Im glad we have a nice room, comfortable chairs. Im the director of the food and political reform and when i welcome you all to a discussion of the possibilities of ring Choice Voting as it approaches and revives our democracy in various ways potentially solving and bone jump different challenges. America was founded in 1999 with the idea of creating a home for new generation of both people and ideas across a wide range of Public Policy questions, i am one of the oldtimers although i was not here 1989 but i knew the founders and some of the creation and forming the political system has been part of the dna for this situation from the very beginning. As my colleague reminded me rank was in the book and they called it one of the ideas they promoted in line, it is part of that. Then i came back to inform the local Reform Program in 2014, our count funding farming ideaso just and getting beyond Steel Solutions and as we have evolved, i think we found that ideas around voting are more broadly at times but i take it on a farmer can track you in new constituencies and to seemed like a viable solution and we see communities turning to the set of ideas. How to strengthen democracy in their communities. We will pull together a panel of people are working growth on the big level and in the field and promoting these ideas and understanding the problems that would solve and will not solve. We approaches things one thing i would say to political reform, no form is a super magical bullet, theres a great essay by nick who runs issue ten that incentive idea that has to Work Together and this could be one of them. Any idea gets retracted to the culture and demographics of the community and i think we want to touch on some of those ideas. We sting a lot more of your time, we just introduce a panelist and start with one question gives going and then we will get all cleared up. So starting from my immediate rise, he is a consultant on electoral coalitions. Next is cofounder directive executor of student republic, he was a candidate for president in 2016 in utah is Loan Interest in these ideas. And to his right christopher the mark the legal counselor of the legal center, another organization around the time of the soon and ive had a lot of connection in there helping a lot of communities. In the my colleague who is a senior fellow in our political Reform Program, is the author of a book coming out in january, called breaking the twoparty doomed, a case of multiparty democracy in america. I need more expansive vision wonders possibly going on here. For those of you in the room and the cspan audience, i want to make sure were talking about his and hers when youre out and. They passed into thousand six by voters and had used in 2009 but none of the reasons had been competitive. So in 2013 there was an open seat for mayor and plenty of Council Races so i came to this work in a Educator Campaign to make sure the first was going to factor into the results. That the voters were aware that this is going to be used for one and how their vote will work. If i was talking to a motor planning on voting, i would say it may be a new term but it sounds like voters are able to rank choices in order of preference. A lot of times using the first choice is a candidate you love, then the candidate you like and then the candidate you can stand. [laughter] we just count first choices like any other election. To make sure we have an accurate view over the voter stance. If no one gets the majority, your electing one seat and want to elect a candidate with the majority, no one has reached the threshold. Literacy selected the candidate as a first choice could have their book go to the second voice. This process continues until one of the candidates reaches the threshold of 50 . That is the basic, different cities when youre able to relax. The counselor mayor, but for the voter, you will rank them in order of choice. When youre talking to people, do you say one thing to be frank that i found if you talk about politics people were provide you with the problems ac very quickly. I have not come across a voter that said everything is great lets not change anything. But i think in different circumstances it could be applied differently. Minneapolis is a situation where we had in august primary that narrowed down to two in the august primary turned out from 15 5 . And this is a large cost to the city to open up the polls and do all this but is not necessarily inaccurate to the voters. You have 50 narrow the field and they are going to put a tower in the city decided to eliminate and have one general election using rank Choice Voting. Its usually having the same conversation when more voters were present. This is a situation where the parties were not instead of to run to go one round. My others are they had adopted but a runoff election. The problem is different just on the different on the general election. One place i heard a lot of discussion and not Much Movement is primary generally and there several examples that weve seen were fierce candidates and you see those votes splitting you can get out to onl this coule a way to work them for party unity. And you can build consensus rather than having a knockdown drag out site before you gonna against the other party. Evan, do you want to take you could talk about how you see it as something that relates to your experience. We are all not to get all philosophical. But i spent over ten years at the Central Intelligence agency and i see a lot of 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, not my own excess meant in the great data that they collected over decades of sure parties moving towards extremes or way from each other and asked towards us. The more the half of the harder it becomes for us to govern ourselves. Were in selfgovernment but failing to govern herself. Think about it the world is so dynamic whether its changes in industry or changes in climate. And so many other things i see a National Security threat if we