Good evening. Welcome to new america. Such a nice room, comfortable chairs. Im the director of the Political Reform Program here at new america and i want to welcome you all to a discussion about the possibilities of rankedchoice voting, as folks can revive our democracy in various ways, potentially solving a bunch of differently challenges. This is an event, a a series of events for new americas 20th anniversary which is done in 1999 with the idea of creating a home for new generation of both people and ideas across a wide range of policy questions. I kind of one of the oldtimers although it wasnt your in 1999. I saw the creation of it and fundamental ideas about political, reforming the political system, part of the dna of this organization from the beginning. As my colleague lee reminded me, the book that the founders wrote called the radical center which was one of the ideas that they wrote that was not really like a bible but it is kind of hard of that. And that i was here, came back to form theo Political Reform Program in 2014 at our findings idea, like could we introduce a fresh think thinking into the conversation about the tamoxifen getting beyond the solutions. As weve evolved i think we found ideas around rankedchoice voting have happily taken on ar more salient, attracted new constituencies, begun to seem like a really viable solution when we look at it and from top topdown and we see communities kind of turning to the set of ideas as they look for themselves for how to strengthen democracy in their Kindred Spirit what we thought wed wes pull together a panel of people who are kind of working both at the big level and in the field on talking to people about these ideas, promoting these ideas, helping people understand problems to solve, with so. One thing i i would say about r approach to political reform problemsolving is like theres no super magic bullet. Theres a great essay that came out last week, there are no silver bullets. A set of ideas that have to Work Together and this can be one of them. It gets refracted through the culture and demographics of a community and a think we want to touch on some of those ideas. So without wasting a lot more of your time let me just introduce analysts and i will start with one question, get us going. And then well have a discussion in the open it up. Starting from my immediate right is grace ramsey, a consultant on Electoral Reform issues. Next, Evan Mcmullin physical than an executive director of stand up republic. He was a candidate for president in 2016 and is viewed with a slotted interest in these ideas. To his right, Christopher Lamar is Legal Counsel for Campaign Legal center, another organization that was started around the time of this one. Ive had a long connection to Campaign Legal center, figure out not the Political Legal challenges and then my colleague lee drutman who is a senior fellow in the Political Reform Program. Lee is the author of the book coming out in january called breaking the twoparty duel, the case of a multiparty democracy in america. He is even a more expansive vision. What you want to do for those of you in the room and for the cspan audience, i want to make sure we had some clarity on what were talking but here, some going to start by asking grace, not, to talk about when you are out in the community and people are curious about this idea, have heard much about it before, how would you describe it to them . I will let you do that and then well do the rest of the panel. For a little bit of context, i came to this work for the first time in 2013 in minneapolis where the use rankedchoice voting. They pass in 2006 by the voters and then had jews in 2009 but none of the races have been particularly competitive. So in 2013 those an open seat for a and plenty of Competitive City Council races so i came to this work in a boater Education Campaign to make sure it was going to factor into the resultg of the voters were aware of the system being used for one another but was going to work. In that case if it was talkingo voter whose plan on voting in the more liberal the mayoral election, its what it sounds like an voters able to rank the choices in order of preference. A lot of times with your first choice is the candidate you look up like a trace is a candidate you like and researchers is the encandidate you can see. When the count of the votes we cant just first choices if you only take the vote for the kerry camp to make sure we have an accurate view of where the voters stand. W rankedchoice voting differs is if no one gets a majority come when electing one c 20 like the candidate for majority in the system, 50 pixel know has reached the threshold you limit the candid with the youth vote andre voters who select that candidate as as a first choice would other book instantly to the secondary discontinues into one of those candidates does reach the threshold of 50 . Thats the basics. For different cities and different systems used to elect whether its a city council, mayor, whenever, festival which you can apply rankedchoice voting but for the voters the basics are you going to rank the candidates. Great. Grace, like when you talk to people about it do you say heres a problem, what do people talk about when people say what problem are you solving . Sure. One thing to be very frank that account is a good toggle politics people will provide you with the problems they see very quickly. I havent come across a book whose as of things great, lets not change anything. In different circumstances it can be applied differently. In minneapolis the situation we saw was we had in august primary that narrowed the field to two. We would see turnout from 15 to 5 , students were not back yet. This this is a large cost of thy to open up the pulse into all this but also its not necessarily an accurate view of the voters. You having 50 know thato field field and theres just this portion of power in that. The city decide to eliminate that primary election just have one general election using rankedchoice voting so having the same conversation when more voters were present. In the situation with the primary, youre talking nonpartisan, so instead of two rounds you were voting one. And there are several other situations. Their cities have adopted because that one of election where this is a problem thats on the other end of the general election. One place referred a lot of discussion and we have seen such moment outside are several examplesem weve seen whether bn really fierce parts and primers within several candidates. When you are saying things like vote splitting or a large field, you can get outcomes that are not intuitive to voters like people getting through with 25 when a majority did not approve them of a candidate. This can you wait to work that and also for party unity if you have this large field of candidates you can build a consensus rather than having a knockdown drag out fight. Does anyone want to speed to speak how i talk about . You can talk about how you see it as it relates to your area. We are all, the way we view life is through a through a prt weve already experienced. Not to get fiddles of philosophical off the bat but i spent over ten years at the Central Intelligence agency so often see a lot of the challenges from a National Security frame. This is one of them. I look at the country and the Political Polarization that we are expensing that is notpo