State of the Race + Improving Democracy in 2024

Welcome to Another Way, the podcast of Equal Citizens. I'm director and chief counsel Jason Haro, and I'm joined today by Adam Eichen. Hey, Adam.

Hey, Jason. How's it going?

It's going great. You and I haven't been on the air in a couple of weeks just to kind of recap the state of politics, the state of the presidential race from a democracy reform point of view, which, of course, we talk about all the time on this podcast. We've had a bunch of great interviews, some of which you've done. But it's time, I think, that we step back, Adam, don't you think, and sort of assess where we are. What is going on with the state of democracy reform in this race? What is going on with voting rights and money in politics reform and gerrymandering reform from a perspective. And we'll get back to our interviews with activists and politicians and the like soon enough. So that's what the format of this episode is. Listeners may know they can find us on patreon patreon.comecolivors. our homepage is equalcitizens us anotherway. And you can also email us there. You can email us show suggestions. We like those. We pass them along to Larry Lessig when he does episodes. We read them. You can also email us infoqualcitizens us all one word and no.com, us folks, because we talk about American democracy reform. Maybe, Adam, we should have, I don't know, maybe after this election, should we do equal citizens dot LIKE UK and do a UK democracy firm? I confess, I know nothing about what's going on in the democracy reform space, but perhaps there are lessons to learn. Okay, but so here's what's on the agenda today for us to talk about. So we've got a New Hampshire and Iowa recap. We want to recap sort of what happened there from a voting perspective. Some people may know that the vote didn't exactly go great in Iowa. Right, Adam? But we still want to talk about it. And we want to talk about what the candidates are talking about and what messages resonate from a democracy reform perspective and a corruption perspective. And then we want to have a new segment, let's call it Story Time with Adam Icahn. Because, Adam, you were on the ground in New Hampshire for essentially a full week. So you've got some really interesting stories about how democracy is resonating with voters and how it's affecting how people vote and what they vote on and what candidates they support. And then we're going to do a little project where we think about reforming the primaries, the early primaries in 2024, to make them more Democratic, more representative of the American electorate and just an overall better race. I mean, we'll throw out a couple suggestions there, you know, because obviously we know the DNC must be listening. The DNC commissioner's Adam, they must be listening here. We're going to go through some great options for 2024 if Tom Perez is listening. So tomorrow, please listen all the way through. Don't just end at story time with Adam iken. Listen all the way through. Okay, so I'll do a super quick recap, Adam, and then I'll throw it to you to kind of comment. But as many know, the Iowa caucuses occurred a couple of weeks ago. There was an absolute disaster with the way that the caucuses were counted. We should note that the caucuses are not a primary. So people had to show up at 8pm in school gyms and firehouses and community gatherings. So Adam will talk about the implications of that on democracy. And it came with a semi inconclusive result. Booty Gage and Bernie performed the best, depending on whether you want to count the first cut or the overall state delegate equivalents, which I still don't. What are they equivalent to? I actually don't know what state delegate equivalent means, which again, Adam, we talk about democracy. People in the democracy for movement probably should know what an assessment metric is for counting votes and yet we don't. So let's put a flag in that for what that means. And of course we didn't even get full results for like a week. The use this new app that was very poorly tested and inexpensive and it ended up, I would say, like, you know, we have a report card for individual candidates. Adam, what what grade would you give on a report card from a democracy respective to the I O caucuses?

Without a doubt an F. An F. Wow.

An F. Absolute F. That's pretty bad. I don't know that we have the F minus designation, but yes, F minus is. Is is probably appropriate as well. Definitely a failing grade. New Hampshire did better. New Hampshire did better on a democracy perspective. We still have some critiques with how it went, but the election seemed to run smoothly. They have same day voter registration, Adam, which you've got a story about. So enabled people to vote. They had a relatively robust voter turnout. They counted the ballots quickly and by all accounts accurately. You know, again, Booty Gage and Bernie along with Amy Klobuchar performed well. Warren and Biden underperformed relative to media expectations and perhaps relative to polls. And that was the result. But the other results, of course, are not just the vote tallies, Adam, they are how many delegates. These are not state delegate equivalents. These are more easily understandable delegates to the Democratic convention. And only the top three candidates are getting delegates. Only Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Bernie are getting delegates. Because there is a 15% threshold and because there was no ranked choice voting, those voters who voted for Warren, for Biden, for Yang, all of those folks don't get a second choice. They don't get to choose among the top three vote getters. And so their votes will translate into no delegates at all. So we should say pretty good for democracy. We like the same day registration. We like the, you know, the enthusiasm that was up there. We like the well run election and the security and the, and the fairness of the count. But we don't like the fact that only 70% of votes are going to matter. So Adam, before we throw up for open discussion, what's your quick grade there for the New Hampshire primary from a democracy perspective?