fear to govern ourselves because our parties are so divided and our adversaries abroad see this and exploit that if politicians exploit the division and then the end result is we cant govern ourselves and that we get even more extreme leaders coming to power to capitalize and exploit us with that lack of effective governance. So we have got to change the incentive and shape the way our leaders lead. So couple of reforms that offer the best opportunity and to play Common Ground so how does that impact policy and the same was true and not to even the most divisive policy thats why im so passionate to see a real weakness that it could gauge the incentives. And to remedy that. The way you see things with that nonpartisan and that responsiveness so one of the things that you see is that maybe between two candidates on the polar opposite in terms of the put political positions that what use the politicians coming back to the center and talking to these ideas that are very popular. So again getting into policy positions and then use the elections with polarized that 15 percent of those people come out and focus on that remainder of the city. When there is a problem there with mobilization. We heard stories about campaigns going doortodoor. By somebody who has the first choice but normally and then to say who is your second choice . That is the way to keep the conversation going. So one of the things we havent discussed the challenges and then you could have a winner that doesnt have the majority. And that is part of the problem to be addressed. It was a bigger ambition. And that large consensus on the panel of that hyper partisanship which demands a high level of compromise and then the way the twoparty system and it is about destroying others for electoral gains. So with that storm cloud of impeachment that covers this town. It is amazing to see what republicans are doing right now to support donald trump despite the extreme revelations. That is a function of the binary hyper partisanship they have to agree because theres no other party to run as. And with that system that created space within the party. And that system is not wasting your vote but its expressing your voice. A lot of republicans and then run for the new party. I have a book coming out in four ranked Choice Voting and in with those winter districts. And those multiparty democracies. In the extreme twoparty system. Than those that make it very hard with winner take all. And those multiparty democracies. More voter choice and more Voter Engagement and that is competitive with the winner take all. And they are not even competitive. Ranked Choice Voting and member districts and voters have a real opportunity though its not a Silver Bullet so that is a multi winter form which is the modest version which fundamentally solves a lot of the problems of the democracy of this moment. So to me the most important reform has a chance of happening over the next five or ten years. That mechanism of ranked Choice Voting of the member districts and that party democracy. And most of those who are potential supporters are democrats or republicans as they start out that may not be the best starting point. Is that a solution people are looking for yes i dont want to trash a colleague and friend. [laughter] the answer is not quite. So the 2016 election for whatever reason whether they are motivated or scared to see a turnout of municipal elections. So we have seen more activity than we have. For a long time these are systems that had always been around. And for that time potential leave but if you talk about redistricting every ten years. If you give people the opportunity to think about it i have seen a largely positive response so to do this work i am mainly educating and i am not advocating as much to say this is a problem that you see in your community. That this is a system that exist that people are welcoming to the conversation. I dont use plurality very often. And that doesnt feel that a radical theoretical. And who is ahead. And that 30 percent of the vote and 1430 innovation it replaces consensus voting those that debate a lot of things in 1787 but there was only one at that time it was kennedy based ever got the most votes wins. Not until the mid 19th century reformers started to innovate to come up with different ideas. Ranked Choice Voting was an early 19th century option. And over the course the systems caught on. [laughter] so lets pull back so what is the potential of the system . With the big that it is possibl possible. It is that enactment of policies and it is as simple as that. So to see those politicians and what voters want and they enacting things. [laughter] you have to realize now. There are politicians with that political strategy trying to divide us. Some are very visible. And then trying to divide us in power. So what used to be this would happen in those deep blue districts where you only had to worry about your primary. But it is beyond that now. No modern republicans in the house for example, i could name names but i dont want to share them in this moment. [laughter] and moderate and still conservatives . Even now they are adopting a divisive approach and then to a unifying campaign. And then you watch the rhetoric now. And in a way to get on board with their message. That is a very alarming fact that should concern us all. And a weaker country where that system fails when we are so divided. But around those values so there needs to be Greater Unity than there is right now. That purposely tries to divide us. So we may lose the america and we could lose what is good about america. And with that vision to open the political process with more competition i want that too but i just want leaders who work to unite us and strengthen our country to help it survive in a modern environment. Yes. [laughter] this political system that we have if my if i make my opponent corrupt then i win. The lesser of two evils logic. And on that research on the internet. It was from a