The efforts around the country to combat election tampering. On behalf of town hall seattle and the american constitution society, its a pleasure to welcome you to tonights live stream presentation with the author david daley in conversation with krist novoselic. I want to acknowledge that when we are at our homes in seattle, that institution stands on the the [inaudible] and we thank them for our continuing use of the Natural Resources of their an access e central homeland. Ancestral homeland. Were thrilled to present virtually in the midst of the concerns around Public Health. Town halls a place where we can share and sustain ideas and creativity even when we cant gather together in person, and i want to thank krist and david for appealer tonight. Town halls pursuing option to produce more content, and many of our past programs are available on our Digital Media library, so stay in touch with us in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, tonights broadcast does not feature closed captioning services, however, services will be available once this has been uploaded to our youtube page probably within the next 2436 hours. Organizations within our community are presenting free content during this period of social distancing. On the boards theater is presenting free contemporary Performance Film streaming through the end of april. Hosting comprehensive archives of their literary podcasts on air, and northwest forum is streaming online to pay what you can to support their virtual platform. I encourage you to support those and other entrepreneurial platforms that are emerging right now. Town hall and the Nonprofit Community at large has been put under significant strain. We hope you will consider extending your generosity tonight by supporting us in this difficult time by making a donation, clicking on the donate button at the bottom of your screen or by becoming a member. You can to that on line or by texting the words town hall to number 44323. Thanks 44321. Our booksellers have been hit and can use your support as well, and if youre interested in supporting local independent bookstores and dade, of course, by and david, of course, by purchasing a copy of his book tonight, third place books will have copies for sale that will also feature signed bookplates, and theyre offering free shipping. Theyre the best place to purchase your book. We hope you will. You know, if i had been able to get to the green room, as they call it tonight, i would know exactly how long theyre intending to speak tonight, but typically we ask for something in the 3040 minute range, so well just say theyll talk for as long as a it takes. Oured moderator tonight will collect questions for those submitted in the ask a question field at the bottom of your screen. You can also vote on which questions our speaker will answer first. We cannot guarantee the speakers will address every question, well get to as many as possible, and keep your questions concise and in the form of a question. Town halls work is made possible through your support and the support of our sponsors, the Real Networks foundation. You know, this is long when i deliver this thing in person, but it is interminable, so thank you the, the everyone, for suffering with me now. So our civic series is supported by Real Networks foundation, kow and the. [inaudible] but, of course, as all of i you who are town hall members know, we truly are a membership, about 6,000 of you who keep this place strong year in, year out. I want to encourage those of you who care about town hall and its mission to join us as well. Okay. David daley is the author of, you know, rats f if uc fuck, can i say that on the radio . At any rate, the true story behind the plan to steal american democracy. Frequent lecturer in media source about the topic, he is the former editorinchief of salon. Com and the former ceo and publisher of the connecticut news project. Hes a Digital Media fellow at the Wilson Center for the human i thinks and the grady school of journalism at the university of georgia. His work has appeared in publications as well as appearance as a correspondent on cnn and npr. He helps identify the deep throat source for bob woodward and karl bernstein. You know, if i was writing this myself, i might have tucked that in a little earlier, not buried the lead there. At any rate, chris krist novoses a Founding Member of the group anywhere van that. His first book, grunge and government lets fix this broken democracy, features his musical path as well as his support of Electoral Reform and his belief in the need to clean up politics overall. Daleys book unrigged how americans are battling back to save democracy, is the subject of tonights timely talk. Please join me in welcoming david deal hi and krist novoselic. Hello, everybody. Thank you, that was great. Thanks, wi e er. It is thanks, everybody, for tuning into the town hall, and i hope everybody is happy and sane and healthy during this pandemic. Just, you know, do the best you can, and we should make it through this. And so david daley here, my colleague i met through fair vote, he has a new book called unrigged how americans are fighting back to save our democracy. 9 and so tonights conversation is going to be about gerrymandering where political insiders, pretty political elites, they draw district lineses for singlemember districts to benefit themselves and their Political Parties. You know the horror stories, and dave could touch on. Thats and so were going to talk about gerrymandering, and were also going propose some solutions, mainly proportional representation, a type of voting. So his new book is out, so ill turn it over to you. And so lets hear, lets hear it, dave. Well, thanks, kri is st. Krist. I am really sorry to not be out there with everyone tonight. Again, i hope youre all safe and sane. We stand together with your doctors, your nurses, your grocery stores, essential workers who are so carefully doing their jobs for all the rest of us. Thank everyone at town hall and third place for selling books tonight, the american constitution society, our friends at fair vote washington, everybody could use your help and support, these amazing bookstores and terrific activist groups, so get involved during these difficult days. We could also, i think, use some optimism and use some hope. And this new book, unrigged, it really began with a quest for hope. Like mentioned in the introduction, i had written this book called rat fucked. If youre going to write a book about entirely handerring, it pretty much generally handerring, it has to have a memorable title. The republican strategy in 2010 to win the legislature in places like North Carolina, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, just ahead of the redistricting year of 2011. We draw all these lines again as soon as the census numbers arrive to try do account for population. Equality in the all these states. And then they use those singlemember districts, and they redrew them with this powerful mapmaking software, these amazing new data sets that really made it possible to just go up and down the streets and socially choose their own voters and to kind of hot wire our democracy itself. At this point its kind of an amazing number. Theres 59 million americans, that is almost 1 in 5 of us, that live in a state where one or both chambers of the state legislature is controlled by the party that won fewer votes in 2018. 