I mean, they did an accurate count, so we have to give them credit for that. You know, I think that it went as well as it could outside of adopting. And we'll talk about this ranked choice voting for the primary there, which is something that you and I and equal citizens worked really hard a year ago to get them to enact. But obviously they chose not to do that. But all things considered, it did go well in terms of an accurate count. So maybe it's just, maybe I'm feeling generous based on just how bad Iowa did. But there's definitely room for improvement. Whatever the grade we might want to assign to it is right.

I think I'm going to give it a B minus. You know, I really think that this early in the process with this many candidates, I think it really is critical to use something like ranked choice voting to let both the vote from both the perspective of what the voters get to say and how they interact with the candidates, as well as a perspective of giving the race the kind of certainty and information that we want from an early primary, giving the Democratic Party the signals from what voters are feeling. And after all this, after having candidates camped out in New Hampshire for a year, right. To say you only get one choice. Right. I mean the analogy ranked choice voting advocates use all the time is food or drink. Right. And it's kind of like they were having a year long taste test with all kinds of, you know, wonderful food and drink and different cuisines and different kinds of beer and wine and spirits. And then they said, well, which one did you like the most? And there is value in saying which one we like the most, right? But if it turns out over the last year, some people really liked the pizza that they were tasting, and some people really liked the pasta, and some people really liked the sushi, it would at least be nice because there's going to be lots of other people who get this taste test over the next six months. And of course, we eventually want the folks in the party to sort of unify around a consensus option. It would be really nice to get that additional information and find out what did people really think, Right? I'm not saying you have to send everyone a questionnaire, right? Like, as if you just took a flight on Delta Airlines and they email you, like, what did you think of the service? What'd you think of the food? That would probably be a little too much and a little too onerous. But I really, I think it's just a big loss. It's a big loss of information. It's a big loss of a chance for unity to just let this information go by the wayside and give people one and only one vote. You know, it really is a shame that New Hampshire didn't adopt ranked choice voting this year. Maybe 20, 24, I guess, is all we'll say. So for that reason, I'm kind of giving it a B minus. So that's what happened in terms of the actual elections. Right. No evidence of, like, hacking or foreign interference or anything. But bad counting in Iowa, good counting in New Hampshire, but really missed opportunity on ranked choice voting. But, Adam, we should go into where does this leave the candidates from a democracy reform perspective, Right? I mean, we've been grading the candidates, and some of the candidates we've graded pretty highly, including Bernie, who we had an event with and talked extensively about his democracy reform platform have played very well. Other candidates who do have a robust democracy reform platform, like Elizabeth Warren, seem to be trending downward. And the one candidate who really has not endorsed comprehensive reform and has not promised to push it and doesn't frequently talk about it, Joe Biden has really underperformed expectations. So what do you make of all this?

I mean, I, you know, Jason, I think that the issue of reform is salient for voters. I mean, I talked to a number of voters in New Hampshire. It's clear that the issue of big money, influence, voter suppression, I mean, these are all issues that people understand, whether or not they're making that their first issue, like we are trying to get candidates to say on public record is, is a different story. It's not super clear to me that voters are necessarily saying that their number one issue is democracy reform, which, Jason, makes total sense to me. I mean, if you're struggling with health care bills, it makes sense that you'd want health care reform. If that's your number one issue, or if you're scared about climate change, it totally makes sense that you would want the candidate that is pushing the most aggressive climate change legislation in the race. That makes total sense to me. What we need to do, and I think what candidates need to do is really do more work to integrate their policy platforms into a message of why democracy reform is necessary to kind of tie the whole theory of change together. Because I do think a lot of voters are skeptical about what can get done in Congress or what can get done even if a certain candidate is elected. And so to kind of, you know, in my view at least, to make that theory of change, to give voters more of a sense, more confidence that that when they vote for a presidential candidate, that candidate will actually be able to follow through with their promises. Talking about democracy reform and the need for democracy reform and integrating that into the theory of how I the candidate is going to get something done is pretty clear. And so, you know, so it's good and bad news from the ground in New Hampshire, in other words, that the issue of reform is salient, but it's not necessarily on everyone's minds. So we've got the candidates to commit to fixing it first. And I think moving forward, our next step is really going to be making sure that they continue to talk about it on the campaign trail, because I do think this is going to be a potent wedge issue for the general election, and that's something that maybe we'll talk about on a future podcast episode. But it certainly seems in the general election, Donald Trump is going to continue to run on draining the swamp, which is something he said in 2016. Didn't do anything about it, in fact, just kind of populated the swamp since then. And so I think that the issue of reform is going to take on a real significance for any Democrat, whoever that Democrat is going to be in the general election. It's going to take on a real salience for voters because Trump is going to talk about draining the swamp. So now is the time to get candidates ready and prime to effectively talk about it. And it'll be interesting to see as they move beyond New Hampshire into Nevada and South Carolina and Super Tuesday, whether or not these issues are still talked about, which if we have anything to say about it, Jason, they certainly will be.