my n assessment. Pew has this great data they collected that shows our parties moving towards extreme ideologically or lease away from each other. The more that happens, the harder it becomes to govern ourselves. Thre in this grand experience of Self Governance but we are failing to govern arsenals. Ourselves. The world is so dynamic, whether its changes in industry, changes in climate, you know, changes in the way we can make it with each other, the way information flows, opportunities and risks associated with that. We live in a Dynamic World and so, especially now we have got to be able to have a functioning government, but we dont pass budgets we dont appropriate appropriately. We dont have solutions for infrastructure issues, healthcare, information, warfare threats. So many of things, climate. And that is, i look at that and the sea and 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 exploiting that. That gives rise to either even more extreme leaders that will come to power, capitalize and exploiting those divisions and that lack of effective governance. Im one that believes weve got to change the incentives that shape the way our leaders lead here my view is that rankedchoice voting is one of a couple of reforms that i think offer the best opportunity to change those incentives so that leaders are more incentivized to find Common Ground with their rifles to demonstrate that, ground, build on that Common Ground. How does it impact policy . It impacts policy by were running against each other, grace has a strong supporters that just will never come over and support me as a first pick. But i have the opportunity to show some Common Ground with grace and hopefully winter voters second choice and maybe the same is true in return. That can give way i think two ways forward on even the most divisive policy changes challenges the country faces. Thats what motivates me, why im so passionate about this is i think the country is facing a real weakness associate with the Political Polarization that rankedchoice voting can change, can change the incentives to remedy that. Chris, how do you see rankedchoice voting evolving . I think sort of almost piggybacking off of his nice philosophical quote about the way used to this see things, working at nonpartisan organization, the thing im really concerned about is the responsiveness of politicians to voters. With rankedchoice voting one of the things you see in these elections is instead of getting come having to choose between two two candidates who on the polar opposites at the end of the spectrum in terms of political positions, that maybe are not that popular within the electorate, with rankedchoice voting the thing you see is sort of the politicians coming back into the center. And talking about ideas that are very popular amongst the electorate. Getting into policy positions, if one of the things im concerned about is uacs elections where its something is hyperpolarized youll see its more a get out the Vote Campaign of politicians think i want to make sure the 15 of the people to vote for me, i want to make sure those 15 come out and vote for me instead of making sure that i dont care less about the 50 of my group and more so focusing on the remainder of the city that im trying to get their vote. In in a way theres an implit problem, which is elections are primarily about mobilization, create a different tone than those about persuasion. Ive heard stories about people talking about campaigns when youre going doortodoor. You not on the door and say who are you voting for next summer as the first choice, but normally thats like a door slammed on your face and you go to the next house. With rankedchoice voting you can say who is your second choice, third choice, so want to so forth. Thats one of the ways so keeps the conversation going. One thing, one of the things we have discussed as a pop is the challenge in certain places that in addition to mobilization, you can have a winner who doesnt have ahe majority. That is what led to the idea of rankedchoicey. Voting. Its interesting none of you describe that as part of the problem to be addressed. It assures the wind at least has majority. Do you want to talk about you kind of have a bigger, in some ways a bigger ambition. Well, i agree. I think we have a large degree of consensus here on the panel we are in this moment of really destructive binary hyper partisanship that is a fundamental threat to our system of government which demands a high level of compromise and giveandtake. And the way our two party system is currently operating, everything is about destroying the other party. We are having this Panel Discussion as the storm clouds of impeachment cover this town, and its amazing to see what republicans are doing right now to support donald trump, despite the stream of revelations, of events he has committed and that is a function of this binary hyper partisanship. Republicans in congress cant break with trump because theres no other party for them to run at. A lot of them will not run as democrats for obvious reasons. If there were another party, centerright party, if there were a rankedchoice Voting System that creates space for third parties, it would not be treated as sparse because voting for for a third party or fourth party is not wasting your vote. You are expressing your voice. I think you would see a lot of republicans breakingof with the president and maybe running, forming a new party. I have a book coming out in january called making the twoparty [inaudible] which i advocate for rankedchoice voting and advocate for thed multiwinter choice which would create multiwinter districts and allow districts where maybe five representatives go to congress, the top five through rankedchoice voting and i would create space for multiple parties. One of the things we when look comparatively around the world, most democracies are multiparty democracy. The u. S. Is rare and strange twoparty system. Is that because americansd only want to parties. Its because we have electoral institutions that make it very hard for third parties we have winner take all verses plurality microsystems. Multiparty democracy allows for flexibility, more fluid become more Voter Engagement because voters are morede likely to fina candidate in the party that represents them. Every election is competitive. In our winnertakeall system with 85, 90 of congressional districts that not even competitive because when partisan voting is high, its clear who is going to win. Now, rankedchoice voting, it becomes all the less certain. Parties compete everywhere and voters have a real opportunity to express their voice. Although its not a a suitable because theres no fixing politics, i think rankedchoice voting, particularly multiwinter form which brings us to modest version of representation would funnily solve a lot of the core problems that are roiling our democracy at this moment. To me its the most important reform that has a chance of happening in the next five to ten years. In a way, you are almost conditioning a mechanism of rankedchoice voting is opening the door to the possibility of both multiwinter district, multiwinter systems and multiparty i assume like a grace when youre talking to people in a community and most of the people who are potential supporters of this idea, many 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 . Since the 2016, whether