martial arts film. [laughter] then they changed their name to fist of the warrior. [laughter] in a three or four person race obviously they should draw distinctions but you look really bad when you go negative and then you start questioning the patriotism and the loyalty and thats what all politics has become there is a survey out today that shows partisan of each other and now they are more than they were in 2006. Where do they go from here . In the past couple of years weve had some successes. Because it is on the charter reform i since we are shifting to another part of the conversation. So there is talk about how voting could make the tone of the campaigns a little less negative. We are in a democracy with intense debates. And to worry about the tone. And then to concern yourself with that. And talking about that i agree and enough to interrupt. [laughter] so the towing of the caitlin the tone of the campaign does matter because it impacts the way of the leaders rhetoric to impact the way we think about our political rivals. And then it closes us off to listening to the other side and when you stop listening first of all our ideas get weak because of not challenge. And then to get weaker and weaker and then the more committed we are to them. That we started to break apart and then to become vulnerable to misinformation. It is a major challenge that we face in a way to the extent we stop listening and our minds are closed. We be calm vulnerable and that impacts even further our ability to govern ourselves. So that environment is so tough to be idealized. On this discourse for everybody. Everybody participating in listening to each other. Its a lot harder to get through. And then to get through to those politicians. And then to have that effect. I would like to share how we talk to the candidates in these races. And then to provide what we are looking for their. It is more about who you are campaigning against when we shift those incentives you have to talk about policy more than you are prepared to because you are talking about your opponents previous life so whatever your research told you you have an alternative to this bad thing in these conversations with candidates the way we largely view elections now than these other people that are with me and against me and this is who you go after and you scramble for those who may be undecided in the tactics to get people to that stage. s what we tell candidates now. But then you do have to highlight and there is something there for sure to accept or reject and then to say is that of thinking of the diagram that this is my base of support. Maybe they are knocking doors for me. But then you take a step out. How will i build on that base and get more people in for what appeals to them . And maybe shift the incentive un 40 percent of the people even if you win that race and some elected officials do. And those concerns of the constituents of the opposite party. So now look at what a Campaign Looks like. We should be interviewing them adequately. So what are the values we want to see . And then tuesday i need to Pay Attention what is going on here. We had a big discussion and then choking too talking to the voters about this idea is not how they wake up and behave differently it is a change. It is a challenge. You dont want them accidentally. And also it is a culture to prepare both accountable it is very cool to see. We had a candidate in 2013 and this is minnesota so its very nice and then to reinforce that to understand those incentives. The leverage that they have is the power in education we are very accustomed. Obviously money is a big factor. So how does this intersect and work with the change. [laughter] and quite frankly the answer is i dont know. I dont know how many in politics and if new york city of that small contribution. And potentially but may be ranked Choice Voting could help. So to talk a little bit from the idea of catching on. And then to say they are interested in the idea. There is a lot of different places we are talking about this and santa fe new mexico talk about ring Choice Voting but the turnout was pretty low and also having people elected a lot of time and finds a problem that exist. And then to be pushed for more choices. And then to be supported by the majority of the city. And then to do pretty well. And then it was nine out of the last 11 elections were decided by a candidate who didnt have a majority. So that was an interesting place it with that phone list. And for whoever it was. So when you have situations like that and with that political realities so those different instances. And dad is partisan. There is less partisan hype to begin with. And then they take advantage of. And then those municipalities and from what those are working on. And how empowering this is for voters. And for everyone really but in that empowers them and those with the political spectrum. So those conversations for example those moderate members of congress that i am sure would be supportive or i was wrong because they would fare probably well. This is the only way to support and then ranked Choice Voting. Then to be surprised they havent been as supportive because they were elected under the Current System. But when you talk to actual voters and you tell them to not overcomplicate what this is. And then to be express the preference. Its crazy to think about it now is just one person but life isnt like that in any other way. Like where we like to go out to eat or the sports teams or friends. [laughter] our parents and family sometimes. [laughter] or children but its normal thing but we are evolving and its part of being free but then we have to pick this one way just to say what the one pick is and when you talk about it in terms of empowering if they are far on the right or moderate conservatives or people on the left there is an enormous possibility for this change. One of the Public Education exercises and in new mexico. Stick around for the happy hour. So if you are