Ep. 9: Election reform: systemic changes to improve how we choose our leaders with Todd Connor and Eric Bronner

Joining us are two guests - Navy veterans Todd Connor and Eric Bronner. Todd is the founder of the veteran business incubator Bunker Labs, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, and author of Third Shift Entrepreneur. Eric is the Co-Founder of Show Me Integrity Education Fund, Missouri. He holds a JD from Washington University in St. Louis, and is a nationally recognized election reform leader. They both have co-founded a group called Veterans for All Americans (formerly called Veterans for Political Innovation) whose mission is To build and mobilize a community of military veterans to advocate for election innovations. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

And there's a lot of myths, a lot of misinformation about ranked choice voting, that a lot of scare tactics around it. And it's just not true. The voters love it. It's simple and it would solve this vote splitting and unintended consequence problem that we have.

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Hello and welcome to Vet Our Democracy Podcast, created by us, the nonprofit, nonpartisan pro-democracy group, we the veterans and military families. In this series, we explore what it means to be a citizen, what veterans and military families' roles are in supporting and defending our constitution, following military service, and how you can get more involved to help create a more perfect union. We're all in this democracy thing together, and it's important for all of us to know our rights and our responsibilities to each other. As citizens, we need to know how our government is supposed to work so we can engage patriotically and positively to help bring about the best version of America. If you care about America, democracy, baseball, mom, and apple pie, then this is the podcast for you. We've all heard about how divided America is today. At least that's what we're being told. You only need to watch five minutes of cable news and you'll hear about how one political party is trashing another, calling them the enemy or a grave threat to democracy. Voter enthusiasm for leading candidates is low, and many people I speak with out here in rural Virginia are asking if these two very old male candidates are the best options our country of more than 330 million can produce. The last Congress was one of the least productive in terms of legislation passed in decades, if not US history, because of partisan infighting and a lack of willingness to compromise. Many times I feel like both of the major political parties are standing on opposite ends of the football field, hurling insults across to the 50-yard line at each other instead of doing the business of governing. What's clear is that Washington isn't going to change itself. And it reminds me of what Dr. W. Edwards Deming said a bad system will beat a good person every time. Today's episode is all about making the way we elect our officials better and how improving the system can produce a better politics for our nation. So joining us today are two guests that have a few ideas on how to do this Navy veterans Todd Conner and Eric Bronner. Todd's the founder of Bunker Labs. He's the entrepreneur in residence at the University of Chicago's Booth School. He's a presidential leadership scholar and author of Third Shift Entrepreneur. And Eric is the co-founder of Show Me Integrity Education Fund in Missouri. He holds a JD from Washington University in St. Louis, and he's a nationally recognized election reform leader. They both have co-founded a group called Veterans for All Americans, formerly called Veterans for Political Innovation, whose mission is to build and mobilize a community of military veterans to advocate for election innovations that unlock competition, make our politics less toxic, and our government more effective. Gentlemen, welcome. Let's start off by telling us where you are on this snowy morning.

SPEAKER_02: 2:45

Hey, thanks for having us, Joe. I'm in uh St. Louis, Missouri, which is very cold and very snowy today. Awesome. So Eric's in St. Louis and Todd, where are you?

SPEAKER_03: 2:54

Yeah, good morning, Joe and uh Ellen. Good to be with you. I'm in uh Chicago, Illinois, Hyde Park neighborhood, south side here. Yep. And it's very cold.

SPEAKER_00: 3:04

We'd have to roll the dice to see who's got a lower outside temperature and greater snowfall. We actually have a couple inches here in Virginia, so which is unusual. But um and Ellen, you're down in Norfolk.

SPEAKER_01: 3:13

Not down here, no snow. Uh and yeah, no, probably some rain today, but the came so my kids are bummed out.

SPEAKER_00: 3:20

Awesome. So my first question for both of you is take us back to the beginning and tell us how your organization came to be.

SPEAKER_02: 3:30

Sure. Yeah, so I'll start. Uh so I was working in the reform movement here in Missouri and St. Louis with an organization, cross-partisan organization called Show Me Integrity. We helped pass uh a nonpartisan approval voting system in St. Louis City. I worked on that campaign, gathered signatures, and uh in November of 2020, we were successful. 68% of St. Louis's voted to change their structure of how they do their elections in St. Louis City to allow for more competition, to allow for a more representative outcome. And uh it was really inspiring for me personally to see this success on a local level amidst the dysfunction and chaos on the national level. It was such a stark contrast. And a veteran saw my passion for the work and said, Eric, you should do something to get more veterans involved. I thought it was a good idea. Uh, I wish I had had it and kind of put together a kitchen cabinet, a kitchen council. Todd Connor was on that uh kitchen cabinet of veterans from all over the country. Uh, Dan Bigga, our other co-founder, and many other just great veteran servant leaders, helped invest in is there a need for this for another veterans organization? And there was. We found a true white space between the 40 or 50,000 veteran service organizations and the 10,000 or so reform organizations. There was a white space. No one was bringing those two worlds together. So we launched uh a little over two years ago as veterans for all voters.