theyre motivated or scared, whatever their reasoning is, ive seen that across the country. Weve seen turnout up in municipal elections which we havent seen in 20 years so were seeing more activity than we have and i think one thing that weve realized is i think for a long time you dont think to question the status quo. These are systems to believe had always been around. You dont think about how young it is and created right for us at the time potentially, but we werent taught to reconsider those on a regular basis unless were talking about redistricting every ten years and think about it. But the systems are still in place, right. So, i think once you give people the opportunity to think about it, ive seen largely a positive response. One thing thats been interested is the entire time ive been doing this work, its largely been in a state, mainly educating, not advocating as much. But once you introduce people to [inaudible] to people welcome them. Are welcoming to that and its just a matter of presenting it, and presenting it, ill admit i dont use plurality very often, you try to use it people are definitely open. Lets be clear since we have this audience, but define quickly plurality. Its hard to do. I dont use it anymore. Just so were clear. First i suppose is a nickname that comes from horse racing, that whoever is ahead, gets the most votes wins. Now, that doesnt necessarily mean a majority. You could get 30 of the votes and win and the other candidates get less than 30 . And this was a 1430 innovation that came from the british countryside and it replaced concensus voting which turned out to be somewhat difficult. And the framers who, they were debating a lot of things in 1787 didnt debate Electoral Systems because there was only one electoral system at the time. It was a candidate base, whoever gets the most votes wins. Thats what elections were. And it wasnt until the mid 19th century that the Electoral Reformers started innovating and started coming up with different ideas, voting, innovation, early, early, there was a tremendous proponent of it, and you know, over the course of the early 20th century, the system caught on, and australia, ireland has used it for all of these years. More than you bargain for. Definitely more than i knew. I said anybody could do this. [laughte [laughter] all right, lets pull back to, you know, kind of that Bigger Picture that we were talking about, like what, whats the potential of a system with rcv in place. Whats kind of the big dream that either you, evan, or chris have of, like what becomes possible in rcv . For me its the enactment of policies that the majority of voters agree with. I think its as simple as that in terms of what the goal is, to are me anyway for rcv, seeing politicians who are actually responsive to the things that voters want and politicians enacting things that voters actually want. [laughter] i would, you know, you have to realize now that there are politicians, many of them, who as a matter of political strategy try to divide us. We know that. Some of them are very visible, some are less visible, but its a strategy. I mean, think about that. Think about our leaders, in order to gain more power for themselves are trying to divide us as a strategy for them to gain and hold onto the power. And it used to be this would happen in deep red or deep blue districts where you only had to worry about your primary, but thats gone beyond that now. You see moderate republicans in the house, for example, and i could name names, but i dont exactly want to shame them in this moment, but even republicans in the house who are generally thought of as responsible and more forwardthinking and moderate still conservatives, but more moderate, even they now are adopting a divisive approach. Theyre abandoning the strategy of all right, im going to do what i need to do to get through the primary and then turn at least then to a unifying campaign. Theyre abandoning and they won on that in the past. They used to win on that, but now theyre changing. You watch their rhetoric now, and its not that. They find a way to get on board with more senior divisive leaders and their message, including, ill say, the president in my view, and so that is a very alarming fact and its something that should concern us all. Our leaders should work to unite us. I mean, it just seems so basic, but, you know, were a weaker country. Our system of selfgovernment fails when were so divided. It doesnt mean we have to agree on everything, certainly. Were not going to and we should have vibrant debates around all kinds of policies, but around, for example, our values and around, you know, the health of our system of selfgovernance, there needs to be Greater Unity than there is right now, and we certainly cant have leaders who are purposely trying to divide us and therefore, weaken the country. We just cant have this and im genuinely worried if we continue on this track we may lose the american that weve known, you know, even in its imperfect state. We may lose whats good about america and it may not take that much longer and so, i do, you know, what my vision is, and i like the vision of opening up the political process, ive run as an independent before, i think there should be more competition, more players, i want that, too. But as a, you know, maybe as a more Immediate Impact or a concurrent impact, i just want leaders who work to unite us and work to therefore strengthen our country and help it survive modern challenges and thrive in a modern environme environment. So i yes. [laughter] the binary political system that we have has a zero sum logic, that if i make my opponent seem evil, convenient venal, corrupt, i win. Theres a lesser of two evils logic. In writing my book, i did some research and i tried to find out if like there was a phrase, the lesser of three evils. [laughter] and i did some crack research on the internet, i found it. It was the original title of a martial arts film, which im listening. [laughte [laughter]. Did very poorly under that title and they changed it to fists of the warrior if youre looking for it. Also no lesser than three evils. In a threeperson race, fourperson race you start attacking your opponent, you look bad, too. And obviously candidates should draw distinctions amongst each other. But you look bad when you go bad and questioning their loyalty, and theres a pew survey out today that shows the level of how parties thought about each other, it was bad in 2016. Actually partisans now are even more hateful of other partisans in 2019 than they were. Where does it go from here . So in the past couple of years weve had some real successes with rankedchoice voting. Weve had main it kind of snuck up on me that its on the ballot as a charter reform in new york city. Im sorry to do this, but i sense were shifting to another part of the conversation. Can i just build on this a little before we move on. Please. So theres talk about how rankedchoice voting could make the tone of campaigns a little less negative and lee mentioned that and i think a lot of people dismiss that as okay. You know, were in a democracy. Its rough and tumble. There are going to be intense debates and we shouldnt really worry too much about the tone, maybe thats sort of a polly annish despair to concern yourself with that or concern, and lee sort of talking about that, but i agree its so important and enough to