watching at home i do want to open it up to learn about two things in what you worry about with those areas of research and those unknown of ranked Choice Voting but my fear right now is that implementation stage of those federal agencies responsible to certify those election machines its Like Software that can actually do right Choice Voting so once you are in the weeds about Software Programs and making sure people understand that there are various ways about what happens in the district of candidate ahab was 50 percent what about those that are over 50 percent . As a go to other people and if they do how do you figure that out . Shouldnt they explain that to people . [laughter] very easily talking about what you want for these few options but. And talk about the constituency of candidates and those that are important to here also now in iowa its a big event they reallocate the preferences thats also the education from 100 years ago. [laughter] so what do you want to see more research . What i worry most those who have power in the Current System with the status quo because it serves them they have enormous megaphones and we use that to beat back the reforms they are afraid their interest will be harmed im not afraid i just think that there is so much potential to generate so much Popular Support frankly for this report. I think its very powerful its not as hard to sell as some would like you to believe. But those were trying to protect the status quo, that is the real opposition not republicans or conservatives or democrats or progressives there is a real possibility that to unite people it is a real opposition. The work im doing right now is educating voters as i said before a lot of what i do i dont feel the need to advocate i think education does that itself but we need to invest in that so if im coming in at this point for what your state legislature can do i just worry where we are at for whats going on the National Level with this kind of circus with things happening from the ground level talking to a non voter in the midwest now they are a city voter. People dont even know whats happening so for me in the places this is happening with the Education Program it is doing a lot of that work but people were more aware of this or they would be happening faster anyway. Talking more than just education but fundamentally but for what so here is why you should participate so in terms of that education work we are doing when given the opportunity they really take to it but its hard unless there is a change. Maybe this is inside baseball but the deep efforts to educate the public of ranked Choice Voting to drive for that cost money and that Political Landscape obviously there are those that contribute to these efforts like those of our organizations. I still think that philanthropy space collectively is still considering how far they can go with rink Choice Voting as a reform with forward progress its already happened and what impact it has. Is still a very cautious posture of course i would like to see it be less cautious , but that something that still needs to happen. So now to be too cautious and too slow with the status quo with each election running a higher and higher risk is a fundamental crisis with the downstream effect democracy is it something to be solved that always creates new problems if not then its not working because thats how we settle our disagreements as long as there is a diverse complicated thats how we will resolve them but the electoral system we have now is antiquated and it doesnt work for a modern and complex democracy that is creating perverse incentives playing out just around the corner from the white house. It is all too close. Someone will bring your microphone so dont Start Talking until somebody has brought you that microphone. If you have an institutional affiliation please say what it is. The woman in the middle in the beige in the middle. Im just an enthusiast. You talked a lot about this being good for the voters. What is the level of courtship or partnership with organizations to extend Voting Rights with marginalized communities like africanamericans, rural communities, American Indians and so on and is that a metric the rcb Community Holds itself against and if not why, where does the fault line is there movement to affect change . There are two parts to that, the first part, in a lot of this space where im working in historically marginalized communities what im talking to candidates and elected officials, theres a lot of i think of a diplomatic they dont like it. The new things they believe is going to lead to them losing their fees and communities not having someone represent them in their communities. On the other side when im talking to voters about this issue and you explain it to the Africanamerican Community groups they understand it pretty quickly and it makes sense to them. There is a dichotomy of who in these communities actually like these proposals. It is a loss of democratic reform stuff i have been working on where you go to the candidates and they are not listening and then i go to the community that invited me there in the first place and it makes total sense. Why havent we done this a long time ago. In my experience there is a dichotomy and i cant grasp why that is or how to get over that difficulty with elected officials but that is what i see. They just know the system . That is part of it but i also think it is historical marginalization, the fear, the thing i can mostly compare it to is when it relates to the independent Relations Commission and gerrymandering, the idea of these candidates are concerned about being written out of their seats because whatever the rules are or the criteria even with partisan gerrymandering you will still pack an African American district and they are still 100 africanamerican district no matter what happens. That speaks for that community and they will be represented by historically the same person. Getting over that difficulty has