Yeah, exactly. And I want to again, encourage the media, I don't want to use the word blame here, but I want to encourage the media to talk about this issue separately from other issues. Right. And make the connections that we've made and that hopefully some of the listeners on this podcast have made between the dysfunctional system, the polarization of the system and the massive amounts of money flowing into the system combined with lack of ranked choice voting, lack of easy access to voting, voter suppression, gerrymandering. Right. All of the issues that we have recognized and on this podcast we've talked frequently about and make connections between the media and the polling organizations really have not. So I'm looking now as we speak at the Washington Post entrance and exit polls to find out what's on the mind of Democratic voters. And we just don't know. Right. Because they gave them four choices which were health care, climate change, foreign policy and income inequality. And those are four good choices. I'm sure that people are thinking hard about those. Health care won in both Iowa and New Hampshire in terms of the number one priority, followed by climate change and income inequality relatively close second and third in foreign policy last. But that doesn't really tell us a lot about what we think is also motivating voters and indeed some polls. The irony is none of these capture what was some of the most important issues to New Hampshire voters, which according to I think some local media in New Hampshire leading up, I don't think this was an exit poll, but leading up to the vote was actually the opioid crisis and drug abuse. Right. And this is not captured. And of course that the drug abuse problem has so much to do with the kind of industry capture that we talk about solving through democracy reform. Right. The fact that, that people are sent to private prisons instead of treatment centers. Right. The fact that the drug industry is able to capture the FDA and make it so that change is really, really hard here. And all of those things are linked up with this thing that is really top of mind for voters. And also this anti corruption new message that again, it seems like on the ground is really resonating but we don't even know because leading polling organizations aren't asking about it when they do these polls. Well, but, but they're not asking about it. So that again, to me is a real loss. Right. I mean, the party and the media should really want to have as much information as possible about how to beat Trump, what voters care about, what messages are resonating. I'm sure Michael Bloomberg with his massive spending and things like that, has lots of great data that is private or that is not being shared. But as far as we know from what's being reported, it feels like these messages are resonating, Adam. But, but it's just hard to get that evidence. And that's super frustrating.

Yeah. I mean, at this point, all we have is anecdotal evidence. You know, one really quick story. I went to an Elizabeth Warren rally. I tried to go to as many different campaign events as possible while up there during the first in the nation primary. And her whole stump speech, it was about 35 minutes, let's say the whole stump speech was about corruption. It was all about the way democracy prevents progress on issues. And so for the people in the rally, the people at that event, everyone was nodding their head. Everyone got it but you. So I don't know if voters, if it was a sort of self selection. Right. The people who were most likely to go to an Elizabeth Warren event were already the most likely to understand that messaging or I have no idea how many of those people were first time goers to an Elizabeth Warren event. Probably at that point, not many. I don't know how many of those people were New Hampshire voters, you know, versus an out of state someone from Massachusetts, for example, who was there to canvas before super. Before the Tuesday of the election day. So, you know, again, all I have to bolster your point, Jason, is anecdotal evidence to say that it is resonating. But the candidates certainly were talking about it, maybe not too much on solutions, about how we actually break that influence. But you did hear it quite a bit, at least about kind of, you know, donors, super PACs, dark money groups. Our messaging is getting into the narrative of the race. It's just, it would be great to have more data. I completely agree.