interrupt. And i just want to say that the tone of our campaign does really matter and the reason why it matters is because it impacts the way our leaders, the tone of our leaders rhetoric in their campaigning mode, but also, otherwise impacts the way we think about our political rivals and the other side. And if its negative or too negative, then i believe that closes us off. It makes us it closes us off to listening to the other side and when we stop listening to the other side, first of all, our ideas get weak because theyre not challenged. We put ourselves in a little cocoon and weve got, you know, our eyideological tests and wee not listening and our challenges get weaker and weaker and weaker, ironically the weaker they get the more committed we are to them. And we start breaking apart and all that and become more vulnerable to just information and we know weve got domestic and foreign entities pumping this information all day long right now. Its a major challenge we face. And the extent to which we demonize the other side, in a way that, to an extent that we stop listening and our mind are closeded. Were not trying to understand anymore, we become vulnerable to tell lies about each other and that impacts even further our ability to govern ourselves. I guess that was worth it. It was totally worth it because i want to stay on it a bit. Because i think this is a great idea, but i also worry that theres a lot of factors that create that negative tone. Part of its just the attention environment is so tough to get through. So the idea of that sort of idealized, you know, youre going going to well explain that, its sort of like broad discourse where everybodys, you know, everybodys participating and listening to each other, its a hard thing to do and thats not just because theres fox news. I mean, lots of things, its a lot harder to get through than it used to be to communicate in either direction. Its harder for voters to get through to politicians and vice versa. Is it enough to go along with, to have that. Id like to share a little about how we talk to candidates who are running in these races when were training them or talking to them generally. I think and maybe provide reliance of what were looking for there. And i think the conversation has become more about who youre campaigning against than who youre trying to represent. So i think when we shift those incentives, we find out, one, youre going to have to be prepared to talk about policy more than youre prepared to. If youre busy talking about your opponents previous life whatever way it manifests itself, whatever research told you, youre not representing an alternate plan. In the same thing with the candidate, the way we largely view elections now and the way you approach them is then a diagram. These are the people with me, these are people against me and its up for grabs and thats who you go after. You know who is in your camp and who will never vote for you and youre scrambling for the folks in the middle who are undecided and i think theyre disappearing rapidly and the tactics to get to that space are ugly frankly. And a key phrase is distinguish, dont disparage, is that youre going to have to present ideas that are different from your opponent. Youre going to have to highlight how you we talk about how this can pull people back to the middle and theres something there for sure, but also, maybe not back to the middle, but you have to present people with an idea to accept or reject, right . I think a lot of times now, you dont vote for the other person and thats not a vision and what we tell candidates when theyre running, instead of the diagram, youre thinking this is my basis report, and maybe theyre donating to my campaign and maybe knocking on doors. I know theyre going to rank first on the ballot. They take a step out. Okay, if that doesnt get me to 50 , how am i going to bring on that base and convince them the vision im presenting is one for them. And completely shift the incentive how youre doing, your potential constituents. And youre polling 40 nearly against you, even if you win you dont view them as constituents. Some officials did. Some people take the calls of concerned constituents maybe of the opposite party about you it seems to be disappearing rather quickly, and so i think when you shift these incentives, you shift not only with what a Campaign Looks like. What voters expect from somebody. Its a job interview. We should be interviewing these people adequately, so when youre doing this, i think changing those incentives, one, puts it back on the voters to say what matters to us, what are the values we want to see in our elected officials and things in the community we want you to legislate on and shift for the candidates to say from this point on so i think by shifting all of those its less effort to them and more what does it mean. Yeah, youre talking something i mean, we had a big discussion of in this room two months ago and one of the things to learn about that, and talking to voters about this, and theyre talking about candidates and automatic, i think that candidates pick up a different system and [inaudible] and also, just you know, its a shift in culture, in campaign cultures, preparing both voters and candidates for that one thing that voters hold candidates accountable very cool to see. As somebody who works on this. We had a candidate back in 2013 kind of this is in minnesota so very nice, it was like i dont like that idea potentially maybe, and people were like, oh, my god. I think you see people reinforce that they have to theres one [inaudible] also the leverage and the power that they have and i think its very theyre feeling voiceless trying to yell as loud as possib possible. And how i think while were on this thats really what i was thinking about. Yes i think the most experiment new york city has very what i think is a kind of ideal system of matching funds for small contributions and that will be now of course, you know, more candidates need the money potentially money could matter more if a bunch have too litt little maybe rankedchoice voting will help. At the same time youre eliminating the cost of a runoff election, so citywide youre saving money. Yes, right. I did want to talk a little about what goes into what youve seen go into the idea catching on and you know, what happens what needs to click in a community where people get interested in the idea and moving forward and then i want to talk a little about challenges any of you . I mean. Yeah, im happy i mean, theres a lot of different places where were talking about this and talking about santa fe, new mexico used rankedchoice voting the first time, and after that they had [inaudible] and so i think a lot of times its fine, a problem that exists and rankedchoice voting, so for folks there, you shouldnt be punished for unintended consequences for people wanting to step forward and represent the city. Having a system that allows them to run and candidates reflected by a majority of the city is important for the representatives of the voters. Thats one example n maine, our political system is designed to work well if there are two candidates. I understand why it happened. When theres three and all are viable you can have nine of the last 11 elections decided and so, youre seeing these regularly arise. I stopped looking at any part of designations and calling people and finding if i