SPEAKER_00: 5:08

Awesome. And then Todd, how did you how did you meet Eric? How did you get involved in all this? Because I I know you and I uh go back probably almost 10 years to your days at Bunker Labs. And uh it seems like you're taking business savvy and bringing it towards the uh the democracy space.

SPEAKER_03: 5:27

Well, yeah, you know, I think we all have our story about how we kind of have pivoted into this work, and I think if you have been a uh an American and you've been paying attention, and then in particular if you're a military veteran um and you care about the country, I don't I think you just can't help but ask yourself the question, what is going on, and how do we get this thing back on the rails? And so I I think I just like like all of us and many other veterans I know have been asking ourselves like the sincere question, like what is going on here and how do we get it back on the rails? And I think for me, um having had a long history in politics, I've attended two Republican conventions, I've attended two Democratic conventions, I have run for office, I've voted, I've been a poll worker, I've knocked doors, I've you know, I've done all the I've I've done all the things you can do institutionally. And I think after um 2016 and then after 2018, and then after 2020, I really was trying to ask myself this is what it was for me. The answers about what's wrong feel dissatisfying. Like I actually don't think that we're on to a more intellectually honest answer about what the problem is and how we get back to some semblance of normal governing uh power. And for me, normal governing power means healthy tension amongst uh different ideological viewpoints, but towards a system that amidst that tension gets things done. And what we have is a system with tension that does not get anything done because it's a winner-take all environment, and and both political parties operate sort of in a spirit of power for the sake of power. Um, and so that crippling nature uh to me felt exhausting. And I after 2020, I stepped down on a CEO of Bunker Labs and really said, we have to, I think if you're a mid if you're middle-aged and you're a veteran, you've got some time, capacity, resources, whatever, and you feel and you self-identify as a patriot, you have to figure out how do you show up in this moment. And um that that's that question, which I probably ask every five or six years of my life, led me to reading a bunch of books, really trying to get grounded in like what's an honest answer about what's going on, how do we get ourselves out. And then uh read The Politics Industry by Michael Porter out of Harvard Business School and Catherine Gale, and really felt like it was just it really had some searing insights about the dysfunction that we exhibit in our political system. That led me to reach out to Eric Bronner, who was already talking about election reform, and I said, you know, I really think this is the first thing that intellectually feels honest to me that like if we actually change laws about how people get elected, you get different incentives for how they behave. And we have evidence that this works in other countries, we have evidence that it works in some states in the United States, but fundamentally it was like I I stopped believing that this was just a behavioral thing of like we just need to beat the other side and started believing that it's just an incentive problem. And so, what are the incentives for our elected officials and how do we change those incentives if we can do that? We can begin to kind of get America back on the rails, and so that's that's what we've been doing these last two years.

SPEAKER_00: 8:37

Yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, you know, in a capitalist system, right? We put a dollar in front of it, we get it. And so, you know, when you talk about incentives, I think incentives are everything. But Ellen, I think you wanted to ask you.

SPEAKER_01: 8:48

Yeah, so Eric Eric, going back to the beginning, so you were initially obviously working in St. Louis, kind of starting as local as possible. What were the reforms you you were initially looking for? What were you advocating for uh in St. Louis first?

SPEAKER_02: 9:01

Sure. So Show Me Integrity was is a good government organization, so you know, a more open, transparent government, but specifically, right, getting rid of partisan primary elections. Having, you know, St. Louis was one of only 20% of municipalities that still have partisan primary elections. There is no reason, from our perspective, there's no reason to have partisan primary elections at any level, but especially not at the local level. Why should school boards be partisan? Why should local government be partisan, right? So the old system was having unintended consequences in St. Louis, where in a majority black city, we kept on electing white mayors because of the partisan primary system and plurality voting first past the post, right? So you'd have three white candidates for mayor and one black candidate, uh, or vice versa, sorry, three black candidates for mayor, one white candidate, and the black candidates would split the vote and the white candidate would win. That's an unintended consequence. It's an unrepresentative outcome, right? So we were trying to make on a local level, let's make our democracy more representative. And that's the thread that carries through all of our work with veterans for all voters.

SPEAKER_01: 10:17

That's really cool. It's a great example at the very local level. And then you're you guys as an organization are sort of pulling that out, extrapolating that out to the country. Like what's sort of your parallel example right now, um, you know, for for our national politics, that three black mayor candidates to one white candidate. Like what's sort of the parallel example that you're trying to address on the national level?

SPEAKER_02: 10:38

Sure. Well, it happens all the time, right? We're in uh presidential primaries, especially, right? You have a crowded primary field, and uh we're we're ending up, right? We we're ending up with two leading candidates that 62% of Americans do not want, right? And that's a systems failure that can be addressed like this with system level changes such as majority voice, uh, sorry, majority choice voting methods like ranked choice voting uh or others.

SPEAKER_01: 11:12

What's that? Explain ranked choice voting.