Yeah. And the other point before we get into story time with Adam to make about, you know, sort of the messaging is again, you know, we had a really highly watched debate and I think one of the better debates of the cycle that was the Friday before the New Hampshire primary. Amy Klobuchar was widely viewed as performing quite well. Again, there were really no direct questions about democracy reform. Right. There were a couple of passing mentions from some of the candidates talking about the way we fund campaigns impacting some of these issues, as well as ensuring voting rights get protected. Biden, I believe, even threw in a mention to that. But it's again, it's sort of not getting that big push. We just keep hearing about Medicare for All, right? The candidates just keep going after each other about Medicare for All, and some want it and some want to keep your private insurance. And that needs to be articulated. I understand it's top of mind for voters, though. That tends to be a repetitive discussion at every debate. But it would just be really, really nice and really a public service to also continue to get candidates on the record about these issues. Because when they do, I do think it's one area as well, Adam, where, like you said, that is where in that kind of setting, they can not just criticize the system, but they can put forward proactive solutions. Andrew Yang has in some ways been most forceful about this. He's no longer in the race, but at a debate where you can flesh this out exactly what happened here, Adam, but he mentioned the solutions here. He mentioned Democracy Dollars, and he went into some detail about how in Seattle, citizens get funding for elections and they can publicly fund elections so that candidates need not rely on only wealthy donors and corporate interests. And what that does to the system, what that does to unlock running a campaign. I don't like to use the word grassroots necessarily because that, you know, it's not clear to me what that term really means. And it's also not clear to me that that's right. We want a campaign that is every kind of roots. It is based on every citizen, based on the concerns of every citizen. And that is what this system does. And Yang does a good job of exploring that. And so having that in the media, having that discussion in a debate about problems and solutions and the way it impacts the way it impacts our political system and polarization and the way it makes politics more substantive and not just sport to be played out on Fox News and CNN and msnbc, those are critical. But it's really hard for the candidates to get that messaging without the opportunities to do so in important forums. Okay. But Adam, you wanted to tell a couple of stories before we make sure that Tom Perez is listening and give suggestions for the 2024 primaries from a democracy perspective.

So, Jason, I think that you really hit on a critical point here, which is we've reached a certain level of salience. And I know I said this earlier in this episode of the money in politics and these process issues corrupting our democracy, that the reason we can't get health care reform is because of the big hospital associations or the insurance companies that has really taken hold the real thing that has yet to take hold is the solutions aspect. And so one of the reasons, Jason, that we decided that I should go up there to New Hampshire in the week before the primary is because New Hampshire the week before the primary is a circus. It is insane. Essentially, all the candidates are there, all the media organizations are there, international press, domestic press, cnn, msnbc, Fox News, everybody in surrounding states, everyone in states as far away as California, everybody is there in this small little state in the Northeast right before the election. And so I wanted to go there to get a sense not only of what people were talking about, but to actually influence the debate in whatever capacity that I could. And I'm happy to report that I think I succeeded in that respect. So I have a couple stories for you, Jason, and for our listeners that, you know, gave me a sense of not only hope for the future, but also hope in the possibility for us all to force these candidates to talk about democracy in the days, weeks and months ahead. So I think one of the coolest stories, Jason, was a colleague of ours, Olivia Zink, was invited. She's with Open Democracy, which is one of the probably it's actually the grassroots democracy group in New Hampshire that's done amazing work, helped us with the fight for ranked rights voting in New Hampshire and has been pushing democracy dollars there. She was invited to attend the CNN town hall on the first night, I believe it was the Wednesday that had Joe Biden, Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren and Tom Steyer. And we sat in the very front row with the CNN cameras right there. And the candidates would come out and talk to the people in the front row. And the only candidate that I actually got to speak to in the middle of a live break it was, we had a three minute break in between the live TV was Andrew Yang. And so I said to Andrew Yang, I said, hey, you know, Mr. Yang, remember me? We put on the event, really successful event with you with Larry lessig in about April 2019 in New Hampshire democracy reform. And of course he remembered, he remembered that event. He remembered me. He was, his eyes lit up and he was very excited because again, he did extremely well. Jason, during that town hall, it was a really thoughtful discussion with Larry. And I asked him, I said, you know, you're doing great, but can you do me a solid? Can you do me a favor? And we're really having trouble getting the solutions to our democracy crisis onto the national stage. Can you do me a solid and mention your democracy dollars plan in the next segment? Take some question that they're going to ask you. The moderator's going to ask you and see if you can turn it into something about our broken democracy and public financing. And he said, I'll see what I can do. And, Jason, I know you were watching this, too, and I think it was the next question, or maybe the second question of that next live segment was a question about guns. And he turned that question really, really thoughtfully and well done from how to regulate the sale of guns and how to prevent gun violence. And he said, that's a critical point, but what's also critical is changing the influence that the gun manufacturers and the NRA have in our political system. And he pivoted to the way to do this is through public finance of elections. And that is why I, Andrew Yang, have proposed Democracy Dollars. And now, Jason, if anyone who's been keeping track of our POTUS 1 webpage knows that Yang's not the only one to support this critical reform of democracy vouchers. Bernie Sanders supports it. Tulsi Gabbard has indicated support. Tom Steyer has as well, and so has Bill Wells, the Republican. But Yang, did you know he was the earliest person to endorse this critical reform? And I thought he did an excellent job. And he came up to me after the fact and said, look, I got you. You got your wish. I hope that was good. And I said to him, you did a real service to this movement today, because I don't know the number of people who watch that town hall, Jason. But it doesn't matter every time we can get a politician to talk about the solution, not just the problem, because, again, we've made progress on articulating the framing of the problem. Larry Lessig has done more than most to get this. He's critical in this effort to. To really reshape the narrative. I mean, the work that Larry and so many others have done. But we haven't quite gotten to the point where the issue or the solutions to the problem are as salient as the problem itself. So every time we push a presidential candidate to use their bully pulpit for this purpose is a remarkable success. And so I think that was a really good moment in the New Hampshire cycle.