1 in 5. And then on november 8, 2016, you had three of those theirly handerred states, each gerrymandered states each of which admits its more difficult for people to vote in really specific ways, and they handed donald trump the Electoral College. And americans woke up the next day to sort of this deeply divided country, closely divided country. But all the political power was sitting on one side in washington and at the supreme court. 70 of legislatures nationwide. It was all concentrated on one side. And its not a partisan argument. Simply, you know, bad for Representative Democracy when a majority of voters are consistently unable to win a majority of states, right . And you had this toxic combination of singlemember districts, gerrymandering kind of closely followed by these Voter Suppression laws that had been passed by these unaccountable legislatures. It really tied our democracy into this to foundly unfair, you know, double knot and had established this nearly unbeatable minority rule in competitive places. It was kind of hard to see a solution for this crisis that, you know, i thought had contributed so deeply to the extremism and the sort of sense of hopelessness that plagued so much of our politics. Id go ahead and talk about this last book and sometimes feel like i had a dark rain cloud over my head. I wanted to get rid of that. And one day i saw a Facebook Post by a michigan woman named katie takegy, and katie has an amazing story. On Election Night 2016, she leaves her job working at a recycling nonprofit in grand rapids, michigan, she puts on her best red pantsuit, and she flies to new york for Hillary Clintons victory party. Well, the night did not exactly go as katie had planned. And she gets home and shes getting ready to go to work that next morning, and she is already sort of terrified of what thanksgivings going to bring at her house. Bernie supporters in her house, theres trump supporters, theres disappointed hillary backers, and shes already just imagining, you know, mashed potatoes and turkey and gravy flying across the table. So she takes to social immediate e what, and she writes i want to take on gerrymandering in michigan. If you want to do that as well, join me here. And she adds a smiley face e emoji at the end of all this. It really severed the connection between the ballot box and the popular will in michigan, and yet nobody had been able to do anything about it for the entire decade. That post by a 27yearold pioneers this winning redistricting revolution in a state that no one thought it could happen. That post ends up martialing 4,000 volunteers. Together they go out and they collect 430,000 signatures, they make it on the ballot. Its the first time this michigan that this has happened without having to go out and pay collectors to go out and do it. And then they won in november 2018. They beat back Koch Brothers money and devos money and the u. S. Chamber of commerce money that was set against this many. 62 of the state agreed with them, theyre going to have an independent commission drawing the lines in michigan in 2021. It wasnt long will be after that, that i met desmond mead who had taken on the really difficult tax of returning Voting Rights to 1. 7 million former felons in florida who had essentially lost their civic voice forever along with that conviction even after they had served their time. It was really just this cruel vestige of the jim crow south, and it ensnared about 10 of all the adults in the state, 25 of all the black men in the 25 of the black men in the state. And mead knew that pain well because he was one of them. A drug addiction and depression had led to a felony weapons charge. One afternoon after his release hes homeless, hes still struggle with drugs. He stands before the Railway Tracks in the miami, and he is just waiting for the next train to come, except the train that afternoon for whatever reason doesnt arrive. He walks across those tracks instead. Its as if he says to me he was guided by some kind of power, and he actually finds himself outside a drug treatment center, checks himself in, turns his life around. He returns to college, earns a law degree, but it doesnt matter because the one thing you cant do in florida no matter what is earn back that right the vote. So he becomes the director of the florida rights restoration commission. He builds this amazing coalition that unites black and white, democrats and republicans, excons and second chancebelieving churchgoers, tattooed, trumploving deplorables and radical criminal justice reformers into this mighty moral coalition. This was actually funded by the Koch Brothers and the aclu at the same time. And on election day 2018, even as florida elects a republican governor, republican u. S. Senator and two really close races, a big majority, a supermajority, 64 of the vote there, back restoring these Voting Rights in a constitutional amendment. All of these peopled had stood up and voted for fairness. And i was, i was really inspired by these stories. Just the way that they sort of triumphed over this sense of despair in our politics. I was pretty sure that we didnt need another book about how democracy dies, and what i wanted to do was set out and join the quiet revolutionaries who seemed to me to be reenvision rating our civic reinvigorating our is civic fabric at the time that really we needed it most. It didnt matter if these barriers were high, if they were stout, they were willing to take them on. So i joined those canvassers across michigan with voters and politicians, utah and missouri where activists also won two big campaigns against gerrymandering, watched native americans across the red rock deserts of utah, the tribal lands of north dakota mount these desperate, heroic pushes to determine their street addresses and make themselves ids to preserve their voices against a surgicallyfocused voter id bill. I to rode the medicaid express, this rickety green rv across idaho with these activists who didnt understand why their legislature wouldnt take the obamacare money back from the federal government to insure that 70,000 of their neighbors had health insurance. Alabama where the state legislature finally, urn court order under court order, returned Voting Rights denied to tens of thousands of former prisoners there. But they wouldnt do anything to actually sign these folks up and get them back on the rolls. We went door to door, bus station to barbershop with