SPEAKER_02: 11:15

Yeah, ranked choice voting, it's a majority choice voting method, uh, sometimes called instant runoff. We like to point out there's six Southern states that already use ranked choice ballots for military and overseas voters. So this is not something foreign or to be scared of. It's not a Trojan horse for one party or the other. It's simply a way for voters to rank their choices. And if no one gets over 50% of the number one rankings, there's an instant runoff until you have a majority winner. And it it's really very simple. Voters love it when it's used in states like Maine and Alaska. Utah uses it in over 20 different municipalities, and uh there's a lot of myths, a lot of misinformation about ranked choice voting, that a lot of scare tactics around it, and it's just not true. The voters love it. It's simple and it would solve this vote splitting and unintended consequence problem that we have.

SPEAKER_00: 12:14

So, in other words, instead of just filling in one oval on my ballot, I'm just gonna put like if the four of us were running for office, I would put, you know, you or Todd as number one. No, and then I would rank Ellen number two, or you know, maybe I'm number three. Uh and so if if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, they drop the the lowest ranking candidate and then reapportion those votes to the now the number two choice counts, right? Yeah, it doesn't seem that that hard or complicated, but what does it get us though? Like you know, how does that drive politics to the center instead of to the the fringes?

SPEAKER_02: 12:52

Yeah. So I mean here's here's the most immediate sorry, Todd, and I'll uh uh here's the most immediate positive benefit. Negative campaign ads are rendered unnecessary and ineffective. Negative campaign ads in a ranked choice voting election, they don't work because you want to be everyone's second choice if you're not their first choice. Todd, did you have some some other thoughts about it?

SPEAKER_03: 13:20

Yeah, I mean I the I I would go back to like a fundamental premise, which is it we have minority rule in this country. We have a minority of residents that are picking our majority representatives. Um 87% of districts in this country are either gerrymandered or geographically self-sorted. Um if you get rid of gerrymandering, it's it's still something like high 70% of districts are j geographically self-sorted. Democrats live in cities, Republicans live in rural communities, that's just the way it's gonna be. Which means the winners of those elections are not determined in the general election. The winners of those elections are determined in the primary election. They're determined within the Republican race. Um we just had the Iowa caucuses yesterday. 110,000 Iowans voted less than in the Iowa caucus. There are 3.2 million people that live in Iowa. So the story's being spun as you know, Trump got 51%, it's you know, he he he he's walking away with it, you know. But like, let's just do the math. 51,000, 51% of 110,000, let's call it 50,000 and change voters in a state of 3.2 million people are determining what becomes the narrative of who the like objective front runner is in the Republican primary. The math just doesn't work. Like these are minor these are like minority elections. I'm like, why are we living giving 50,000 people the power to say this is what a state wants when there are 3.2 million people in that state? So in most elections in this uh country, uh the winners are not determined in the general election, and that's a problem because that's where the independents can vote. So if you're a registered independent, you cannot vote in the Republican primary or the Democratic primary, and that's where the Democrat or the or the Republicans is emerging into the general election, and then in the general election, it's a fake complete because it's either a Democrat or a Republican district, right? So we just fundamentally don't have competition. So ranked choice voting is a mechanism, but it's not the point. The point is we have minority rule, and you can win a uh mayoral election or a congressional election by having seven other candidates in the field and getting 22%. And you can win that primary with 22% in a in a Republican primary that already represents a minority of people in your district with large. The seven or eight people that ousted McCarthy, uh, I think only one of them was a majority winner in their election. So these people are minority rule in their own districts and then hijacking the United States House for their own ideological purposes and then exercising like outsized power. So what we're proposing is like give power back to the majority. But in order to do that, you have to have mechanisms like ranked choice voting, and you also have to allow registered independents to fully participate. But like America hasn't America hasn't lost its mind. America just doesn't get to participate. That's kind of our premise. America is very rational. They know this doesn't make sense, they don't want this rematch, they don't want the House of Representatives being hijacked, they they want our political leaders to reach across the aisle, get things done, but the incentive structure is misaligned. So we just have to fix that alignment. And and what's here's the final thing about this work you can't go to the U.S. House of Representatives and ask it to fix itself. It can't. These folks cannot they cannot fix themselves. This is like it happens in the state legislature, it happens in the states. Every state determines how they elect their U.S. representatives, and every state does it differently. That's just like what shocks people. Like the way the California elect senators is different from how Illinois does it, it's different from how Arkansas does it. So every state has the authority to change how they elect their their federal representatives, and they can do it, and states are doing it. And if you want different outcomes in the United States House of Representatives, you have to go to state capitals. You don't go to the you don't go to DC. This work is not in DC, this work is in the 50 state capitals around the country. Um but I'm optimistic we can fix it. But we gotta first get clear with the American people like what exactly is broken. What's broken is minority rule and political manipulation of the primary system to keep themselves in power.

SPEAKER_00: 17:28

Yeah. Yeah, because I mean in other words, I mean, really, we have two private clubs that are called political parties, are really the only ones offering up candidates. And as a registered independent, if I wanted to run, man, it is so much harder for me to even get on the ballot, right? You know, that even in some states, like the number of signatures that you need as an independent are some like you know, three, four, five, six, seven times greater than if you're affiliated with a political party. So um, you know, Todd, you made a comment, you know, we would never allow a monopoly or duopoly in business. Um you said that over at Brookings' fall, like why would we allow it in politics? Could you talk a little bit more about that? Because I mean, you know, I'm fascinated with kind of bringing entrepreneurial ideas to people politics.