Yeah, no, me too. I was watching from my home on tv, like many others, that Yang moment, and thought it was really good. And it was great to know that you were there pushing them. And that's part of the message, too. You know, folks listening, it matters, right? When you see candidates at candidate events, ask them, tweet at them, Instagram, message them, however people interact, these Days. Right. That, that is really critical. And I did think that it was really nice answer and nice way of connecting up the solution. Okay, speaking of solutions, before 2024 solutions, we wanted to drop a couple of other stories before we turn to 2024.

Yes, a couple quick ones. Here's another one with a candidate that was a little less cordial, but I think critical nonetheless. I went to, as I was saying, the Elizabeth Warren rally, I believe it was a couple days before the election and she was talking about, she framed her whole event around her, you know, the framing of corruption and her. Her anti corruption plan to unrig our democracy. And she listed three things, and I believe it was something like ending lobbying or the influence of lobbyists requiring tax returns be released for presidential candidates and some sort of other ethics platform or provision. And I was a little frustrated in that moment because, as you know, Jason, reform without public financing of elections, anything calling itself an anti corruption platform without public financing of elections isn't real reform. It's not enough. It's not enough to democratize political financing, to make it so that anybody, regardless of wealth, can get into the political process and have an influence on politics and who's a viable candidate. And keep in mind, I should say that public financing is in Warren's plan. So this isn't knocking her plan, but it's knocking the way she was framing it in front of voters. I just wanted her to say public financing. So, Jason, I hope you don't mind, I interrupted her and I yelled, what about public financing? And she looked at me, took a second and said, of course I support public financing. And then she said, I couldn't list everything, but of course I support public financing. Now, some might quibble that maybe I shouldn't have done that. But again, getting to the point of of course she supports public financing, she recognizes that this is critical, that changing the way campaigns are financed is critical to democratizing influence. So that was just a moment where all the cameras were watching her, where all the cameras were picking up and broadcasting her stream. I just wanted some reference to public financing that we believe is so critically important to reforming our democracy. And so now whoever was watching that live stream, maybe they were curious of who is this guy and why was he interrupting Warren on something like public financing? So maybe we generated some Google search results. But certainly for the folks who were there, now they know that of course Warren supports bug financing and that it's a critical reform that at this point, Jason, every leading candidate supports public financing. What model they support is A different story. Warren supports a matching system, but again, just, it's so critical for us to get the candidates to talk about the solutions because it's going to be such an uphill fight. If we're in a situation in 2021 where the Senate House and the presidency is occupied by pro reform politicians, it's going to be an uphill fight. The fight isn't over by just electing politicians. We're going to have to work so hard to get it passed. So it's critical that we start priming voters hearing the concept of, you know, public funding of elections so that they understand what that is, that they have a, that, you know, we're signaling in a positive direction now so that when the political landscape is more favorable to us, it's going to be much easier to rally these people to fight for this reform when it's in the halls of Congress, when it's being considered. That's a very important moment, at least for me because, you know, the Warren fan base in my view at least, and again, I don't necessarily have polling on this would be a clear constituency to mobilize when push comes to shove and you know, the political landscape is different and we need to mobilize everyone we can to go to D.C. in favor of the new HR1 or the new POTUS one. We're going to need people in the streets then to push and lobby and call. And so we need to start that priming that electorate now. Okay, so one more quick story, Jason. And so I was going, I was talking to some voters and this is a story about how reforms make a real impact on people's daily, or let's say on people's experience in election, that how it actually opens up the political process. So New Hampshire for a very long time has had same day registration. A reform, Jason, that you and I and equal citizens, we love it. Basically it's as simple as it sounds that instead of having a deadline to register like in Massachusetts, we have a 20 day voter registration deadline. So if it's 19 days before the election and you're not registered, too bad you can't vote in it. It's a real, it disenfranchises a lot of, a lot of people. In fact, when I first moved to Massachusetts, I almost missed that deadline. And again, Jason, I do democracy policy for a living. I do it for a living and I almost missed that deadline. So New Hampshire has same day registration. You can go to the polls if you're not registered or if you've moved you can re register or register for the first time there at your polling location. So it's a remarkable form. The studies show that it increases participation by I think about 3 plus percent, 3 to 7, I think percent. I'd have to fact check that. And New Hampshire's has it. And so when I was talking to somebody, believe it or not, they didn't know that the primary, this was on the Monday before the election, before the Tuesday. So the day before the election. And this young woman, say, let's say no more than 35, did not know the election was the following day. And she and her husband, and they had a, not a newborn, but a very young child, no more than, let's say one or two years old. And they were kind of shocked. They had just moved to New Hampshire from Massachusetts and they didn't know the primary was the next day. And I spoke to them for a bit and they said they wanted to vote. And I said, lucky for you, New Hampshire has same day registration that you can just go to the poll. The poll was down the street about two blocks away. You can go there when you're available and as long as the poll is not closed, go there, register to vote, tell them you're not registered, and then you just cast your ballot. And she, her eyes lit up and said, that's fantastic. In other words, this is a family that would not have been able to participate in our elections had we not had the election rules favor the voter instead of entrenched interests or, you know, whomever else. But this is clearly a moment where the election laws favored the people and as a result it increased participation from at least one person. I can only report on one person who voted because of it. And I actually will say that on, I believe it was UNH's campus in I believe Durham, New Hampshire, there were reports of just hundreds of students registering for the first time using same day registration. So this is a clear solution to voter suppression that we can enact not just in states across, but we need a federal law to enact this and most presidential candidates want it. But here's just more evidence of the ways in which the issues that we're fighting for, the actual concrete policies work in practice successfully and how it can open the door to politics for people who have never engaged before. So for me, actually, of everything I said, that story gives me the most hope because again, as I say often when talking about democracy policy, the solutions here are not rocket science. We know exactly what we need to do to open up our democracy to ensure that everyone is an equal citizen. And this just was clear proof that that's right. If we enact same date registration, if we enact automatic voter registration, if we enact public financing, if we limit voter purges, if we pass independent registering commissions to end gerrymandering, these are all very common sense solutions that we know will work to democratize influence and to democratize our elections.