been hard to do. I will say this has changed ground drastically in the last few years and there are a few things that are evident. One, for a long time and these were small cities where one person can go and if they bother the city council one of the open to change a law that is a couple places that have done this, one person really going after it so in those situations you may not be someone who is an organizer, familiar, where different stakeholders are and bringing them along. Those people have done a good job in the back end of talking to people especially with Education Programs but we have gotten better at campaigning and understanding if we want to democracy that is more inclusive than want more people at the table or at least being able to run and be viable we recognize we need to build campaigns the way we look our movement to and we want our electorate to so that, having infrastructure generally for campaigns, and as part of the sustainability of the movement winning is half the battle. Implementation is where the fight is so making sure you bring people along on that entire journey and whether they are on board or not, if you went and you need to make sure those relationships exist because if it is the first conversation you are having that can be really difficult so the movement is winning in that sense and doing pretty well in cities where it is being implemented. Having done work on the front end to make sure once that when happens you bring people along and they understand the value for their community and pushing that forward once it is passed so you see the results to that culture shift. We talked about elected officials as a category and people as a category. What about all the intermediary organizations, representing minority constituencies, unions or other kinds how do they fit in to the conversation . In my experience they have been at the table in those conversations, it hasnt been it hasnt just been me and the table of old white people kind of thing. It has been the conversation, not 100 reflecting the community but there is representation from those communities. What is the Voting Rights remedy . The background is east detroit, they didnt want to be deteriorated but 2017 the department of justice voting section for all, what that means, the city of east point was violating the Voting Rights act. Communities were not able to elect someone. In 2000 the city was 4 black and 2017 it was 35 or 36 so the number jumped dramatically in the span of 17 years and they werent able to elect a single africanamerican candidate. The Seminal Supreme Court case basically says to demonstrate a section to claim you have to show the Minority Community is enough to have a district. Second thing you have to show the Majority Community votes together, the second element is the white voting block or Majority Community voting block votes in a way to stop the Minority Community from representing itself so theres a third when im now forgetting. But the point was this went to the District Court, District Court agreed on Summary Judgment basically saying you demonstrated these two elements that havent demonstrated the third so it was getting ready to go to trial on the third issue. On the third issue before they went to trial they needed a Consent Decree which is an agreement that says, not sure if they actually agreed they were violating the section to creed but the point is the recent agreement with the plaintiff which in this case was the department of justice to say we agreed to enter into an agreement and use it to remedy this section to claim and to the Voting Rights act. That is the degree. Ive been talking to voters in east point. This is a unique situation, most of the cities i have worked in were not Court Ordered to use the system and seeing the dedication of people who work for City Government is fascinating. Just because it is often these people are working so hard to put the best election together they can in a short time. I cant say enough about the work they are doing. Is a tough situation and i think it is okay to be honest about that because not only are you using something you havent heard from, but this is the only situation ive ever entered into where there wasnt some public discussion about what happens. I think 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 the conversation we get a little bit further. Theres a better understanding but is a unique circumstance with i think a ton of potential but also some risk involved of making sure people feel they are all being brought along but there has been some great work being done by the city but voters are receptive but it is very jarring in this situation and im glad there are measures in place to make sure people are being brought along. This is the first case where the doj saw voting is a remedy. That was a very big thing that caught everyones attention about this. Say little about the potential for multimember districts to reduce that situation where you have representatives of color and representatives with more nonwhite constituents. It was the right Choice Voting element the remedy we have used for minority representation is to carveout majority minority districts. That has worked to create descriptive representation but it had some secondorder challenges. One is that it only works to serve communities that so segregated and it has worked well for africanamericans although less and less well as more africanamericans move out into the suburbs and it has never worked particularly well for hispanic voters who are more dispersed or asian voters. The advantage of multimember districts is you dont have to be segregated in a community to elect your candidate of choice. And the voting element means candidates are not just reaching out to their ethnic community, youre trying to build a broader base of support which builds across coalition all kinds of partnerships. In countries that have experienced Ethnic Violence and are rewriting their constitution, often