SPEAKER_03: 18:15

Well, you know what's funny is like if you think about if you work in politics and this is the whole political industrial complex, and someone else actually said it's the political industrial entertainment complex because we also have a news, this has become like a national sport for a lot of people. Like they watch just their cable news show of choice at night, which is also problematic. So this is an industry that's gonna spend over a billion dollars in this next presidential election, um, and it's dominated by two political parties. If you if you actually take a fresh look at this industry, if you don't work in it, what you realize is like something very obvious, which is we live in this capitalistic society where we expect choices everywhere we go. We go to Whole Foods and we see 12 different flavors of peanut butter. We we expect uh you know uh you know uh lots of American vehicles that we can choose from between our university system is full of choices. Like we we expect choices all across our capitalistic society. But when it comes to the political system, we have told ourselves a narrative, and the political system has told us this narrative, that this two-party system is somehow immutable, exempt from the rules of nature, um, wholly different, cannot be understood in the context of other countries, cannot be understood in the context of like free competition, and um, and therefore we're just subject to sort of its rules. And the reason duopolies are illegal in this country, we regulate them. Uh, because duopolies set prices and they manipulate consumers because they can have full authority and they can manipulate the marketplace. And that's exactly why that's why duopolies are illegal. Now, this is an unregulated marketplace, it's a political economy, it's an unregulated marketplace. Um, but if you want to stop the abuse of consumers as measured by Americans not wanting this rematch, as measured by registered independents not actually getting a vote, even though these are taxpayer-funded elections. You have to get back to a place where we don't have a two-party system sort of manipulating uh what happens. And we're not proposing getting rid of the two parties. I mean, I'm a member of one of these two parties. I'm dissatisfied, but I'm a member. You know, that we need to have more and we need to right-size the relationship of the political parties to the governing environment. They are not one and the same. Um, we have to have multi-party democracy in this country. We need strong political parties. The political parties that we have right now are being manipulated by their own ideological impulses. So they're not even strong as it is, but they are still sort of in control manipulating the system. So we would not accept a duopoly in uh we wouldn't accept there being only two mattress companies in this country, we wouldn't accept there being only, you know, two grocery store chains in this country, but we somehow are subject to this, and it just fundamentally lacks in a country of 340 million people. We we do not represent the diversity of interests, particularly the local interests that people in this country have. So we got to get past that. Um and it's just a system view. And we, you know, by the way, I'll say this historically in this country, every 70 years or so, we go through these sort of self-corrections. The reason we got direct pol uh primary elections in the 1920s is because party bosses were manipulating the primary process, the caucusing process, to just give favors back to people that got on the general election. So the American people rose up and said, we don't want party bosses in smoke-filled rooms picking our elected officials, and we got direct primaries in this country. We're just at a moment where we need to say, because power kind of encroaches on itself and it's creates scaffolding to protect itself. And so that happens every 70 years. You gotta pull that scaffolding down and give power back to people. So we have to, we're just it's like it's time in America to do this again. We've done it before, it's time now to do it again. We've got to take the party back, uh, take the power back from the political parties in this moment.

SPEAKER_00: 22:01

It almost reminds me of something Churchill said. Like Americans will, he said, I'll always trust Americans to do the right thing after they've tried every other option, right? Like, you know, and we're at that point now. I think you're absolutely right. Um, you know, where uh people are are tired of their government not working well for them. And well, you know, we Ellen and I are really trying to build up people's belief in the sanctity of vote and how like, you know, as a as a voting volunteer, election volunteer, like the system, like when you cast your vote, it's definitely going for the person that you cast it for. You know, what we're talking about here is kind of backing it up and like what are the choices? Because a lot of times it's kind of like it's the the the slight difference between Pepsi and Coke, right? You know, you got two choices, but it's kind of like you're getting the same thing at the end of the day, in some sense, you know, like um, you know, but uh Ellen, you had a question about Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:50

Well, so so I I was actually uh curious while you guys were talking about first of all, you know, are there other uh countries that we're you know friends with, allies with that that do uh that do rank choice voting and and have success with it? Um obviously there's a lot of different systems out there of of you know democracy. My second question is how this all ties to voter participation. I mean, when you say those numbers about Iowa, 50,000 people out of 3.2 million, theoretically, if half Iowa is Democrats and half are Republicans, you got you would have much bigger numbers if everyone voted, right? So so how does this how does this tie to I mean, of course, maybe people are more interested if they feel like they have more choices. Like, do you think that that you know the these systemic systemic changes do increase voter participation?