Yeah.

And for me that's the takeaway here is that, you know, no matter how kind of bleak the situation and political landscape gets, I know that we can fix the system by passing these common sense reforms.

Yeah. No, it's a great story and a great note to end the recap on as we look forward to 2024 and enter our dear Tom Perez segment. Because, Adam, as much hope as you had, and it's great that New Hampshire has a primary with same day registration and indeed they also have a system where on the spot it's not an open primary, but on the spot you can also register for a particular party and so choose whether you want to vote in the Democratic or Republican or other party's primary, which is also another great feature that is really pro democracy and as you said, favors the voter. But Adam, you and I have come to think that the current just primary calendar and primary system doesn't necessarily necessarily favor the voter. And in particular, having Iowa and New Hampshire be the two marquee slots to start off every nominating season have some real defects. Right. I mean, first of all, the demographics of those states do not match the demographics of America and especially of the Democratic Party. Right. The Democratic Party last numbers I saw were over 40% non white and both New Hampshire and Iowa are what, well over 90, 95% even white voters. The balance between rural and urban voters is quite drastically different than in the Democratic Party generally and indeed and in America. And then just having the system, right. They are small states, they are less urban. And then starting things off with a caucus where you have to spend hours of time on a Monday evening at 8pm that clearly is going to favor certain types of people who are engaged in the process, willing to give that time, have the child care if they have children, right. Don't work nights as opposed to being able to vote by mail or vote however you wish. Right. Just a pure mechanism of how the Iowa caucus works is really not capturing the full citizen activism and citizen voice that we want. So and as you said, you know, we probably gave Iowa an F and New Hampshire somewhere in the B range in terms of democracy scorecard and that's not what we want from our first two Democratic acts of a nominating contest. So Adam, you and I kicked around some suggestions of how we were talking about it. And one thing that we wanted to throw out there for people and if people have feedback, feel free to email infoqualcitizens us. But one thing that we, we want to emphasize, well, we really want to capture two things with the Equal Citizens new nominating contest in 2024. Right. We want to make the voting public somewhat more representative of the party and America at large. Right. We wanted so that the nominating contest doesn't shift from like one group having outsized power and then finally permits other groups to. That's not, that's not consistent with the principle of equal citizenship that we espouse here. So principle one is whatever happens sort of in the early contest should, should much better mimic the demographics and interests and socioeconomic status of voters in the US and then two is we should really have pro democracy states, right? Make have states where it's easy to vote and easy to get out and vote and easy to capture lots of information from lots of different voters. We want people to be enthusiastic and we want that enthusiasm to be reflected from beginning to the end and to resonate through to the general election. So those are the kind of two principles. So one thing that is a combination of some things that I had read and some things we were thinking about, Adam, is that the early primary should be like four different states in four different regions and they should be picked based on a combination of factors like what their demographics are, what their voter turnout in the last election was, and in particular including general election, how they over performed their polls and sort of their destiny to indicate how healthy the state party is. And then something that I thought of since we last talked at it, but we should throw out there is we should ensure that at least one of the states uses ranked choice voting. Right? We should. And we should encourage all those four states as part of the grade to be in a rage in terms of democracy. Right. Those states should have same day voter registration. They should have the ability on the same day to change your registration. They should have early voting and mail in voting to make sure we're capturing the full electorate. And at least one of those early states should have ranked choice voting. We just need that information, especially early in the process. So what do you think of that suggestion, Adam?