concerned citizens who were determined to add these folks, their neighbors, back to the voting rolls. They won, they won big, they won everywhere, and it was just amazing to watch. It was like this time in which the news cycle feeds your exhaustion. I was able to go out and spend opinion a year sort of ride spend a year with sort of ruing along with these people who had turned off twitter and, you know, stopped watching msnbc, and they went out and they just got to work. In idaho the Medicaid Expansion initiative began there of after these two recent graduates from a high school at sand point, you know, withdraw up north in idaho way up north in idaho, they were now studying medicine and history, but they realized that they might have organization schools that would help a school levy pass in their town that was up against this bitter, wellfunded opposition. They came back to sand point, they organized there, they won and they were sort of hungry for more. They decided they would take on health care in idaho as their issue, and they painted that 40yearold r. V. They took it from corner to corner of idaho collecting signatures. And in this oneparty state thats as red as taylor swifts lipstick, they captured 61 of the vote the oldfashioned way. They knocked on their neighbors doors, they talked to them, they persuaded them. I joined them in idaho falls in this amazing moment where we sort of walk up this driveway. In the parking lot theres a car that has a Bumper Sticker on it that says vietnam we were winning when i left. Im thinking maybe we should move on and knock on the door down there [laughter] you know, this one might not be a very good bet. But the man inside comes to the door and says oh, yeah, you know, i know exactly what youre talking about. My wife falls in that gap, my daughter all falls into that gap, im completely with you. Just by talking to folks, you know, you just got the sense that maybe we were not as polarized as we, as we would have been or as people, you know, like to say we are. There was, you know, powerful stories to watch in north dakota as well which is a state that has such clean elections they dont even bother requiring a Voter Registration there. But in 2013 right after the native american vote helped catapult Heidi Heitkamp into the u. S. Senate, legislate to haves there decided to pass this law which mandated a street address, sort of the one thing they knew didnt exist in the tribal lands. The tribes were able to knock this back in court, but the legislature would keep coming at it every single time a court would order it go away, the legislature would come back and refine it and try again. Finally in 2018 just before election day, they got a judge that okayed it, and the voter id restrictions were able to go into law. And these tribes, they just got to work. They got in touch with professors and academics and experts in mapping, and they did all this sophisticateed gis work to nail down addresses for all of the homes of the tribal land, and then they printed ids. They burned the machine out, they made so many. Turnout soared. It was wild. And one of the big wins that night, the first native American Woman ever elected to the legislature in north dakota defeats the man who first proposed the voter id bill in 2013. So it was, it was put amazing Pretty Amazing to see. And you just, you see this happening all over the country. I watched it in maine, home to this rich tradition of independent candidates where citizens demanded a Voting System that allowed them to rank all of their choices and avoid a plurality winner that most people opposed. And then both parties there stood in the way, long winter petition strives not once, i drives not once, but twice and won. These people did not wait for the supreme court, they did not wait for a superhero president ial candidate. They stood up, they acted, they became the protecters of democracy that i think we all imagine the courts to be. You know, we might actually want our representatives to be. And some of these victories have been pushed back on, you know, state legislatures have not embraced them all. Theyve fought them. But i think its important to kind of remember two steps forward even if theres a half step back. The history of Voting Rights in this country is one of expansion and retraction. Its never been a straight line, and really our current chapter is just the latest in a struggle over the vote thats as old as the nation itself. We might if want to imagine that the history of the nation is one of everexpanding suffrage, but it hasnt been that way. The struggle didnt end with the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, it didnt end with the Voting Rights act, and it didnt end with these victories on election day of 2018ing. Theres 2018. Theres a lot of work that remains, and the work that remains is going to get a lot more difficult, you know . Keeping a democracy, it turnses out, requires a lot of work. But i think what all of these stories really show is that when regular citizens unite and fight for the kind of democracy that they want, when they, you know, grab onto that Martin Luther kings long moral arc of justice in the universe and they pull it down hard, these structural barriers, they dont stand under that kind of pressure. Let me just leave you real quick with a story from alabama that really stays with me. It was a night in the 1990 in rural alabama that sherry lost her Voting Rights forever. And it was a night that, you know, might sound familiar to a lot of us. You know, High School Friends in a classmates car, and they go through a drivethrough, and someone passes around a joint, and then theres the sound of a police car and a couple of white officers wondering what that odor might be. A lot of cops might have looked the other way probably in a lot of other towns that night. They did. But sherrys evening ended with drug possession charges for everybody. They were no longer seniors in the eyes of the state, they were felons. And in alabama drug possession, even a minor drug possession charge, up was called a crime of normal turpitude. And if you were guilty of a crime of moral turpitude, you forfeited your right to vote forever. Sherry was 17 years old. She had never voted, never would. Her most important right as a citizen forfeited before shed even been able to use it. We had no idea, she told me. We werent thinking about voting at all. I mean if, why would sheive, right . But the folks who design alabamas constitution were definitely thinking about voting back in the 1870s, and those were the laws that entrapped her 150 you know, 120 years later. Finally, alabamas Legislature Ends moral turpitude under the net of a court decision, but under the threat of a court decision, but the state doesnt tell anybody what they have done about it. They quietly end it, refuse to sign up people like sherry back on the voting rolls. So citizens started going door to door and