It has real potential. To considerably improve minority representation. When democracy experts look kind ofystems, what electoral system is the best for minority representation, the system we have now is a single winner districts with plurality voting is universally dismissed as the absolute worst foreman already recitation. Portional representation with ranked Choice Voting it seemed as better because it does not force committed is to self segregate. And it forces representatives to compete for those votes, even if they are not going to be the first choice of that community. I will make sure we get summer questions. Some more questions. The gentleman in the blue shirt. Im a freelance journalist. The drivers of the division and hyper partisanship we see is not just the Voting System, it is also this Disinformation Network that finds it very profitable to exacerbate and inflame divisions. We honor who we are talking about. We all know who we are talking about. But that is not the same as the Voting System but it is intertwined. I think it was mentioned earlier, i wonder if you could explore that a little more. How would a ranked choice system affected this info bubble dynamic . Do you want to take it . Lee are you looking at me . Im happy to start. You know, i just think, in order for this disinformation to penetrate and thrive, it has to be able to take advantage of our antipathy, our biases against the others, whoever they are. And we live in a time where that kind of partisanship and division is being modeled by our leaders, by some of our leaders, many of our leaders, b, its something they are using as a strategy to empower themselves, so they are furthering it themselves. So the incentives, and by the way, the disinformation obviously helps them. So its this destructive feedback loop that they plug into rather than divide their electorate as a way to help them hold on or gain power. And so we have to disrupt that. We have to interrupt that somehow. And i see ranked Choice Voting as a way to do that. If all of a sudden leaders cant win by being divisive one thing, theyre less likely to win by being divisive. One story i would give as an example is Bruce Poliquin in maine. Bruce was a city member of member of congress and he was, personally, i thought he was just a tremendous guy, very nice guy, was often the most reasonable guy in the room when i worked on the hill, among house republicans, really tried to he was always a unifier. He was always a unifier within the republican conference. And then ranked Choice Voting was instituted for his race in maine and he was then confronted with this new system. And had i been advising him, and i really wish i would have been, i would have said this is perfect for you. You can thrive in it. Instead, he worked against his own interests and ran a divisive campaign, even in a ranked Choice Voting system. But had he been a little bit smarter or had somebody advised him better, he would have known to model unifying leadership and rhetoric, because that would have helped him have a better chance of prevailing. And he would have then been pushing back against disinformation thats intended to divide, misinform obviously, or to disinform and divide. So i think ranked Choice Voting helps us break the cycle by changing incentives for these candidates, changing the incentives for them, dissuading them from plugging into and trying to capitalize and exploit the dangerous and destructive power of disinformation to their own benefit. Mark in the front row here. You have to wait. [laughter] hi, austin. Im curious how you see the influence of National Parties changing under a ranked choice system. Say it was implemented as acrosstheboard as major , providers of funding, infrastructure, even recruiting candidates in the first place. As mark was mentioning, there are more candidates and the pool of money is diluted, could they be more empowered to pick winners anyway . Or if there influences diminished do empower purse people with personal wealth to run. Lee thats a great question. I think we would see more parties emerging because youre suddenly if you run as a third party not a spoiler anymore. ,you are not a spoiler anymore. In our Current System, third parties are, all the ambition, all the two major parties, the money goes to because only republicans or democrats stand a chance of winning in the system. But there are a lot of folks who would organize third, fourth, fifth parties, if suddenly those candidacies were not seen as spoilers. And doomed. As for the money in our system we have a series of , campaignfinance rules that make it very easy for people with incredible sums of money to wield disproportionate influence. Thats the problem with our campaignfinance law, whether or not theres ranked Choice Voting or not is not going to change the campaignfinance law. What i think it can do is i think make it easier to change our campaignfinance law. One of the reasons we cant get campaignfinance reform is because whichever party is in power benefits from the power of incumbency, which means its a lot easier to raise money when you are the incumbent party because people want to give to you to have access. And its very hard, and when youre always worried about the next election and raising tons of money to raise advertising to run advertising against your opponent, its harder to support campaignfinance reform. But i think in a congress that is less zerosum, less just about my party crushing the other party, i think you can much more easily reach a consensus around finance reforms that would reduce the influence of big money in politics. Grace i also think within the parties themselves, this might sound a little pollyanna, and i am just realizing but im , going to go for it. This conversation has been bubbling beneath the surface for some time now, not just what would it take to raise the money, but the wait your turn mentality. And how we create those structures of knowing when its your time, whatever party that may be. With a system like this, theres no harm in running. Youre not taking anything from your opponent, so theres an opportunity to have broad conversation about what their electorate wants. You can have these people running in these primaries if they choose to step forward, however that may make you feel if theres a favorite candidate, that might be a different discussion. But you can have them. This is something we have seen and occasionally where it can push the platform or the issues, and finding out what the electorate wants and how to bring people back in. If theres anything weve seen the last 1520 years, people are leaving the parties in an alarming rate. The largest are independents at block of voters in the United States are independents at this point. And having contests where there are new voices or a more robust conversation instead of this is our party platform. This is what this is what were. This is what were running on, i think could really benefit them if looking to bring people back in. Or what lees talking about is likely to happen, where there are fractures and other parties emerging that speak to those interests. Both could happen and both serve as opportunities for different people. Mark your point reminds me of something i wanted to touch on. I know there has been conversation about some states using ranked Choice Voting for the democratic president ial primary and theres attention on who second choices are, biden, sanders, warren, what is the status of those conversations . Are there going to be do we know , yet . Grace i believe six states have committed, four states are committed. There are several experts in the crowd. I believe alaska and hawaii are