Yeah, I mean I'm very intrigued by that. These are all somewhat unformed. Jason, I think you'd concede that we're open to whatever people have want to suggest, but I think it's very clear that the current nominating procedure is just unacceptable and anti Democratic. I also just want to note, Jason, that, you know, Iowa has at this point the most restrictive felon disenfranchisement laws and that carries over into the Democratic primary. In other words, it's incredibly regressive on that, you know, democracy scorecard, and yet that has such, such influence over who the next Democratic president is. And I also should say that the errors and the problems in the Iowa caucus are so bad that they still haven't even declared a winner. So no more caucuses ever.

No ma.

That's, that's it.

I will say, can I, can I defend caucuses slightly? I do like the idea in some form. I'm not sure if we should use caucuses in the early states as having such outsized importance, but I do like the idea of having citizens come together and actually discuss what's going on in the race, discuss the state of democracy, discuss who their preferences are. Right. Obviously, I think when it comes to voting, we agree that the so called Australian ballot, which is the secret ballot that people get to go to and make their choice free of coercion and intimidation, is the way to go. But I think there's room in the process, especially considering how little effect the party itself has anymore. Right. The party leaders, of course, for most of American history just picked the nominees themselves based on what happened in the proverbial smoky back rooms. Now that process has been thrown to the voters. Well, that's fine, but I don't think it's crazy to have some sort of forum and some sort of incentive for those voters to discuss it, to have town halls, to have local meetings to discuss it with their communities. No, I mean, I understand why we don't want caucuses to lead out, but do you see any role for that kind of discussion, Adam?