doing this work. And thats how i met her and heard the story outside a birmingham bus station one morning just after six a. M. She was about to grab a, you know, a ride out to the hair salon where she worked. We approached her, asked her if she was registered to vote. Sheawayed us away, folks dont want to admit to a stranger that they have this kind of conviction, but finally shes like i cant vote. And were like, you know, you probably can as long as its not one of these three serious charges, you can do this. We hand her the form, and it takes a couple of minutes, and we get her her right back to vote. And it seemed like there were just tears falling from all of us that didnt end anytime soon. Its still, it still really moved me. And i, i think that this is what all of this is about. This is what were fighting for. Were fighting for people like sherry. This is a nation that had been built by the people, been improved by the people whether this was the folks who were walking for suffrage or walking across selmas pettis bridge. Progress has been long, hard, its been of our own making. I think that that responsibility to fight for progress now has really been passed on to all of us who believe in principle over partisanship, brought together by the belief that change belongs to us all, that equal protection belongs to us all, that one person, one vote means us all. What i saw is that something had been lit within the American People and that citizens who had never joined a protest began to circulate petitions and ran for office and launched new organizations, joined movements that might reimagine what democracy means, ignored those who said the work would be too hard or warned that the odds of victory would be too long or uncertain for that kind of a lift. They devoted these hours, and they really came together in rvs and bus stations with the doors on frigid winter mornings, and they made those dreams real at the ballot box. They won resounding majorities of fellow citizens across parties, inspired americans in red states and blue states, in every state who still mes all political power is inherent in the people, that legitimate authority depends on consent of the governed and that Representative Democracy must represent us all equally. These were battles on behalf of whats right. They were led by millennials, by former felons, by suburban women, by americans of all ages and races who refused to believe that change was beyond them. I think its roof its proof that there is an unrigging thats underway, and i hope the story leaves you with the same reburt of optimism and hope rebirth of optimism and hope that it did for me. Thanks. I turn it over to krist. Thanks, david. Im so proud of you and the work you do, and im proud to work with you. What youre advocating, basically, is freedom. And how people can resist or forces like the state. Like, im not an antigovernment person by any means. But sometimes a state can come down a little too hard, and we can push back. And we do that through political organizing. And that, that cupid of gets me to my story that kind of gets me to my story on how i started. You know, if i just on the side, you know, were going through this covid19 coronavirus, and i think when we come out of this, its going to be the transition into the 21st century, okay . Its just like we finally were into the 21st century 20 years now, and theres got to be new structures, and if weve got to do things in new ways. And we also, you were talking about going out into the communities talking with people and communities coming together, people with shared need and shared values going out and engage. Ing the system engaging the system for freedom and how to we to do that in this postcovid world, right . Because memes on social media, thats not political participation. And my story is it was in the early 90s, i was in this band nirvana, and seattle music and grunge rock took the world by storm. And at the same time, people all over the world, i mean, they knew seattle, they knew soundgarden, nirvana, pearl jam, alice in chains, so many bands, space need, mount rainier, all these icons of seattle and Washington State. Yet at the same time, if you wanted, if you were an adult between the ages of 18 and 20 years old, you couldnt go to most small scale music if events in seattle and especially if you were a miles per hour, you know, forget it a minor. And thats where the music scene was happening. And so as a music community, we came together, and we engaged the state, we took on the city, we came together as bands, as music promoters people and beer distributers, people just working in this whole, like, ecosystem of live music in seattle. And we had this very positive message that seattle music brings cultural and Economic Vitality to the state and to the city. We took this message to state agencies, to state legislatorses, and we started to make friends and get good relationships. Legislators started to respond to that. And we eventually turned things around. We could have, you know, allages shows in seattle. But it was a lot of work, and it was, you know, but it took patience and time. Theres always that delayed gratification. But in the meantime, you know, you need to live life and have as much fun as possible, so theres like a difference between meaningful work and crusading. You see people who crusade, oh, you know. You do politics, no, i do two bands. Im involved in my community. I go to grange meetings, county commission meetings. Okay . Ask and thats how you stay involved. So along the way, i got my Civic Education here working in the washington Music Industry coalition. And i learned how does a [inaudible] oh, theres these agencies that do this. Theres agents, like the legislature and the legislation, theyre the agents. They enact this, these laws, right . And how do you, you know, negotiate the system. And then i started to look at voting rules and, like, we had some really bad opponents in the legislature. There was a censorship bill, they wanted to have they had this robotic music law, they called it, and they wanted a sticker on your music that said this is harmful the minors and it would have led to, like, adult music stores. The adult section of the record store, right . Probably sell more records that way, right . You know how people are, right . Not safe for work. [laughter] our music is nsfw. Anyway, but that wasnt right. Thats like censorship. So we would have these really bad opponents. Im like, you know, we should run somebody against that person. People would shrug and say, well, you know, theyre in a safe seat. Like, whats a safe seat . Well, a safe seat is the withdraw they drew the district, and theres so many likeminded voters that you wouldnt really you could run somebody, but they wouldnt win. Sure, theyd get like 40, maybe 42 of the vote, but the opponent would, but theyd still lose. I go, well, what kind of system is that . That doesnt seem fair to me. And so i was on the alta vista Search Engine at the time. Like people said, hey, you want to buy stock in google. Finish what a stupid name, thats never going to go anywhere. Im on alta vista that. New york im just kidding. Anyway, so, you know, i would do these word searches. This was like in, like, 1996. 