among them, but i do not have the other two in my back pocket right now. It seems something that these states are considering. If you are thinking about it several states still use , caucuses. Mark when i heard about it, the idealized iowa caucus, hanging out all night and trading off, more timeconsuming form. Hello im sam with delicious. Democracy, and were working on a local they just introduced a local d. C. Ranked Choice Voting bill, and right now im building a coalition. Right now we see the dynamic youre talking about, where you reference where a lot of the black politicians are worried it will be bad for black people and low information voters. Their vote will count yes. Less. Theres a lot of scared tactics. But when you talk to Racial Justice and equity groups, theyre all on board with it. Im wondering, one, how do you deal with these scare tactics . I think there are legitimate concerns, even you guys didnt bring up, of doing it at scale might be hard. Some people say you cant do it with a big election. And also, how, in a president ial or Electoral College system, had different states and different counties using it how , those interact. I think those are legitimate concerns. But more, how do you deal with these kinds of scare tactics around old people, their vote will count less if they dont want to rank. And also, yeah, to jump off of her point, i think there is a Racial Justice influence impact, Racial Justice emphasis we could have on this, and i dont see it being made enough. Im curious what you think. Christopher for me, the first question depends on what the polling looks like. We work with groups in certain jurisdictions where they add the question thats basically like, do you support ranked Choice Voting . And explain what it is. Unless a the approval for that in the Minority Community as 70 . And in the next question is, do you would you support this proposition that your congressperson opposes . And its the same question, and it drops dramatically. Other instances, it doesnt. In you have to look at the field and what the field tells you and what the people on the ground tells you. Theres some groups that say we dont need that persons support in order to go forward. Other places is like, in other contexts, if we dont have this persons support, its d. O. A. , that sort of thing. It depends on whats going on in that jurisdiction that lets you know how you should play that game. Grace and id say the most common concern youre going to get from an elected official, and its fair on its face, is voters will be confused by this. There are several different ways voters can get educated. Seeing the ballot is the most effective way. That can be achieved. But a lot of it is confidence. We dont get quite that far. In those conversations. A lot of things that are new are scary. Thats normal. Thats human existence. But if you make sure people are getting the information ahead of time, those concerns go away quickly. When you contextualize it as something other than politics, because that is the new application. We think this way all the time. We think this way all the time. Like evan said if im going to a , Movie Theater and i decided i needed to have popcorn and the movie is sold out, i take the next movie i want to see and see that movie. If that is what im trying to do. So i think that taking that out of context can be effective. But a lot of times, i think, in organizing this, messengers are essential. Doing that organizing on the front end so its constituents who are older voters, this is something that i really support, something i want to engage with, and im here to educate my community. That can be really powerful in those situations. Youll still get the same response, to be clear. A lot of times, people believe this system is the best because it worked for them. If they are elected under that system. And thats completely intuitive. When youre trying to change that thinking, there is a grasping at what makes sense to them or what their initial fears are. If youve done that work to make sure on the front end that you have the coalition that can speak to those things and provide the infrastructure to say thats being addressed, it may not inoculate that person. They may still stay opposed, but it does disprove a lot of what theyre saying. Delicious democracy. [laughter] mark tell us more later when were done. I feel like the last couple questions opened up some of the areas really for research and further thinking, and lees going to be leading. We dont know all the answers either, but its worth digging into. Some of these questions about what makes it possible for voters to fully engage. With that, i think want to first team for local reform pulling this panel together. And from new america. I hope youll join us for the new america 2010 a verse or he events coming up. And i want to thank all the panelists for joining us. Well have a little bit of a reception. For those, of you on cspan youre on your own. [laughter] for those of you in the room, there is food and beverage. Again, thank you very much for coming to new america. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] announcer a new cspan all shows just over half of americans are confident that the 2020 president ial election will be open and fair. There is this it can partisan gap on the question. 72 of her republicans are confident in the system. Only 39 of democrats sure that believe. And 58 of americans think that foreign governments are among the threats to the system. While only 41 of republicans share in that concern, more than three quarters of democrats and over half of independents believe that foreign governments may interfere with u. S. Elections. 31 of people believe the federal government has done enough to protect elections from foreign interference. 54 of republicans report having either a great deal or a fair amount of confident that confidence in federal efforts. 60 of democrats and one quarter of independents agree. Only 16 of democrats and 25 of it depends a great. Whether candidates should require be required to release their tax returns and whether citizen should be required to show a government id to vote. At cspan. Orc, see the rest of the results of the pole. Air markedly talented team in make no mistake about it, the russians are added. They are continuing to do this because they can do it with impunity. Sending hisresident attorney general around the to try to debunk what the Senate Intelligence committee on thatartisan asis, which is the russians try to influence our elections. , except toisputable donald trump and rudy giuliani. We should be getting help from the federal government to protect the integrity of elections. We is state and local government, we should be getting help. You saw the reporting of the former dhs secretary when she was try to bring up election security. Dont bring it up, the president said. I cant trust this government to help them out. One of the indictment alleged russians were attempting to hack into state and local systems. This is really serious stuff. We have built a robust infrastructure. I will never look anyone in the eye and say we are bullet proof. Off than weetter have been. We are continuing to work with partners. One of them is not the federal government. You can hear more from tom perez this week as he talks about topics relevant to the 2020 campaign, including Fundraising Efforts and the democratic president ial debate. Today President Trump delivers remarks on the 14th annual voters summit live in washington ec new washington, d. C. On the free cspan radio app. From friday at the annual value by northmmit, remarks carolina congressman mark meadows. His remarks are 20 minutes