I see a role for it only if we can address the accessibility issues. Only if we can really design a system with robust early voting, robust reporting procedures. And in other words, I can be convinced, but I just have to. In other words, what outweighs that right now in my mind is accessibility and making sure that it goes according to plan. But in terms of the values of deliberation and trying to convince other people, there are many ways we can bring that into the electoral process. So I'm not necessarily pooh, poohing it in and of itself in terms of the value that the caucuses add. And just from my point of view. I just want to make sure that the accessibility is the number one to our democracy. But I'm willing to have that discussion. Maybe we'll have that. See if we can get someone on who's an expert on caucuses. Indeed, another podcast episode. So a couple things I also do want to say. I've read a couple interesting articles about potential states that should go first. I've been intrigued by Georgia, if Georgia was one of kind of the first four. But I will say that I think the key in my mind of what would make a reform of the primary system interesting is if it was randomized every four years. In other words, you couldn't have a John Delaney type who in the beginning of 2017 basically moves to Iowa because, you know, Iowa's first. In other words, if you can randomize it a bit to give it to rotate the whatever category of the first four will be on the same day. You know, you can't really embed in the same kind of way that you have to wait, let's say a year, a year and a half out. I don't know when they would announce. But there's something interesting, intriguing to me just on first glance upon, you know, a series of four random states of assuring, you know, ensuring that each of the four states meets a certain level of diversity. So it's not like you have Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, all randomly selected, but they're all the first four. Like that's unacceptable. You couldn't have that. And I also want to say one more thing about ranked choice voting, which I agree with you. I think ranked choice voting should absolutely be used to give more information. But the one thing that I think the media has just failed and this is, this is a situation where the media has the media wants the rank. They're trying to make the ranked choice voting data happen without ranked choice voting. In other words, there have been a bunch of these graphics on, I don't know if it was CNN or msnbc, of comparing the vote for Warren and Sanders and adding that up to about 35, 40% and the other three, Amy Klobuchar P. Buttigieg and Joe Bide and Michael Bloomberg maybe I don't remember exactly, but you know, saying that look, the moderate vote outweighs the left wing of the party if you add them all up. But if there's anything we know from the little bit of ranked choice voting data, the second preferences that we have from public polling is that voters don't actually follow any the ideological lanes that we ascribe to them. They don't follow the lanes that we assign them. And I think that's why ranked choice winning is so important. Because what we're saying is not that Sanders would not have won New Hampshire, for example, we're saying we don't know because actually, the number one choice for Joe Biden voters is Sanders. Their second choice is Sanders, not Pete Buttigieg. Likewise, I don't know if Elizabeth Warren voters I'd have to look at the polling would necessarily go to Sanders. Some of them might have gone to be Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar. We just don't know. And that's why the ranked choice voting is so important and why this is not a. Just, oh, well, this is. You know, this benefits one side of the Democratic Party more than the other. No, because actually, one, the polls don't show that. The polls show voters are much less ideologically sorted in terms of, like, you know, in terms of lanes, moderate to kind of, you know, left wing. And two, we also have no idea how this would change the campaign process. In other words, the real difference of ranked choice voting, which I wanted to highlight, is it would force you to try and go to the. For volunteers and canvassers to go to the doors of, you know, adamant supporters of another candidate. In other words, if you saw New Hampshire Joe Biden sign and you're with the Bernie Sanders campaign, under the current system, you would probably avoid that house because, well, you get one vote, and that person's clearly gonna vote for Joe Biden. But in a ranked choice voting, you'd be encouraged to go to that house and say, hey, you know, I see you have a Joe Biden sign there. That's great. That's fine. I'm with the Sanders campaign. But here's where you and I might agree. This is my. This is Sanders vision for the future here. Maybe there are some agreements or maybe. Maybe that comparison doesn't work, or maybe between, you know, a Warren supporter and a Sanders supporter. Whatever it is, you have to find alliances. And I think that would greatly increase the tone. It would make the tone of the election much more positive and would really form and I think foster a stronger party in the process. And it would also make canvassing a lot more fun for those doing it because you wouldn't get people who say, you know, oh, like, I already have my candidate. Get off my property. You might actually begin to have a substantial conversation about issues that you align with.

Yeah, yeah. And we should add in terms of other reforms, you know, to the extent that people are saying, well, if you want the vote to reflect America, why not have just a 50 state? Why not have a national primary? I think that the recent elections show why that's not viable. Forget the money aspect and forget, you know, the idea of campaigning initially in 50 states. Of course, the eventual nominee doesn't Even campaign in 50 states because we have an Electoral college that places swing states with much more importance. But I think that the answer there is we just wouldn't have a nominee. Right? I mean, we need staged primaries in part to see what candidates are viable and which ones aren't so that later primary goers have fewer choices that have already been vetted. Right. And taken through the funnel. Because if we had a nationwide primary right now, the odds are, Adam, that no one would get more than 30% of the vote. So there would be a contested primary or a contested convention, I should say, and essentially every time. And that's not what we want either, right? We want actual information. We want a campaign that results in a candidate that lots of people in the party are willing to support, that they are energized for going into the general election in lots of diverse geographic areas. And sadly, Adam, I think that we have to give the DNC and the primary process, you know, probably a D plus in terms of how they're thinking about that right now. And they have changed it. Right? I mean, South Carolina and Nevada have much more importance in the last couple of cycles than they have before, but nonetheless, it's still really, really lacking from a democracy perspective and from an equality of citizenship perspective. Okay, so that's our memo to the DNC and Tom Perez. More to come later on that. But in the meantime, Adam, I think that was a really good recap of where we are looking forward to not only 2020 election, but 2024. And we will be back soon with more recaps. In the meantime, you can find us at equalcitizens Us anotherway and email any comments infoqualcitizens us. Adam, see you soon.

Talk to you soon. Jason.