SPEAKER_03: 23:34

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So I first of all, again, we I operate from the global belief that it's the mechanics of election systems that have an outsized impact on the outcomes, how people participate, uh you know, and everything else. Like you kind of have to operate from that premise belief that like you know uh where you put the gum at the checkout counter is gonna have an outsized impact on the amount of gum that you sell. You know, that like the system design, the stuff that is non-ideological turns out to be hugely impactful for kind of the decisions that people end up making in the political context. Um and there's lots of dysfunctions to this. One of the main dysfunctions has nothing to do with our politics, but is binary decision making. When there's only two choices on a ballot, and this is the Coke Pepsi analogy, you the quickest persuasion path is not to make affirmative arguments for why I'm good. It's just to tear down the other thing. I don't need you to like me. I just need you to hate that. And that is like sort of the net fuel of any binary decision. Now, and that's why Coke and Pepsi had negative campaigns all throughout the 90s. The minute that you have flavored water, that's it's like all of a sudden a very dumb strategy for Coke and Pepsi to spend money going negative on each other because what they realize is that they tear down the whole category. Now no one likes Coke or cola. You know, it's like the whole category gets hurt. So when you introduce competition, you can change things pretty quickly. And with voters, here's the big idea with voter turnout. It's not that voters don't know how to vote, it's not that they aren't civically minded. Uh the next generation of voters is very engaged. What they are what they are making is a rational calculation to say what I want isn't going to get expressed through this election, and so I'm not sure there's a reason for me to vote. And they are not wrong. They are not dumb. And it's not just we need to, it's not a voter education campaign that's holding them back. They're fully informed. They know in Iowa that like, you know, the polling indicates like it's Trump's to walk away and it's freezing out, and like, you know, uh like if you know, if he's my guy, maybe I show up. He's not my guy, I'm not sure it matters. So um, when you open up election systems and create real competition and you have choices, like imagine going to the ballot and being excited because there's a few people that you like and you can't decide who to choose between. I mean, that seems like just a hype dream in America, but it's true in other countries. And so we do know that ranked choice voting and majority election models, where you have multi-party democracy, increases voter turnout, increases minority representation, increases female representation, increases ideological diversity, increases moderate voices, which by the way, are sort of summarily excluded from today's political environment. Um, and and and you know, the punchline is people will vote if they have a reason to vote. So we don't just need to like, you know, and I actually re I actually get a little prickly on uh the Democratic Party in particular talking about like we need to mobilize young people because it actually blames young people.

SPEAKER_01: 26:40

And like for young people for a very, very, very old guy.

SPEAKER_03: 26:44

It blames young people, and I'm like, young people aren't dumb. Young people know they don't want to, they don't they are not happy with these choices. This is like this this is not a young people problem, this is not a voter education problem, this is a voter incentive problem, this is a choices problem. So if we say if we fix the choices, people will show up, and there's lots of evidence. Last thing I'll say, because you asked it about globally, we're tied in in the world with Chile in terms of the index of world's healthiest democracies. We're ranked 27. Eight of the ten world's healthiest democracies have some form of majority election models, ranked choice voting. Our peer nations, when we go and do nation building in countries like Afghanistan, we always avoid an election model like our own and any any sort of election model that leads to a binary outcome because it's a ripe formula for ethnic conflict. You never want a binary decision environment, a governing environment. It's only two, but you want coalition tension. Because if it's just good guys and bad guys, that's how we get world wars, that's how we get ethnic conflict, um, that's how we create uh moral degradation. So we always, when we're our own State Department goes abroad, we're always looking at like how do you create coalition governing environments, uh, multi-party democracy, and majority election systems that ensure legitimacy. Because the legitimacy questions come when 50,000 people in Iowa are determining what 3.2 million people want. That's the legitimacy question, right? So we have to solve for that, and you can do it with election change.

SPEAKER_00: 28:13

Yeah, we we don't we don't see anyone rolling out the electoral college as a way to set up new democracies in the world, right?

SPEAKER_01: 28:19

Like Eric Eric, what were you gonna say? Eric, what were you gonna say about some of the EU countries? Like what what are the what are the other our peers that Todd just referred to?

SPEAKER_02: 28:29

Yeah, so so Todd mentioned it, but specifically three out of the top ten strongest democracies in the world Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, they all use ranked choice voting. Ireland and Australia have used it for about a hundred years. And in Ireland, they still count the votes by hand. So again, there's so much misinformation about ranked choice voting and fear-mongering, and it's not a scary thing uh at all, and it has a tremendous positive impact in other countries around the world.

SPEAKER_01: 29:02

And doesn't Australia have one of the highest voter turnouts in the world?

SPEAKER_02: 29:05

They do. They they also have mandatory voting.

SPEAKER_01: 29:08

Mandatory, that's right.

SPEAKER_02: 29:10

You get fined if you don't vote. Uh there's a couple countries like that, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:15

Yeah, I was doing some research on this last week, and in the last election, the US uh eligible voter turnout was 62.8%, something like that, which makes us like 18th in the world as far as voter participation. So, like, you know, next time people are talking about, hey, we're number one. Well, not in this category, right? But I think Todd's point's great because like it's almost like the psychology of joining groups, right? For me to join a group, I've got to see a little bit of myself there. I've got to see people who you know look like me, espouse the same beliefs as me to kind of join that team. And yeah, wow, what what a difference that would be if you had choices that you're actually excited about rather than holding your n your nose and picking the wor you know the best of all worst options, right? So I think you know that's super interesting. And I think you know the open I'm gonna circle back to the open primaries thing because you know, being an independent, if if uh if I'm in a state that's got closed primaries, I don't get a say of of who goes on the ballot. And I I just checked, Virginia's open, right? So like I can vote and I think it's in one or the other party's primary, right? Um, but not both. So um so I was kind of excited about that because it gives me a little bit of an option. But how does, you know, how do you because if if these political parties are actually private clubs, one, if they're having closed primaries, shouldn't they pay the cost of elections? Like why should the taxpayer, you know, who isn't able to enjoy, you know, the independent taxpayer who isn't able to enjoy voting in closed primaries pay through their tax dollars to support private clubs selecting their own candidates, right? You know, could you could you tell me a little bit about like how open primaries would would force the conversation more to the middle and force candidates uh to the center?