presented the problem, they provided me with whoever they were mad about, whatever it was lepage, whoever it was, thats the answer. [inaudible] the reality, this is a logical solution for a lot of people. So there are different instances, but i think its seeing how that system i think theres also a real opportunity at the municipal level, at the city level where elections can be left partisan anyway and so its you know, theres less of a partisan fight to begin with. In utah there was a Pilot Program in two cities that have taken advantage of it and are implementing rankedchoice voting in their elections and a number of other municipalities who considered it in this round and who may adopt it in the next and thats something that we and others are working on. But i think theres a real opportunity there. I also, you know, im another piece of this that im passionate about is just how empowering this is for voters. You know . And for republicans and for democrats and for everyone, really, and i find that that argument that it empowers voters, it puts more hands in the people resonates with people across the political spectrum. And i think thats really important because sometimes, you know, ive had conversations with moderate members of congress i was sure would have support for rankedchoice voting initially i was wrong. The reason why i thought they would support it because i thought they would fare probably very well. And i dont think that rankedchoice voting is only a way to support moderates, not the way i think of it, but i more think of it in terms of unifying leaders. I think that rankedchoice voting incentivizes more unifying leaders so ive gone to more unifying leaders, what do you think about rankedchoice voting 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 theyd like the Current System. So when you go talk to actual voters and you tell them that, hey, this is we can just make a change to the ballot and i think its wise not to overcomplicate. We can change ballots so when you go to vote you get to fully express what your preference is. Its crazy if you think about it. You only get to choose one person. Life isnt like that, its not like that in any other way. We rank where we like to go out. We rank our sports teams. We rank our friends, you know. [laughter] we rank our parents and family members. Im kidding about that hopefully. But children, everybody. [laughter] its such a normal thing. We go through life sort of with a set of preferences that are evolving and considering things and thats part of being free, but somehow when we vote still in most places we have to pick this we have this one boring way to say who our one pick is. And i think voters, you know, when you talk about it empowering them, whether its people who are pretty far on the right or moderate, conservative, centrist, or people on the left, theres enormous possibility to build strong for this. That reminds, i think one of the good Public Education exercises a lot of people have done are kind of things, ranked the different and people have different tricks like that. Ice cream. In new mexico was burritos, tacos. In utah, we did desserts. Thats how we whether theres [inaudible] stick around, happy hour. Or if youre watching at home go to your fridge. Before we open it up. I do want to open it up. I just want to get your senses of what to worry about. Two things i think. What to worry about and what do you think to know more . Weve talked a lot with what do you all think both here a and i think my fear right now is from sort of getting a little bit sort of the federal Agency Responsible for certifying elections, just recently certified one of the software maybe the software able to do the voting. Im worried more broadly about, how states what youre in the weeds about Software Programs and all of that stuff and making sure that people understand like what happens when youre involved in a rankedchoice voting state. There are various ways about the votes and what happened. If were talking about multimember districts, if candidate a is 50 plus one. What happens to the votes 50 plus one to the candidate, if they go to other people, if they do, how do you figure that out and trying to explain that to people. [laughter]. I was trying not to say quota. I mean, its very easy when were talking about, you know, a mayor or if were talking about what do you want between these three, but once you get in the weeds a little bit. Trying to explain that to people. We talked about the difference in candidates and helping them understand it, voters, Election Administrators are an important constituency here, too, and definitely changes their lives. What they do in ireland, they make it a big National Defense where everybody is following and reallocating preferenc preferences. How was the education effort . Well, you know. [laughte [laughter] what do you worry about or see the research about . I guess what i worry most about is that, you know, those who have risen to power and the Current System come to office and fighting for the status quo because and they have enormous mega phones and they can use them to keep reforms that the country needs because theyre afraid that their interests, their narrow personal routes, interests will be harmed and thats what i worry about most. I will say im not afraid because i just think that theres even i just think theres so much potential to generate so much popular support, frankly, cross partisan for this reform. I think its very powerful. I dont think its as hard to sell as some people would like us to believe. But i do think its those sort of trying to protect the status quo because their power is wrapped up in the status quo and thats the real opposition. Theyre the real opposition, its not republicans, its not conservative, its not progressive, its, i think we can all be united. Theres a real possibility, that unites us around this reform, but i think the real opposition is going to be [inaudible] what do you want to see more dug in . I mean, the work im doing right now is education as i said before, a lot of what i do, i dont feel but i think we need to invest in that in a lot of ways. If im coming in at this point, but when you [inaudible] what your state legislature is doing, i worry about where were at in terms of folks knowing whats actually going on. Theres this kind of going on. If youre talking to a nonvoter in the midwest if you tell them their City Government is who decides what roads get plowed when. Theyre now a city voter. And for me its, you know, places where the education programs, what voters are aware being taught more about these systems it sounds like youre talking more about the education and Electoral Reforms. Here fundamentally in education who is responsible for what and how to think about your relationship to democracy. And about a specific system and end up saying, and so in terms of the other education work were doing. I think some people are given that opportunity, but its alarming that it doesnt happ happen one more concern. That is that these efforts to educate the public about the forms forward costs money and in the political there are people in these efforts and supporting conversations like these and effor efforts. But i still think that the political philanthropy base is electively still considering whether to how far to go in supporting rank choice votes, i mean, reforms. Theyre still feeling it