recommended they have right Choice Voting for precisely this reason, that it forces folks to get out of their own ethnic group and try to build those coalitions by competing for second or third choices but it has real potential to considerably improve minority representation. When democracy experts look across systems, what electrical system is best for minority representation the system we have now, single winner districts, is universally dismissed as the absolute worst. Proportional representation is generally much better because it doesnt force communities to self gyrate and representatives to compete for those votes even if they are not the first choice of the community. Make sure we get some more questions. The gentleman in the blue shirt. I am a freelance journalist. One of the drivers of the division and hyperpartisanship isnt just about the system but also this Disinformation Network that finds it very profitable to exacerbate and inflame divisions. We all the we are talking about. But that is not the same it is intertwined. I think it was mentioned earlier. Wonder if you could explore that a little more. How a rank choice system affect this info bubble dynamic . Do you want to take it . Are you looking at me. Im happy to start. I think in order for disinformation to penetrate and thrive it is to be able to take advantage of our antipathy or biases against the others whoever they are and when we live in a time that kind of partisanship and division is being modeled by our leaders, by some of our leaders, many of our leaders. Something they are using as a strategy to empower themselves and so they are furthering it themselves so the incentives, by the way the disinformation obviously helps them and so it is this destructive feedback loop that they plug into as a way to divide their electorate as a way to help from all donald gain power so we have to disrupt that, interrupt that somehow and i see this as a way to do that. If all of a sudden leaders cant win by being divisive, one thing, less likely to win by being divisive. One story to give as an example is Bruce Poliquin in maine, bruce who was a sitting member of congress, and personally i thought it was just a tremendous guy, very nice guy, often the most reasonable guy in the room when i worked on the Development House republicans, really tried always a unifier, always reunify with the republican conference and his race in maine, he was confronted with this new system and had i been advising him and i wish i would have been i would have said this is perfect for you, you can thrive in it but instead he worked against his own interests and ran a divisive campaign. Had he been a little bit smarter, had somebody advising 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 intended to divide and misinform for distant form and divide. Brain Choice Voting helps us deal, break that cycle by changing the incentives for these candidates, changing, dissuading them from plugging into and trying to capitalize and exploit the dangerous and destructive power of disinformation. We have to wait. I work a new america. I am curious how you see the importance of National Party changing if it is implemented across the board as major providers of funding, infrastructure, recruiting candidates in the first place as the pool of money is diluted. Would they be more empowered to pick winners anyway or their influence is diminished to empower people with personal wealth . Great question. I think we would see more parties emerging because suddenly if you run as a thirdparty you are not a spoiler anymore. In the Current System third parties, all the ambition, all the money goes to the two major parties, only republicans and democrats stand a chance of winning in our system but there are a lot of folks who organized third, fourth, fifth parties if those candidacies were not seen as spoilers. 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, a problem with our campaignfinance law, whether theres brain choice fighting or not it will not change the campaignfinance law but what it can do is make it easier to change campaignfinance law. One of the reasons we cant get campaignfinance reform in congress is because which ever party is in power benefits from the power of incumbency which means it is easier to raise money when youre the incumbent party because people want to give you access and it is very hard and when you are organized around trying to win the next election and raised tons of money to run negative advertising against your opponent it is harder to support campaignfinance reform but in a congress that is less 0sum, less about my party crushing the other party you could much more easily reach a consensus about sensible campaignfinance reform to reduce the influence of big money and politics. With the parties itself at the outset this might not be a pollyanna but im going for it. Within the parties there has been a conversation that has been bubbling beneath the surface for some time not just what it takes to run but the weight return mentality, how we create structures of knowing when it is your time whatever party that may be in with a system like this there is no harm in running, youre not taking anything from your opponent so it is the opportunity to have a more broad conversation with their electorate wants. You can have these people running in these primaries if they choose to step forward but if theres a favorite candidate it might be a different discussion but you could have that and this is something weve seen occasionally and party context where it can push the platform or push the issues, finding out what the electorate really wants and how to bring people back in. If theres anything we have seen in the last 15, 20 years it is that people are leaving the parties at a pretty alarming rate, the largest block of voters in the United States are independent at this point. Having contacts where there are new voices or more robust conversations, this is our Party Platform and what we