SPEAKER_02: 31:02

Yeah, and that's and Joe, you you hit the nail on the head. That's one of our fundamental operating premises is that every single voter should be able to fully participate in every single public taxpayer-funded election, right? And right now, nine states have fully closed primary elections. So, for example, in Pennsylvania, 1.2 million independent voters in one of the most important swing states in our country can't even vote. The only election that matters in about 85% of the races is the primary election. So that's a huge problem, right? So when when we move to the Alaska election model, so Alaska has a fully open primary, whereas an independent, you can vote for the best candidate for each office regardless of party. I could vote for uh a Republican governor and a Democrat for lieutenant governor and a libertarian for Secretary of State for each office, and then the top four move on to the general election, and you have real competition between four four candidates. It just fundamentally changes how candidates campaign, right? Because they now they have to campaign to everyone. They have to reach out to all voters and not just the most extreme party base is no longer the most important vote.

SPEAKER_01: 32:24

Yeah, it's funny. I grew up in Pennsylvania and I'll I I remember my dad changed his voter registration all the time, back and forth and weaving back and forth and back and forth because he always wanted to be involved in in the in the primaries, you know, on one side or the other. And it was often, uh like you're saying, it was often to like maybe not vote, you know, get uh the worst possible person to get less votes. I mean, but it's like so backwards. That's not what you know, that's what voting should be.

SPEAKER_00: 32:53

You know, you know. Several friends run for uh the House of Representatives in the US Senate and as an independent, you know, I just want to see the best person for the country win, right? And so, you know, I told my friends, like, hey, I don't care if you're an R, I don't care if you're a D. I just believe in you as a good person and my friend, and I want to see you win this thing, right? Um, and I can't tell you how many times like the political consultants would be like, oh, well, you can't say that because you'll lose the base. Like, you've got to win the primary, so you've got to either adhere to this or say this or don't do this. And they're like, man, like I don't believe that. And they're like, well, if if you want to win over the the base, who are fairly extreme, then you're gonna have to at least pretend uh to do this in the to win the primary, and then you can kind of tone it down in the general. And I'm like, what a horrible position to be in. And uh, you know, forces candidates into this uh they have to contort themselves, right? You know, it's just kind of like there's no good options. And back to that demi thing, like, you know, no good person's gonna withstand a bad system for long. So like if you want to win, it's almost like you've got to do the crazy person dance to get through the primary to actually be who you really are, if any of that remains by the time you get to the general. And I I don't know. Do you see it the same way? Or what do you what are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_03: 34:07

Well, we we know I mean we know it's true. You know, if you if you spend time on Capitol Hill, you know, you know that the verb that lingers in the nightmare of every incumbent is being primaried. It's not losing the general. Very few people in Congress are worried of they're not worried about losing to someone of the other party. They are terrified of being primaried within their own party. Like that's that's the whole game. And and if you listen to a member of Congress, like they that that is what is sort of the fear, it keeps them up at night. Because, again, we know this, the math, the math says it, they're not in competitive districts against the other party. They are in competition within their own party. And the only way you're gonna get primaried is if you don't perfectly toe the party line. Um and it is uh it is astounding the voting records, and and the last Congress was sort of set new records, depressing records in this way. But you know, members of Congress are voting with their party 97% of the time. It's like we don't actually need a representative from this district. Let's just give the vote to, you know, uh the Democratic leader or the Republican, you know, here the vote is Hakeem Jeffries. It's not your vote. Because it's like if you're a Democrat, it's like 97%, it's like he's calling all the shots. Like, I don't even think it's fun to be a member of Congress these days. Like, this is actually what's depressing. Is like part of our appeal to members of Congress are like, don't you wish you could have original thoughts and not just have to be 97% in this predictable oppositional role if you're in the minority, or predictable, like defend whatever's happening if you're in the majority role. Like, it's not, I don't even think it's fun anymore for a lot of members of Congress. And so part of our argument is like, this actually allows you, and if you look at Alaska and the representatives coming out of Alaska, moderate Democrat, Mary Paltola, sort of somewhat moderate Republican, Lisa Murkowski, conservative uh Senator uh Dan Sullivan, conservative governor, but they're all elected on the same ballot because voters are willing to be nuanced and they think that these are the representatives that like will do the right thing for Alaskans, and they are willing to see past party. And as a result, their members are allowed to kind of operate with freedom when they go to the United States Senate and the United States House and say, well, I don't think this makes sense for us in Alaska. And it's frustrating to the party leadership, but it's exactly what their voters back home want. And so I think it's liberating for the right members because the thing that, again, keeps them up at night is being primaried. And the only way to not get primaried is never take a vote that violates your party's dogma and raise as much money as you can. And so that's why they spend most of their time doing exactly those two things doing exactly what the leaders of their party want and raising as much money as possible.