95, 96. And i come across Electoral Reform, voting reform, and there was this long group in the United States called fair vote. Okay. And then there was these ideas, like, really . You can do this . What is proportional representation . We have that here in the United States . Thats not some exotic european no, its actually been used in the United States. Who was chair of fair vote at the time . The late john anderson. He ran an iconic campaign for president in 1980 as an independent. So here i came out of the indie music scene, is so like, hey, heres an indie politician. So i got involved with fair vote, and i started to learn a lot about how we can do things differently, and we can empower voters, or give voters more choices, more voices that these ideas are established. Theyre taught in law school, theyre used, these kind of proportional systems are used in about a hundred places in the United States use them, okay . And most of the case law has been upheld by the courts, judges have protected this. These are constitutionallyprotected ideas. And if you look in the Voting Rights act, mostly in the case law of the Voting Rights act to give people more voices and more choices when you know, dave, you described these scenarios where people were just shutting, legislators were shutting people out. And so like in the Voting Rights act you dont have to have, necessarily have a singlemember district. You can have a multimember district with multiwinners. And its not like the at large that causes problems. This is like a modified at large system. Its proportional representation. What is proportional representation. Ill just, ill end with this little moment here. Proportional, what is it not . Proportional representation is not a parliamentary system, okay . A parliamentary system is a system of government. Thats like where theres usually a unicameral legislature, and the ministers, they elect the leader of the country whos the prime minister, right . United kingdom, westminster, thats a Parliament Tear system. But parking system, but theya system similar to the United States. They have a winnertakeall, singlemember district system. And yet they have a parliament, okay . So here in the United States we can have have a proportional Voting System, and they could have it in the United Kingdom too if they wanted it. A lot of people are fighting there too. So what is a proportional system . The its like youd have, say, a threeseat district or a four or a fiveseat district, and then voters would share representation. So like say in a threeseat district there could be, you could elect two democrats and one republican. Or vice versa. Two republicans, one democrat. Because its shared, you know . So people are paying taxes, theyre subject to the laws and rules of the land, then they deserve to have a voice. And thats what i believe is what freedom is, okay . And theres various ways to do it, just kind of wonky. But, you know, jerry handerring as you know gerrymandering as you know, david can, is very wonk key. Its very, very sophisticated process. Theres a science to it, and you need all kinds of computers, you need a real, a scope of knowledge and experts to do it. And its occluded. Its done in the shadows and its sneaky. And these insiders, they tilt the scales in their favor. So its proportional representation. On the other hand, its transparent. Voters know the voting rules. Everybody gets the same ballot, and the counting is the same way, okay . And most people elect a candidate of choice. So i mentioned republicans and democrats, but thered also be space for third parties and independent candidates too with proportional representation. And i think thats what we need in the United States. In Washington State we have these twoseat House Districts. So youre going to get your ballot here, and it says Washington Statehouse of representatives position one, position two. Right . Theyre separate races. Thats ooh not in the thats not in the constitution. That was invent by olympia in 1966, and i could tell you the whole story behind it, but i dont want to burn up the time. But, for example, we could have a system using existing districts from 2011, okay, and you could give voters one vote and select two seats. Proportional system, right . So if you look at eastern washington, just a sea of red legislators, okay . Which is kind of redundant. Theres been, like, 35, 40 of voters vote democrat, they never elect anybody, okay . So with this system, which i call top two vote, youd get one vote and the top two vote getters would win. So every seat in the state, i mean, every House District in the state would have two would have a bipartisan delegation to olympia. Except for six. Last time, it was two years ago, id have to run the numbers again for recent elections, but there would be six seats in seattle which would have either two democrats or maybe another party. There is another party active in seattle who actually has somebody on the city council. But thatd be up to voters to decide when that party could get elected to the legislature. Its not up to olympia. The state Redistricting Commission, i watched it closely in 2011. Dave, youre right, i agree 100 , every state the needs to have a redistricting, independent Redistricting Commission to draw lines on every level. But it on the goes is so far it on the goes so far because you could be taking this power out of the hands of legislators, but then youre giving the power to a commission, okay . And in 2011 i wasnt happy at all with the way our commission drew the, drew the lines. And Peter Callahan did, with the tacoma news tribune, he did an investigative journalism, and he got all these emails from olympia in 2011, and legislators fingerprints were all over the map. They want these precincts, they wanted those precincts, and they knew they were all over it. Because in Washington State we have, we dont really have independent redistricting. We have bipartisan redistricting, okay . So basically the two parties, the incumbents of both parties collude. They collude, and they make the districts, and call has chewedded in callahan colluded in his article that perhaps the Redistricting Commission in 2011 had brushed up against the public open meetings law where basically they had these hearings, they had, you know, these meetings and whatever. Then the deal went down behind closed doors. Thats what he was careful with his words, but if we had a proportional system for the statehouse, like proare two toptwo pro if, then voters have the power all over the state. And then you get these rural democrats coming to olympia with, youd get more urban