out. Theyre seeing sort of the forward progress and thats already happened in maine and elsewhere and how it what impact it has and you know, its still a very cautious posture, i would say. And i, you know, i would, of course, like to see it be less cautious and lets get on with it and lets get after it. But i think thats something that still needs to happen. [inaudible] cautious and continuing on the status quo with each election were running a higher and higher risk, i think, of some sort of fundamental legitimacy crisis. I mean, as for the downstream effects of this, i think theyre positive. Democracy is not trying to be solved, its a living, breathing system that is always creating new problems and if its not, then its not working because democracy is how we settle our disagreements and as long as theyre the diverse complicated society were going to have disagreements and were going to seek to resolve the disagreements, but the electoral system that we have now is antiquated electoral system doesnt work for a modern complex democracy and its creating some incredibly perverse incentives that are playing out, just around the corner from the white house. And its all too close. I think id like to open it up and someone will bring you a microphone. So dont Start Talking until somebodys brought you to microphone. If you have like an institutional affiliation that brings you here, please say what it is. The woman in the beige in the middle. Im just a rcv enthusiast. Youre welcome. Thank you. So we talk about this being good for the voters and so within rcv initiatives, what is the level of courtship or partnership with the organizations working to extend Voting Rights with consistently more communities such as africanamerican communities, rural communities, American Indian communities, does rcv hold against, if not why . And is there a movement within that to affect that change . Very important question. I can start, yeah. So i think there are two parts to that. The first part is in a lot of the space like when im working in the latin communities, talking to elected officials, theres a lot of trying to think of a diplomatic way. They dont like this stuff, this new thing that they believe is going to basically lead to them losing their seats and then these communities not having someone to actually represent them in their communities. On the other side, when i am he a talking to voters about this issue and you explain it to Africanamerican Community groups, they understand it pretty quickly and makes sense to them. Theres almost a dichotomy who in these communities really like these proposals and its not just rankedchoice voting its a lot of other democratic reforms, stuff ive been working on where you go to the candidate and theyre not listening and then i go to the communities that start of invited me there in the first place and, yeah, that made total sense. Why arent we do rankedchoice voting like a long time ago. In my experience, there is this dichotomy and i cant like grasp like why that is or how to sort of get over that difficulty with the elected officials, but thats what ive been seeing so far. And they know that system . I think its a part of it, but its like the historical marginalization, the fears not to change subjects a little bit, but the thing i can mostly closely compare it to when it relates to the commission and gerrymandering like the idea of these candidates are concerned about losing their seats or being written out of their seats because of whatever the rules are or the criteria are in the independent redistricting. And even with partisan gerrymandering youll still pack an africanamerican district and that will still be 100 africanamerican district no matter what happens in Eastern States so that speaks for that community there and it will always be represented by historically the same person. So getting i dont know, again, getting over that difficulty has been really hard for me. And its [inaudible] so i will say that this is a movement thats grown drastically and i think theres a few things that are evident in that growth. One, for a long time these were small cities where one person goes in, if they bother their council enough, there are places one person really getting after it. In those situations you may not be someone who is an organizer familiar with what Coalition Building is and what the different stakeholders are in the community and bring it along. And i think theyve talked to people and what the movement is. If we want to create a democracy more inclusive want more people at the table or at least being able to run and be viable, i think we realize we need to build campaigns that look the way we want our movement to and our electorate, too. And really having the infrastructure done for the campaigns. As part of the sustainability of the movement, winning is half the battle. Implementation is where the real fight is. Making sure youve brought people along on the entire journey and whether theyre on board or not, if you win, you need to make sure the relationships already exist. If its the first conversation youre having, that can be difficult. I think the movement is learning a lot in that sense and is doing pretty well, i would say and the cities where its implemented especially having done the work on the front end making sure once that win happens youve brought people along with you, they understand the value with their community and generally and pushing it forward once its passed and youre hoping to end that culture shift. Can i push this question further . I feel weve talked to about elected officials as a category and like the people as a category. What about all of these, you know, intermediary organizations, whether theyre Voting Rights groups representing minority constituencies, unions, other kinds of how do they fit into a rcv conversation . In my experience theyve been at the table in those conversations in the states where were working in so it hasnt been i mean, to be blunt, it hasnt just been me and a table full of old white people. Its been the conversation that is not 100 reflective of the community, but representation coming from those communities. And the Voting Rights remedy okay, so okay, so the background is east pointe, michigan is a city that used to be called east detroit. They didnt want to be affiliated with detroit so they changed to east pointe. And 2017 the department of justice, the voting section brought a section 2 claim under the Voting Rights act. What that basically means they were saying that the city of east pointe was violating the Voting Rights act because minority communities werent actually able to elect someone who represents them. I think in 2000 the city was 4 black and 2017 it was like 35, 36, so the number jumped dramatically in the span of about 17 years. And in that span, they werent able to elect a single africanamerican candidate. The seminole u. S. Supreme court case what that case basically says is to demonstrate a section 2 claim you first have to show that the Minority Community is compact enough to actually have a district. The second thing you have to show is that the Majority Community historically vote together to actually no, the second element is that the white voting block or Majority Community voting block votes in a way to actually stop the Minority Community from actively representing themselves. So there is a third one im now