SPEAKER_01: 36:57

Well, that's that almost sounds like we went back to party bosses, right? I mean, like we didn't we we didn't get too far away from it. We've we found a way back, or they or they have found a way back, if you will.

SPEAKER_00: 37:06

Exactly. So they so if if Washington's not gonna fix itself, and it seems like states are starting to do this on their own. And I even saw like even local communities, right? Like how partisan politics usually hasn't been traditionally at the school board or the county commissioners. Um, I read an article that was really inspiring in the Washington Post in November about Matthews, Virginia. Like people so sick of like toxic partisan politics, so they're like local Republicans, Democrats, and independents, they formed a uh a pack over the summer and and elected their own slate of people and threw out the extremists, right, out of out of uh county government. Um so like if the answer is not Washington, because you're really asking people in power, like, hey, would you like less power, more restrictions on and more uncertainty in your future? They're all gonna say no. Like, that's just human behavior. I get that. So, how do we get involved? Like, what do we do and where do we do it to make this difference?

SPEAKER_02: 38:04

Yeah. Yeah. Join us. Yeah, join us. You know, we this is a grassroots veteran-led movement, right? We have over 300 uh veteran state leaders now in 47 states. They're actively working on about 20 different reform campaigns, nonpartisan structural reforms. And it's just one more voice. Every voice we add to our team in these states is someone who can go tell their family and friends that both parties are gaslighting us, and leaders of both parties are gaslighting us for their own power and their own control. The only way we are gonna change the system and make this country better is through grassroots citizen-led action.

SPEAKER_03: 38:55

And and the optimistic uh tone I want to strike here is um, because we've said what's hard, we've diagnosed the problem, here's what's giving me optimism. Every state, like we said, can change how they conduct their elections, and tons of states are taking up the issue and saying, are we happy with the way that we are conducting our elections? And I got news for you. If you have a member of Congress uh who is in their 80s or who has not had a meaningful competition in their primary or their general, like you're part of the problem. You're part of the problem. You're at least what we can say to minimum is you've figured out how to minimize competition. Which by every time you do that, I get offended because it's like you're taking away choices from voters. It's not benign. What you're saying is I don't want voters to have a choice because I want this for myself. And so we're denying voters, and and there's so many symptoms of this lack of competition in primaries, lack of competition is in general, uh, members of Congress that that go on seemingly undebated for as long as they want, way beyond even the you know, the extent to which they. We know like it's open secrets that folks don't have full faculty. They're still there. Why is that? So it's an indication of a system failure, of a system breakdown, but states can change their laws. They can change how they elect their president, they can change how they conduct uh their elections for U.S. House, U.S. Senate. And uh and we're seeing hotspots all across the country. Alaskans have really set the bar for the model that we think is most impactful. Nevada voters voted to implement the same model last cycle. They have to pass it twice. Both political parties were opposed because they couldn't figure out how they would manipulate it in a world in which they have competition again. So they were opposed, but we know that voters will support it again. Um there's a grassroots movement in Idaho to say we want real competition back in our elections. We want registered independence to participate, we don't want extremism, we want consensus-driven policymaking. Um and Pennsylvania's got an effort to open their primaries, Wisconsin's got a bill that they're moving through the state legislature. Um, you know, and and we could go through all the states, but there's lots of Colorado, Arizona, South Dakota. I mean, there are citizen efforts underway in all of these states uh and more, and I think we're gonna see a lot more. Um so it can be a golden era for political innovation in which we restore and return power to politic to back to the people. Um but we the people, and particularly we the veterans, are gonna have to be the messengers to make this thing happen because Americans are not sure who to trust, particularly when you talk about changing elections. The you know, both parties will say, well, this is complicated. They're trying to take away your elections. It's like our elections have already been taken away. We're trying to actually give elections back, but we need honest brokers, trusted messengers, military veterans, spouses to help uh lead and be the tip of the spirit of this movement to tell Americans that we must expect better and we can have better, uh, but we got to fight for it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:52

Definitely. Because I think you know, in our system, you brought up a thought, like we the people are the final check on power, right? Like, so you know, I've I've heard it's said that in a democracy, we always get the system of government that we deserve or the elected leaders that we deserve. So like it's like if you want a better politics, if you want to see less vitriol in Washington, then send better people to DC, right? But it you know, and I think and as what I'm hearing from this whole conversation is kind of like um the system by which we elect people, you know, the the if I cast my vote, it's getting counted, you know, with pretty high fidelity. But it's like the choices I have, like the system by which we get to the choices that are actually on the ballot is what really needs fixing. And and I couldn't agree more. I couldn't absolutely couldn't agree more as an independent, and I think uh as a person that would like to be inspired by candidates that wouldn't want to be like, I'll hold my nose and vote for this person because they're at least they're not as bad as the other person. But um, we usually like to wrap up with a civics question. So uh our first episode we had uh we challenged ourselves against the 100 practice questions for the U.S. citizenship test. And I pulled one out today. It was like under our constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. Name one power of the federal government.