stand for and what we are running on could benefit them potentially if looking to bring people back in or something very likely to happen where there may be fractures and other parties emerging that speak to those interests but both can happen and they serve as opportunities for different people. Your point reminds me of something i wanted to touch on. Theres been some conversation about some states using brain Choice Voting in president ial primaries. Theres a lot of attention on who the second choices are, a lot of interest in that. What is the status of those . Are there going to be parts that we know yet . Four states have committed and several experts on the ground. I believe alaska and hawaii are among them but i do not have the other two right now but it seems to be something in some form or fashion they are considering its use. If youre thinking about it several states i heard about it, the ideal east iowa caucus where you hang out all night trading off like a wartime consumer department. In the second row. Hi. I am sam with delicious democracy. We are working on a local just introduced a local voting bill and right now i am building a coalition and we see this dynamic, you reference where a lot of black politicians are worried it will be bad for black people and low information voters in their vote will count less but when you talk to initial equity groups they are all on board with it. I am wondering how do you deal with these kinds of scare tactics . I think there are legitimate concerns you didnt bring up of doing it on that scale might be hard, people say you cant do it with a really big election and how in a president ial or Electoral College system how different states are different counties some music and some not how they interact, those are legitimate concerns but how do you deal with these scare tactics, their vote will count less and to jump off of her point. There is a Racial Justice emphasis on this and i dont see it being made enough. For me it depends what the polling looks like. We worked on serving, worked on groups in certain jurisdictions where the question was do you support brain Choice Voting and tell them what it is and the approval for that in the Minority Community is 70 and the next question is do you support, would you support this proposition that your congressperson opposes the same question and it drops dramatically. Other instances it doesnt. You have to look at what the numbers tell you and what people on the ground tell you. Some groups so we dont need that persons support in order to go forward with it but in other places and other contexts, if we dont have that persons support it depends on what is happening in that jurisdiction that lets you know. The most common concern you will get from an elected official or anybody is voters are convinced by this. There are several ways voters have been educated, seeing a balance to educate them so that is something that has been achieved but a lot of confidence and we dont get that far in those conversations a lot, things that are new are scary, that is normal human existence but if you can take that and make sure youre giving people information ahead of time those concerns go away pretty quickly. When we contextualize this is something other than politics, thats the new application. We think this way all the time. If im going to a Movie Theater and decided i need to have popcorn at the Movie Theater and the movie is all that i pick the next movie i want to see. So taking that out of context and putting it back in can be really effective but a lot of times i think in organizing this, messengers are essential in doing that organizing on the front end, constituents who are older voters saying this is something i really support and wants to engage with and im here to educate my community about it, that can be powerful. You still get the same response. A lot of times people elected under a certain system believe it is the best because it works for them. That is completely intuitive but when you try to change that thinking there is some grasping at what makes sense to them and what their initial fears are and if you work on the front end to make sure you have the coalition that can speak to those things and buy the infrastructure to say that is being addressed, we are working on that it may not inoculate that person, they may still be opposed but it does disprove a lot of what they are saying. That is the mission of democracy. Tell us more later when were done. The last couple questions open up some of the areas for research and further thinking so we dont know all the answers either but it is worth digging into some of these questions of what makes it possible for voters to fully engage. With that i think i want to first thank marissa for putting this together. And elaina soros for the program and from new america, hope you will join us for the other no american 20th anniversary events that are coming up and thank you for joining us. We have a little bit of that this afternoon but for those in the room there is some food and beverage and thank you very much for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] cspan and up so several eastons survey on voting and elections. The pole shows just over a third of americans believe in person voter fraud is a problem and just as many disagree. Republicans at 44 are more likely to believe it is in issue than democrats and independents almost half of americans believe voter discrimination is a problem in the United States while accorded disagree. There is nearly a 50 point gap between republicans and democrats on that question. 24 of republicans and 72 of democrats agree voter discrimination is still an issue. You can read the full results of the poll, cspan. Org. Attorney general william barr delivered remarks at a lawful axis summit in washington dc. He spoke about social media and Technology Using end to end encryption and the threat it poses to the
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.