forgetting. But the point was that this went to District Court, the District Court agreed on Summary Judgment basically saying youve demonstrated these two elements, but you 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 entered a consent decree, basically an agreement im not sure if they actually agreed they were violating the section 2 claim, but basically the point is east pointe reached an agreement with the plaintiffs, which in this case was the department of justice, to say that we agree to enter into a rankedchoice voting and to use rankedchoice voting to remedy the section 2 claim. So then. I have been talking to voters in east pointe. [laughter] i mean, this is a unique situation, right . Most of the cities ive worked in have not been Court Ordered to use the system and also, its one, seeing the dedication of people working for City Government is fascinating because its often so people are working so hard to put the best election together that they can in a very short time span so i cant say enough about the work that theyre doing. I mean, its a tough situation and its okay to be honest with that. Not only arent you using a system you heard of, but it isnt put to the voters. This is one there wasnt a discussion the city officials came up with a remedy and this is what it is. And its a process to make sure that people understand. Every time we have the conversation, they get further and i think theres a better understanding, but it is a unique circumstance with i think a ton of potential, but also, i think theres some dd involved in making sure that people feel theyre all being brought along. So far theres been great work being done by the city and i hope im helping in ways that i am, but voters are receptive and its very, very jarring in the situation and im glad there are measures putting put in place. This is the first case where the doj suggested rankedchoice voting as a remedy. So that was like the really big thing that caught almost everyones attention about this. Lee, why dont you say a little about the potential for multimember districts to kind of reduce that, that situation where you have represents of color and then represents who ignore nonwhite constituency. With the rankedchoice voting element. The remedy that weve used for minority representation to carve out majority, minority districts. Now, that has worked to create this scriptive representation, but its had some second order challenges. One is that it only works to serve communities that are selfsegregated and thats worked pretty well for africanamericans historically, although less and less well, as africanamericans move out into the suburbs and its never worked particularly well for hispanic voters who are more dispersed, its not worked at all for asian voters. Now the advantage of multimember districts and rankedchoice voting you dont have to be segregated in a community to elect your candidate of choice and also the rankedchoice voting element is important here because it means that candidates are not just reaching out to their ethic community. Youre trying to build a broader base of support which still crosscoalition kinds of partnerships. Now, in countries that have experienced Ethnic Violence and are rewriting their constitution, its often recommended that they have rankedchoice voting for precisely this reason that it forces folks to get out of their own ethnic group and to really try to build those coalitions by competing for secondary or third choices, so i think it has real potential to actually considerably improve minority representation and when democracy experts kind of look across systems, what kind of electoral system is the best for minority representation, that this system that we have now is single winner districts with plurality voting is dismissed as the absolute worst. And the proportional representation with rankedchoice voting is generally seen as much better because it doesnt force communities to selfsegregate and it doesnt and it forces representatives to compete for those votes, even if theyre not going to be the first choice of that community. Ill make sure weve got some more questions. Well move more quickly. The gentleman in the blue shirt. Yeah, im a freelance journalist. One of the drivers of the division and hyper partisanship you see isnt just the Voting System, its also this sort of Disinformation Network that find it very, very profitable to exacerbate and inflame divisions. We all know who were talking about. About. But thats not the same as the system, but its also intertwined and i was i think it was mentioned earlier, i wonder if you could explore that a little more. How would a rankedchoice voting affect this info bubble dynamic . Dynamic . Do you want to take it or im happy to start. You know, i think that its in order for disinformation to penetrate and rise, it has to be able to take advantage of our antipathy or bias against whoever they are and when we live in a time when thats being when that kind of partship and division is being. A, modeled by our leaders, many of our leaders. B, its something that theyre using as a strategy to empower themselves, and so theyre furthering it themselves. And so, you know, the incentives and by the way, the disinformation obviously helps them and so its this destructive feedback loop that they plug into as a way to 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 rankedchoice voting as a way to do that. If all of a sudden leaders cant win by being divisive, you know, one thing or theyre less likely to win by being divisive. One story to give as an example is bruce in maine. So bruce was, you know, was a sitting 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, you know, he was always a unifier. He was always a unifier within the republican conference and then rankedchoice voting was instituted for his and then he was confronted with this new system and i would have had i been advising him, i wish i would have been, perfect for you, you can thrive in it, but instead, he worked against his own interests and for that earlier, and ran a divisive campaign, even in a rankedchoice Voting System. Had he been a little bit smarter, 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 and disinform and then divide. I think that rankedchoice voting helps us break that cycle by changing the incentives for these candidates, changing the incentives for them, dissuading them from plugging into to capitalize, on the dangerous and destructive power of disinformation for their own benefit. Benefit. You have to wait for your your thoughts. Hi, austin, i work at new america. Im curious how you see the influence of National Parties changing under rank choice systems, say it was implemented across the board as major providers of funding and infrastructure and even recruiting candidates in the first place. As mark was mentioning, sort of there are more candidates and the pool of money is diluted, could they, you know, be more empowered to pick winners anyway or if as you suggest, its diminished, do we then empower people with personal wealth to run. Great question. I think we would see more parties emerging because now suddenly if you run as a third party youre not a spoiler anymore. In our Current System third parties are all the ambition, all the money goes to the two major parties because only republicans and democrats really stand a chance of winning in our system, but i think