republic who could be more moderate and staying with rural democrats. There could be more moderation. Olympia, to me, seems very polarized, right . Theyre just kind of butting heads. And i think we can, i think we can do it. So there you have it. [laughter] thanks for listening, folks. Weve got some good questions here, it looks like. How should we do this . Jump into some of these . If you got questions, theres a little ask a question module down at the bottom chick on it and here click on it and here we go. Here we go. Im so glad to be participating and thanks for doing this. So i do have a question. I recently have gotten involved with the voting efforts here in washington. Im just learning, so im sorry if this might seem like a dumb question theres no such thing as a dumb question, especially with chris krist nov. But will this effort benefit the limiting gerrymandering effort, are they related somehow . Thats from caroline. Yes. Well, theres a local option bill, theres a group, fair vote washington doing really good work, and its been in olympia for a couple years, and its basically you give local communities the option to do things like theres two kinds. Theres the kind for single winners like a governor, state executive, kind of a mayor or whatever, and then theres a portional version of it which is like they use for the senate in australia, the legislature in ireland, they use it in malta, they use it in english massachusetts. Theres a long history of proportional voting in the United States. So so basically, its a system where say if you have a threeseat district and you just rank a candidate who you think should get elected, theres a threshold to get elected. It takes 25 of the vote to get elected. Theres vote transfers that, you know, we dont have to get into the weeds right now, but its a form of proportional representation. And its good proportional voting for the United States because we believe it adheres to values of americans. Its not like in a lot of European Countries when you vote in a proportional system, its a party lift system, its a partybased system, and americans are really, like, americans cant to vote for candidates more than they do parties, right . So you can vote for a candidate. You vote for a candidate obvious, theyre from a party you could also vote for independents. So its a candidatebased system. So thats and its established here in the United States. Its protected by, bereave me, its been sued believe me, its been sued recently. The insiders have gone after it, and the courts have consistent hi upheld it. Its a very, very powerful way for, to its basically solving gerrymandering. Theres no more gerrymandering because youre sharing representation, okay . Youre just like, you know, you vote democrat, but your neighbor votes republican, and you likely are vice versa, and you both likely elect somebody. Then whoevers in the majority in the legislature, thats where, thats where it works. And a second part of that, so the majority in the legislature, the majority in the legislature, then we have anyway, and the other thing about this kind of voting, rank Choice Voting oh, i lost my train of thought. Oh, its very, its very conservative threshold. So, like, in israel the threshold is like i think 3. A 3. 5 now. They bumped it up a little bit. Its complicated. Theres a lot of arab voters that would get locked out, you know . Germany, the thresholds like 4 . In russia, their threshold is 8 to get elected into their duma under, like, party list voting. You know, with rank Choice Voting, its like say in a threemember district, itd be 25 to get elected. It can be 33 , you know . It can be 25 . Oh, i just said 25 , but there can be a threshold of 15, whatever. Its a very, its a more conservative system. And i think americans like that. To those are the two things with rank Choice Voting, but technical names the single transferable votes. And its a conservative threshold and that its candidate, its candidatebase with the. You want to add anything to that, david . Yeah. Just quickly, caroline, you asked would this benefit the limiting gerrymandering effort, and i think it would. What ill say is this, i mean, even the really bad thing about jerry handerring is that it destroys competitive districts. And when you dont have competitive districts, what you get are the only race that matters is in the party primary. And then you end up with these low turnout summer primaries that only the base comes out for, and you end up with these extreme candidates and nobody from the other side bothers running or can run or hiss the money to run. Raises the money to run. So you end up with this lopsided, uncompetitive, hyperextreme. And when you can fix the districts by either having bigger districts that elect are multiple people or by using rank Choice Voting in, you know, in primaries or in general elections, you are able to kind of get around that. It makes the, it makes the lines matter less if you can come up with a system that sort of gets around the ability of politicians to manipulate it in the their favor. Last june the New York Times ran a couple of major editorials supporting rank Choice Voting as a proportional for the United States house of representatives. Theres no constitutional barrier in the United States to have proportional representation Washington State has a bipartisan Redistricting Commission. The commission seems to focus on helping encompassing power, helping independents make a difference. Yeah, i think, i think that is absolutely right. Your commission is kind of a bipartisan politicians get together and carve it up i dont, i have an answer to that question. We need to give the state auditor power to, what is it, its a legal term, enjoin . If a map comes out and somebody complains that theres certain rules, theres enabling legislation to enact the Redistricting Commission [inaudible conversations] end join the state auditor to enjoin the state auditor, you can empower the state auditor to enjoin the map, basically hold the map up and say, hey, this map is illegal because the commission didnt follow these rules. And if you look what happened last time, they could have, like, broken some rules, but they never defined communities of interest, they never, you know, like it gets pretty wonky. So i dont want to get into the weeds of it right now. [inaudible] yeah. I would say commissions are only as good and bad as the criteria theyre given and the people who serve on them and how they are set up to function. If you have a commission thats made up of politicians whose goal it is to draw themselves really political appointees in washington yeah. Theres two republicans and two democrats oh, no, two major parties. Theres four major party people, two republicans, two democrats and then one independent chair. But see you have to remember when their criteria, okay, put us in this inexcept commission in this independent commission in this rural state. You cannot draw 100 competitive districts, okay, because theres other criteria. You know, the commission did a good job, washington last year. Theres that compactness, right . And youre supposed to keep communities of interest together. But if you really wanted to make competitive districts, you would have these weird districts from, like, acapitol hill in seattle and there finger going all the way over the hill to, like, ellensburg, okay finishing you know where that is. So with proportional representation, all that goes away. Its just like, you know, you have these larger districts. So the New York Times had an oped last year and then where they endorsed the idea for rank Choice Voting, proportional representation for the u. S. House of representatives. Theres no constitutional barrier to this. It could be ening abled by statute enabled by statute. Have to repeal a statute from 1967 that mandates singlemember districts, okay . So these are all political decisions with statutory yields, okay . Basically they would be, like, three, four, fivemember districts for the u. S. House. But the second thing they advocated was enlarging the size of the house by 100 seats. So currently there are 435 seats in the United States house, and prior to 1911 this is nowhere in the constitution that says there should be 435 seats. Thats another political decision that was made in 1911. They stopped at 435. So New York Times is saying, well, lets have 535 seats, okay . Which would make the u. S. House about the size of the german bind stag, right . So, you know, its like thats not unreasonable, to have 535 seats. So you would have larger districts, and but at the same time you wouldnt necessarily be geographically larger because thered be 100 more seats in the house, and that would bring the u. S. House closer to the people. So thats how it would work. And then you would call your representative. Where, you know, i live in southwest washington, and its a safe seat, republican seat, okay . Even though the republic the democrat wins, like, 45 of the vote, 46 of the vote down the drain okay . Thats a lot of votes to go to nothing to go elect nothing, right . And, you know, nancy pelosi democrats won the house in 2018 because they had to get, like heres my doggy. They had to get a supermajority of votes just to do that because republicans have a numerical advantaging. Not only do they have an advantage in the u. S. Senate with, like, population and conservative rural states, and they have an advantage in the Electoral College through gerrymandering republicans have an advantage. So, basically, were proposing a constitutionallyprotected statutory change. We dont have to amend the United States constitution to do this. And along the way therell be more democrats coming out of the midwest. Youll get republicans coming out of new york city. Youll have, hike are, gay guys getting elected, right . Fiscal conservatives but socially liberal, okay . It would be kind of, itd be a different ball game, and it would shake things up. And i hope along the way that we also repeal these, like, antiparty rules so we could have more grassroots participation. Because what weve done is people hate Political Parties so much, theyve basically thrown out the baby with the bath water, and theyve really suppressed grassroots participation. And whats happened is in the end suing political vacuum, youve got this multibillion consultant city industry. And boo, i hear it already, i deserve it. But anyway, you get all these consultants and insiders , and they recruit candidates, they lobby, and its just, like, professional political consultant class thats really messed up politics, and we need to go back to more grassroots participation because thats what david was talking about in his book unrigged. Its how people do grassroots work, and we need to have, empower parties because parties could actually keep you know, we have these closing celebrity politicians. Krist, when are you going to run for office. We dont need more celebrity poll decisions politicians, we need political association. I see a pretty timely question from david koenig, how to we stop republicans from using the scare around covid19 to discourage open voting in november of this year . That is a really timely question and one that i think a lot of us have been thinking a lot about. I mean, i would hope that what we see is something that like in Washington State is a big expansion of vote by mail. The idea right now that were going to have millions of people lined up to vote through schools and Senior Centers and libraries with, you know, Senior Citizens and the retirees as volunteer poll workers, it just seems completely impossible to imagine. People have, it will not be easy to do. It takes time to develop a good vote by mail system and my only have 210 days until the election and a lot has to be done nationally. Even access to a valid without having to have an excuse. In two thirds of the states you can get a vote by mail ballot with no excuse and a third of the state you cannot, and a pandemic is not one of them. There is machinery that has to be purchased, ballot would have to be translated, workers that have to be trained, state laws but have to be adjusted having to do with when votes can be counted. Two really important state in 2015, they were super close, down to the wire, they both expanded by mail but what they havent done is pass the state statute, they are not able to start opening these ballots until election day even though they may be coming in two weeks before election time it might not get results for a couple days and imagine if someone goes on tv and appears to have the lead on Election Night but then it changes overnight and pennsylvania and michigan change the outcome of the race. If we dont begin thinking through all of these questions about who gets the ballot, how do you do online Voter Registration, you cant get within six feet of one another. Theres a lot of things weve got to be thinking about. What happened in ohio last month, earlier this month was scary. You had the governor try to postpone a primary the day before primary, the governor and Public Health department should it down the next morning anyway because its wasnt safe. In the other states, they saw turnout drop dramatically, but imagine if we get to october and we are postponing elections, it is a dramatic and scary thing. I hope we see this through and see it through quickly. What else have we got here, trying to bounce around to a bunch of different topics. Despite massive electoral victories, gerrymandering, people dedicated to reversing progress have no qualms about deceptive behaviors to preserve their power, power certain antiscience, and highquality agenda. What makes you think supporters of such people could ever accept a system of fairness baked in . What i saw when i went around the country and what i see on the gerrymandering fight in the Voting Rights fight is as partisan our politics are i dont see that in these elections. In michigan the independent Commission Won with 62 of the vote. In florida, recycling Voting Rights won with 64 of the vote. In colorado and ohio redistricting pass with upwards of 70 . Missouri was in the mid 60s so i really do think for most americans this is still a question of basic fairness and is not as partisan as these representatives that turn it into, the folks who get elected and change these laws to keep themselves in power are the problem and that is a real problem. I dont want to sugarcoat how difficult it is to defeat folks who will go to any extreme to entrench themselves in power, what you saw in florida were 64 of the people want to restore those Voting Rights in the Florida Legislature goes ahead and installs a poll tax on top of that was horrifying but it does seem that the courts are going to take care of that i hope. Question 2 of the Voting Rights act. We are still in section 2. It is extraordinarily hard, this is where john roberts was so disingenuous in the gerrymandering decisions that came down last year or the year before from the North Carolina case, voters can fix this, voters, folks who do those lines come out of office. Now they cant. If they could do that voters wouldnt be resorting to petition drives and spending their time trying to establish independent commissions. It is not what most voters want to do with their free time. Democrats passed a bill to restore section 5 . Part of house bill one and you look at house bill one was scrawling. A lot of stuff in that bill. You look at wisconsin where 2018, democrats select, they defeat scott walker, reelect tammy baldwin, a left a democrat to every statewide office and when 200,000 more votes for the state assembly but republicans hold 6336 edge and you cant change that at the ballot box. It doesnt work that way. It is going to be really hard to beat in some of these places but the only way to do it in some states is to keep going, keep trying. What else have we got here . Any questions you are excited by . Okay. Do you worry about minority representation that will always exist in the senate . 40 million in california get the same representation, my question, wyoming. K, 40 million get the same center representation is 580,000 in wyoming, seems the senate will always find red. Any idea what can be done or other thoughts . You have an idea . I will be brief. Lets go first. Theres federalism. You have a giant federal government that spend a lot of money on armaments. There is this whole militaryindustrial complex blowing money, benefits a lot of these red states, proportional representation again, more representatives coming out of california so that gives more balance, right . And that is my answer. We have to change the nature of the senate entirely, the senate is about to become this deeply unrepresentative, dangerously unchecked institution. By 2040 it is said 70 of the population will have 30 of the representation in the senate and it is going to be really hard anything that 70 of the public wants, a block from 30 of the senate, and we have to think about that basic experience and it will be hard to do. But there is a really interesting proposal from a professor at the university of pennsylvania which says how about if every state gets one senator and then you at 5 or 6 more, 105, 106, and then lie those 56 a proportionately and balanced the chamber out a little bit that way. I think you are exactly right. The idea that wyoming can have more senators a lot of work about the cost of freedom. The way to keep voters in coastal states from saying we are sending all this money to these states that elect all these creeps, maybe that money would be better served here like in washington or california. There is a piece in the atlantic a couple years ago and it is the best proposal i have seen on this and i recommend it highly. We have time for one or 2 more. Lets see. Ending the Electoral College, you want to do that when . There is a terrific new book on this called let the People Choose the president. I would highly recommend jesses book. He was just on fresh air, should deftly go back and take a look at that. I would be all for washington or california, part of the interstate compact. It is so funny to think this room bold berg contraption of the system we have set up. If you are starting from scratch and setting something up you would never come up with anything as wild as this and it just seems as if it has outlived its usefulness. Congress gave up so much of its power to the executive. One of the things i worry about is if we dont i will end here. One of the things i really worry about is article 2 section 1 of the constitution gives the power to choose electors to gerrymandered state legislatures which are so often gerrymandered. If we dont come up with ways to ensure that the voters safeguarded this november what you could see if some states are unable to vote or the votes cant be counted is the power to choose the electors goes to the state legislature, doesnt go to the state legislature with veto power by the governor, the legislature can choose the electors. That is bush versus gore affirms this in bush versus gore. No individual right to vote for president of the United States. We may people talk right now can trump cancel the election by emergency, no, the president cant do that. Election day set by congress, thats not going to happen but what could very well happen is you could have individual states that either are unable to hold elections or whatever, who would have imagined march 30th we would be in this position so we have no sense what happens in november but remember article 2 section 1 the state legislature can choose electors. We dont have any individual right to do that and main was choosing right Choice Voting for its electors. It has four electors, two at large, and each congressional district, they are going to choose their electors through voting ballot this november. It will be really interesting. Thank you, chris, i thank all of you, thank you, townhall. You can buy books down below. I will send out, i will send out im happy to sign books, they i hope to get out to seattle sometime soon, thank you to the american constitutional study and high, candace. Im candace, one of the event managers. I want to say thank you to both of you for your insights tonight in this important topic, thank you all to the viewing audience for joining us, please consider following this townhall podcast channel by clicking the follow button at the top right of your screen, you can also support us by donating by clicking the donate button at the bottom right of your screen. Please her member to support our partner bookseller, thirdplace books by purchasing a copy of davids book, with the by the book but not the Bottom Center of the screen. We will see you again next time, thank you to both of you for being here and everybody stay safe