SPEAKER_03: 43:09

Name one power of the federal government to declare a war.

SPEAKER_00: 43:14

That's it, yep. There you go. Yep, yeah. So to uh declare war, create an army, and make treaties are the ones that would make you pass to become a U.S. citizen. So well done. To listen to episode one, it was funny because like we we struggle on some of them, Alan and Jeremy and I. Uh Ben was tossing some water ball.

SPEAKER_01: 43:34

We all got one or two wrong, I'm not gonna lie. But we did we we in the end we got enough to pass, but it was it was humbling. It was humbling.

unknown: 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:46

Well, we do need civics education. We do need, you know, we need a lot more in this country, but um I I I um we do need more. We do need more. We need a lot more in this country. We need a whole spirit of civic renewal. We've got to remind the next generation that they in fact can control this government. But I think election reform is a big uh can be a big first intervention in outsized intervention.

SPEAKER_01: 44:10

Yeah, well, it's really compelling, and it's obviously uh, you know, as a military spouse and veteran organization, we we love to see, you know, this this kind of deep sort of political work done by our own community, right? Because it's it's the thinking, it's the strategizing that you know, it's it's all gonna affect our military members uh in the long run, because if better people are making those decisions, then um everyone's gonna have a you know it really helps us in an outsized way.

SPEAKER_03: 44:37

I I totally agree with that. I I want to say this too because this this this came up. The the Republican senator uh from Alaska, Senator Sullivan, who really um pushed Tupperville to end the uh what were we what were we calling it? The blockade.

SPEAKER_00: 44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 44:56

You know, and that it's not lost to me that yeah, it's not lost to me that we had a Republican senator from a final five voting state who felt the freedom to stand up and say enough is enough to another Republican. And I'm like, if we want to incentivize that kind of truth telling to say, look, do not hijack the military because you have a pet issue around uh abortion, you know, then we need more people that feel the freedom to do that because it's not gonna hurt their own re-election, it's gonna actually help their own re-election. You know, I think another Republican senator from a closed primary state would have been primary because that would have been sort of like you're entering that clickbait fray, right, in that cable news environment. I think the the inverse happened in Alaska, which is like it fortifies this re-election as opposed to it hurts it. So um, so to your point, Ellen, like this this dysfunction isn't, you know, it's not in the abstract. It's like we are not, you know, we are, you know, national readiness is being hurt today. Military families are being hurt today by this congressional dysfunction. We're putting people in harm's way. Like it has consequences today for the military, for our national debt, for all kinds of things that you know the federal government needs to do, frankly, um, and is unable to because of the environment in which it operates.

SPEAKER_00: 46:10

Definitely. Well, this has been a great conversation. I really, really appreciate your thoughts. I appreciate your time and being here on an early uh early Tuesday morning. Um, how can how can veterans who want to get involved find you?

SPEAKER_02: 46:23

Yeah, check us out at uh veteransforallvoters.org. Veterans for all voters, we're real active on LinkedIn as well. If if you have any interest in learning more, reach out to me or Todd on LinkedIn or via our website. We'd we'd love to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00: 46:39

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 46:39

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 46:40

Any final thoughts from anyone?

SPEAKER_03: 46:42

You know, just thank you for for what you guys are doing, Joe and Ellen. I mean, we're proud members of the uh We the Veterans Coalition, and it really is an all hands on deck. I would just challenge every veteran, don't get discouraged. I get it. You know, the temptation is just tune out and like pretend like go live under a rock. That is what a lot of Americans are going to do, and they can't be, you know, I don't blame them for wanting to do that, but I think we have a higher calling. We have to show up in this moment. My challenge to every person who's listening is develop your own theory of the case and then move to action against that theory. Um, find ways to be involved, whether it's volunteering as a co-worker locally, whether it's joining us, advocating for election reform. Um, we all have a role to play in this moment, and whether we're not we're actually not a huge community, but we we need all the voices in this moment because Americans are wondering whether or not this thing's even worth fighting for. And I think the military community has to remind them that it is, and it's our systems, you know, it's our generation's work to kind of repair the system for future generations. So I just encourage folks to stay optimistic and stay engaged.

SPEAKER_00: 47:48

Yeah, absolutely. It's up to us.

SPEAKER_01: 47:50

Sure. We agree. Well, thanks, guys. This is really, really, really awesome. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00: 47:56

And thank you so much for listening. Yeah, if if you found this podcast or episode interesting or useful, please share it with the people that you know. This episode was co-hosted by Joe Plensler and Elliot Giftson. The audio and video were edited by Cameron King. Better Democracy is the production of We the Veterans and Military Families, a 501c3 nonprofit, nonpartisan, pro-democracy organization. We're focused on promoting a positive and patriotic civic engagement to strengthen American democracy. Find out more about us at weTheVeterans.us and follow us on social media.