there are a lot of folks who would organize third, fourth, fifth parties if suddenly those candidacies were not seen as spoilers. As for the money in our system, we have a series of Campaign Finance rules that make it very easy for people with incredible sums of money to wield disproportionate influence. Thats the problem with our Campaign Finance law, whether or not theres rankedchoice voting or not is not going to change our finance law. What i think it can do, i think to make it easier to change our Campaign Finance law. One of the reasons we cant get Campaign Finance reform in congress, whichever people is in power benefits from the power of incumbency. Its easier to get money when youre incumbent because people want to give you money to get pack cess and its very hard when youre organized around trying to win the next election and raise tons of money to run negative advertising against your opponent, its harder to score Campaign Finance reform. But i think in a congress that is less zero sum, less just about my party crushing the other party, i think you could much more easily reach concensus around sensible Campaign Finance reforms that would reduce the influence of big money in politics. I also think within the party itself, this may sound a little pollyanna, im going for it. Go for it. Within the parties i think theres a conversation bubbling beneath the surface for some time now, not just what it takes to raise the money, the wait your turn mentality and what that is and how we create those structures knowing when its your time, they decide its your time, whatever that party that may be. Theres no harm in running, youre not taking anything to your opponent so i think its an opportunity for parties to have a conversation about what the electorate actually wants because you can have the people running in the primaries in they choose to step forward. However, that may make you feel if theres a favorite candidate there may be a different discussion and you can have them and this is something that weve seen occasionally in a party, that can push the issues and find out what the electorate really wants and how to bring people back in. If theres anything weve seen in the last 15, 20 years, its that people are leaving the parties at a pretty alarming rate and largest block of voters in the United States are independents at this point and having contests where there are new voices or different voices or a more remote conversation instead of this is our Party Platform and this is what were running on, i think could benefit them and potentially to look people back in, and what lee is talking about is something likely to happen there may be other parties emerging that speak to the interests and both can happen and they both serve as opportunities for different people. Great. Your point reminds me of something i wanted to touch on, i knew there would be some conversation about some states using rankedchoice voting for democratic president ial primary and theres a lot of attention on like who the second choices are of biden, sanders, warren, voters interested in that. Whats the status of those conversations . Are there going to be some parts that we know yet that i believe committed four states have committed and there are several in the crowd and i believe alaska and hawaii are among them, but i do not have the others in my back pocket right now, but seems to be that that is something in some form or fashion the state parties are considering to use. If youre thinking about it, several states still use caucuses and i heard about that. Thats the idealized iowa caucus, where youre hanging ought all night and trading o off off is this on . Im sam with and were working on a local were working on a local, they just introduced a local voting bill and im building a coalition. Were seeing the dynamic youre talking about at play and if you reference where a lot of the black politicians are worried it will be bad for black people and information voters and countless youre talking to the Racial Justice and Racial Equity groups theyre on board with it and so im wondering, one, how do you deal with these kinds of scare tactics around it. Because i think there are legitimate concerns and even though you guys didnt bring up like doing it at scale might be hard, some people say do it for the really big elections and also like how in a president ial or Electoral College system how different states or different counties, some using, some not, how these interact. I think those are legitimate concerns, but, yeah, more how do you deal with these kinds of scare tactics around like old people will be able their vote will countless, if they dont want to rank and i think jump off point i think there is a Racial Justice emphasis that could be had on this and i dont think made enough for me as the first [inaudible] weve worked with groups with certain jurisdictions where they add the questions basically like do you support rankedchoice voting, what it is and lets just say approval for that in the minority [inaudible] and the next question is do you support would you support this proposition that your Congress Person opposes, the same question and its dropped. And other instances it doesnt. So like working in, like the economists have to look at the field and the resilience there are some groups we dont need that support in order to go forward with the thing and other place, in other contexts if we dont have that support i think it really just depends on whats happening in that jurisdicti jurisdiction, that lets you know. Concern is voters will be confused by this. There are several different ways that they see the most effective way to educate them that has been achieved but a lot of that is confidence i havent gotten quite that far things that are new are scary. Thats normal but if you make sure you give them the information ahead of time those concerns go away pretty quickly if we can talk about something other than politics that if im going somewhere to a Movie Theater that i go see a movie if thats what i try to so i think taking that on context and putting it back in to boot really effective, but a lot of times i think in organizing this, messengers are essential. This is something i support, this is something i understand and that educate my community, that can be powerful. Used to get the same response. A lot of times people are elected under a certain system believe it is the best because it works for them. Thats completely intuitive but when you try to change that thinking, i think there is some kind of grasping at what makes to them what their initial fears are, make sure you have that message saying we are working together. It may not inoculate that person. They may still state opposed but it does help, per se. Tell us more later when were done. I feel like this, the last couple of questions open up some of the areas really for research and for the thinking that lee will be leading. We dont know all the answers either but its worth digging into some of those questions. I think i want to first thank the Political Reform Team for pulling this panel together. [applause] hope you will join us for the other new america 20th anniversary events that are coming up. We will have a bit of reception here. For those of you in the realm theres some food and beverage and again thank you all very much for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations]