The Growing Democracy Reform Movement, with Josh Douglas [09-05-19]

Welcome to another episode in the third season of the podcast Another Way. This is Adam Icken, campaign manager for Equal Citizens. Today we're joined by Joshua Douglas, professor of law at the University of Kentucky. He teaches and researches election law and voting rights, civil procedure, constitutional law, and judicial decision making. His recent scholarship focuses on the constitutional right to vote, with an emphasis on state constitutions, as well as the various laws, rules, and judicial decisions impacting election administration. Josh recently published an amazing book called Vote for How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting. It's a popular press book that provides hope and inspiration for for a positive path forward on democracy reform. Josh, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me, Adam.

I'm so happy to have you on today. I'm really excited, Josh. I'm excited both because I love your scholarship and I always love the conversations that you and I have when we're together. And I think that you will provide to our listeners a really interesting take on the movement for reform. So in today's episode, Josh, I want to focus on your book because I believe that it can spark a fascinating conversation about the movement for reform. And I want to divide our conversation into two parts. I want to start by speaking broadly about the movement for reform, about democracy in America, and then I want to transition into a little bit of a wonky discussion about public policy because you have such a firm grasp on it, and I think it would be such a rewarding conversation for our listeners. So over the past decade, there have been a slew of books, really brilliant books, chronicling just how broken our democracy is and how it got to be that way, because it didn't just happen. There was a long, concerted effort to bring it, really, to destroy it. But there's been virtually no scholarship for a popular audience detailing the solutions to our problems and perhaps even more importantly, chronicling the movement of Americans across our nation to reform it, to fix our democracy. But your book tackles both of these ignored topics, the policies and the movement. Josh, why did you decide to buck this trend and write a book about the democracy movement?

You know, Adam, I think you're right that there are a lot of great books out there that paint a picture of doom and gloom. You know, you read a book like Ari Berman's Give Us the Ballot or Zach Ross, the Great Democracy Reform or the. I forget the exact name of his book, but you get to the end of those and you think, man, this is so depressing. And, you know, a lot of that is true. You know, if you just look at voter turnout statistics. For example, when you have, you know, a presidential election of 60% turnout of midterms, usually well below 50%, you know, in 2018, we had nationwide about 50% turnout, and people were celebrating this great voter engagement. And I thought to myself, you know, half the eligible electorate didn't show up. What's so great about this? You know, can't we do better? I found that there was not a lot out there saying, okay, but there actually is some good news. There's something to be positive about and something to celebrate and to spread all around the country about how people at the local level are trying to fix the system. And so it's not all doom and gloom out there. And I got to know a lot of these stories through my research as a law professor studying this area. And I thought, you know, the public needs to know this. The public needs to know that it's not all just doom and gloom. Yes, there's a lot of bad things out there. You read Carol Anderson's One Person, no Vote, another great example, another excellent book. And you get to the end and you think, okay, maybe the system is so broken, I should just throw up my hands and do nothing. And that's exactly the opposite approach that we should take. And I found that there was space to tell these positive stories.

Right? I mean, that is always the thing. For those who have read these books, it's usually the very final chapter where you finally get to the point of, okay, this is what we now do. And it's no more than 20 pages about how to reform the entire system, the entire institution of American democracy. So it's always been a head scratcher, at least to me, about why more people haven't written and really dug into how do we really revitalize American democracy? And so I want to.

Well, you know, let me just add something real quick to that, which is there's a little bit of a business problem when it comes to books like this, which is that doom and gloom sells, you know, people. And I found this with my book and looking for a publisher, you know, all the feedback was, this is. This is a really important book. It's got a great message. But doom and gloom sells. And this is anti doom and gloom. I pushed back and said, no, people want some inspiration. People want to hear what to do now and what's next. I think the buzz around the book has proven that. But there's an incentive, I think, for many people just on getting a book published to focus on the doom and gloom, because unfortunately, that's what at least the people at publishing houses think will sell.

Right. I think that's absolutely corre. I often push back when people say that the American electorate is apathetic. I don't think it's apathy. I think it's hopelessness. I think that people haven't been given the information about how we can fix the system. People think that democracy is irreparably broken and there's no way to return, or I guess not really return, but to move to push our democracy forward to a place where it's never been, where we actually enfranchise all Americans and everyone has a say in our future. But, you know, I think that's absolutely correct that people really don't know about these reforms, these ways that democracy can become revitalized. And so I want to kind of push a bit and say, do you really think there is a democracy movement out there? I mean, I believe so, but I want your take on this.

Absolutely. And I think there's a democracy movement in places where you might find it to be surprising. You know, in places like where I am in Kentucky or if you go to Texas. And I found some of the most inspiring stories for the book were places that I wouldn't have thought to look. I think we can all agree that someplace like California, which is doing some great things, although it has its own issues, the people there are probably pretty engaged in thinking about a progressive vision. And I use that word not in a partisan sense, but just in terms of progress for improving our democracy. But I didn't expect to find it in my own backyard in Kentucky or in a place I used to live years ago, Texas. Because what you hear from the media is that these places are centers of voter suppression and restriction. And yet I go to local meetings. And when you see hundred people show up on a Tuesday night to talk about issues of democracy reform, you can feel it in the room. You have these great nonpartisan organizations. I've had the pleasure to speak to a lot of local chapters of the League of Women Voters all around the country, and they're extremely engaged in this fight. And so, yes, I absolutely think there's a democracy movement. Perhaps it's not being talked about enough. And a lot of it is because it's happening at the local level in many places, but all over the country you have people who are engaged, who understand the issues, understand that change is possible, and are working towards those goals.

Right. And I think your book really, you know, I mean, I want to dig into this a bit in A following question, but before we get there, you know, you really do tell a lot of stories where Republicans play a central role. And I think oftentimes people think that on a grass or, you know, people look at the kind of the, the elite level, the, you know, among politicians, the fighting around democracy. There's no question that the Republican Party now is, Is passing anti democracy laws. But on the grassroots level, your book really does show that partisanship is much less of a dividing factor when it comes to the rules of the game.

I think that's right, at least for certain issues. I mean, there are some issues where I think, unfortunately, you're just going to have partisan divide. Perhaps something like campaign finance reform these days has really become a partisan issue even at the local level. But what I was inspired by was speaking with local county clerks, Republican county clerks whose only goal is to run a fair, free, open election that everyone can participate who's eligible, and they're not looking at it at all. Now, I personally believe that we should not have elected partisan election officials running our elections. I mean, it's sort of absurd that we have this history and tradition of having a partisan elected official. But at the local level, I feel pretty confident to say that these people are really focused on just running the best elections possible without partisan viewpoints going into it. Now, I'm not as sure that that's the case when we get to certain statewide elected officials. You know, George, is Brian Kemp running for governor at the same time he's administering the state's elections as Secretary of State, as the prime example? But at the local level, they're really focused on just a fair process for everybody.

Right. And I think. Right. One of the things about American politics is we have these buzzwords that kind of harken back to a certain mythology that we hold things like freedom and liberty. We still do hold this concept of democracy, however imperfect, in very high regards. And so I do think you will always get those people who say, well, this is a republic, not a democracy. But I do think on the core issues of democratic representation, there is significant room to bridge the partisan gap.

That's absolutely right. And the people who say this is a republic and not a democracy are using their own buzzwords, but describing the same. And when we say democracy, what we mean is that we all have a say in deciding who becomes our leaders, who is in the position to make laws under which we all will be governed. Alexis de Tocqueville is famous for saying that a democracy is legitimate based on the consent of the governed. And in my view, that should be the consent of the governed, of everybody. And I think that's a message that can resonate across partisan lines.

The question, though, is how do we communicate these reforms in a way that people can understand them? Because a lot of them are a little esoteric, a little, you know, technocratic. How do we communicate these reforms that may seem minor but can actually really revolutionize our democratic institutions? And what your book does that I want to pick your brain a bit about is, you know, you really prioritize storytelling. Your entire book is stories of everyday Americans rising up and making real concrete differences and pushing our democracy forward. So why did you do that? Why, as a law professor, did you focus your book on telling the stories, real narratives about successes?

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, the way to communicate the message about these reforms, in my view, is both through stories and through evidence about the why they work and why they can reduce cost and improve turnout at the same time, if we're talking about reforms like universal vote by mail, also known as vote at home. But I did focus on stories because, look, when I read a book, I get more engaged by the people that are involved. I think it's much more compelling to put a face to a name or a name to a problem that is, and maybe a faith. I have some pictures in the book as well of some of these individuals. I think it's just a lot more compelling to say it's one thing to think about a particular reform. It's another to say, oh, this helped this person vote and participate. Maybe someone who has never participated in the past. When we have the individual who's able to vote for the first time, and then you start thinking about replicating that model all over the country. That's a heck of a lot of people who can become invested in our system and become new voters. I think it just came out of this feeling that I wanted people to read the book and feel invested in it, and people become invested in personal narratives. The way I structured the book is I had a reform I wanted to talk about, but I started every chapter in all my research with, let's find a person who can tell the story of that reform. Because it's frankly boring for most people to read about election policy. It's much more interesting to read about people.

Right. There aren't too many people like us who will just read about the policy and enjoy it. But I agree with the stories. It makes it very compelling, and you do so in a really interesting and unique way. And I think the other thing that when you prioritize these individuals, not only does it make it compelling, but you see yourself in, you know, you see yourself in these individuals. You see, if this person can do it, why can't I? And ultimately that is, I think, what you're getting at in this, in this book, which is that any American can spur a movement for reform in their local community, in their state. And I think that's, you know, one of the exciting parts of your book because oftentimes I think my friends will, you know, chuckle at me when I get excited over a local reform. So say when Seattle passes public financing, the democracy vouchers, I will get excited and they'll say, why are you getting excited over a municipal election reform? And what your book makes, you know, your book makes the case that local reform is actually very important, that you don't have to necessarily change the federal government to matter.

Yeah, absolutely right. You know, I think there's two things that come out of your comments right there. I didn't necessarily intend when I started writing to focus so much on everyday Americans who are working in their local communities on reform, but I started learning about all these amazing individuals and then I started interviewing them and just becoming so inspired by how they were regular people. They weren't tied to one of the political parties or an entrenched interest. They weren't people who had run for office over and over again. These were just regular people who wanted to make a little bit of a difference. And in my mind, that, that very much connected them with people all throughout our history who have changed our country, changed the entire scope of our democracy by speaking out and doing a little bit. From her founders all the way through to people like Martin Luther King to today's democracy champions. I think there's a thread that weaves through them that I didn't recognize myself until I started really researching and diving in and then meeting these people. That's something I think is really special and yet not discussed enough. You know, it's a group of ordinary, so called ordinary Americans who can do extraordinary things that's really changed our democracy and remade it over and over again. And we're in another round of that. And so I think it's important to highlight these people. The second thing that you mentioned was the local focus of a lot of these reforms. And that's true in part because our election system is so decentralized. You know, the federal government doesn't run our elections. States don't even really run our elections. It's Almost as if we have thousands of elections happen simultaneously because it's the localities that administer our election system. And if you change one place and it works well, then another place won't take notice and then maybe they'll adopt the reform and then all of a sudden you can have a groundswell of a movement that changes things. And we've seen that. And then it eventually gets adopted statewide and we've seen that over and over again with a lot of these ideas.

Right. And there's no question, I mean for our listeners that there's no question that we need new federal laws overseeing our elections. There's no question that we need to do a better job on a federal level ensuring the right to vote, reducing the influence of big money in politics, ending gerrymandering. But the point here is that to get to that point, we oftentimes have to normalize an idea, a policy. We have to show that it works in practice to make politicians less uncomfortable rolling it out on a federal level.

Well, that's absolutely right and for two reasons. One is that unfortunately the current state of our politics is such that that it's unlikely to see anything right now on the federal level. When you have Senator Mitch McConnell, my senator from Kentucky, blocking all even debate about election reform issues, it's very difficult to get anything passed and implemented at the federal level. So there's just a practical reason of starting local where you can actually have some success. And one of the things my book does, I hope is explain how these things are already working. Every reform that I talk about is already being implement somewhere in America. And I focused, I had kind of a laser focus on things that were already being implemented, not necessarily pie in the sky ideas, which I think are great, but perhaps harder to take hold of and say, okay, it's happening. And so I can also adopt it here. And the second reason I think it's important to focus on local reforms is that and as you said, normalize them so that the national politicians take notice is that many of our voter expansions happened that way. If you look at women's suffrage or lowering the voting age to 18 from 21, many of them happened at the local level. First for local elections or particular localities before there was enough of a groundswell of support that then the top down reform took place and it was implemented nationwide. And so this is how these types of voter expansions have occurred in the past and they can again.

Right. And I think, you know, when, when, when we look at H R1, the omnibus election reform package that The Democrats introduced at the beginning of this congressional session. A lot of the reforms that have been taken off on a local and statewide level in the past 10 years are in that package, and it's certainly not clear. In fact, I think it would be highly unlikely that those reforms would make it into a national democratic package without first having been proved to work in states across the country and in locales across the country. And there's no question that this movement for reform that has been notching victories in states and locales across the country have already shaped the national discussion. And that is exciting.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, there's a quote I often like to use by the Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, and he said, you know, states can be laboratories of democracy, that one courageous state can try something new, and if it works, it'll spread to other places. And that's true. But I like to say that if states are laboratories of democracy, then cities and counties can be test tubes of democracy. Try something out on an even smaller scale, and when it works, it will get implemented in another place and then another place and another place, and then all of a sudden, maybe a state will then do it statewide, and then eventually you'll get overall support and hopefully nationwide adoption. You can see that again in things that have spread like crazy, like automatic voter registration or universal vote by mail or ranked choice voting. I know we're going to get into the details of certain policies in a little bit, but those are some examples of why the local movement can create a spark that then spreads throughout the country.

Right. And that's the perfect segue to get into the second part of our conversation, which is, let's talk about policy. You know, we often talk about these reforms in very broad strokes, but. But I think it's time to really get in depth about policy. So let's begin with one of the most exciting voting rights reforms spreading across the nation. You just mentioned it. Automatic voter registration. What is automatic voter registration? And why should we care about this seemingly minor fix, this technocratic reform?

I mean, it's not minor at all.

Exactly.

I'll start again because I think stories are so powerful with the story behind its adoption, at least the first statewide adoption in Oregon, and this involved a guy named Steve Trout who was the elections director of Oregon, kind of a policy wonk. And basically he was feeling heat from both sides about the voter registration list. And you hear this in the media a lot. The right was saying essentially the voter registration lists are outdated and that can lead to fraud. The left was saying it Wasn't easy enough to get onto the voter registration list and register to vote in Oregon. And so he started thinking, what can we do about this? And started just thinking to himself, well, why do we make people opt into a voter registration system when we already have their information? Why not just take the information that the state government has already and put them on the voter list and we can tell them that if they want to opt out, they can. And so that's essentially what automatic voter registration does. It uses the databases, the voter registration list and the Department of Motor Vehicles list, which many people have interacted with the state through the DMV and lets them talk to each other. And so that any information on the DMV list that can be used to verify someone's eligibility to vote is automatically transferred over to the voter registration list and they're automatically registered. And then the state sends that person a postcard saying, you've been registered to vote. If you don't want for some reason to have your name on the registration list, you can opt out. And here's how you opt out. And this has led to a huge increase in the number of people registered as well as an increase in voter turnout. When the first year Oregon did it, they had over 200,000 people newly registered and voting because of AVR. And now this has spread all over the country to places again where you might not suspect, places like West Virginia and Georgia has kind of a similar administrative process that is somewhat similar to avr. And what do we see? We see higher turnout, we see the voter rolls updated dynamically. So this improves the system for those who are concerned about bloated voter rolls. It costs less and makes it easier for voters. It's a win win all around.

And you know, Oregon was the first to pass it in. I think it was March of 2015. And since then we're at 16 states in Washington D.C. that have AVR. This is lightning progress for such a meaningful and impactful reform.

Yeah, it's really impressive to see states again, both so called blue and so called red states adopting this reform. You see that the voters generally love it because it's one fewer step that they have to take, one less hoop to jump through to be able to participate in our democracy. And you know, states have started it with the Department of Motor Vehicles. But you know, I know I talked to Steve Trout and I interviewed him for the book about other voter databases to look into. And they're going to look at university records, state tax records, et cetera. Anything where the state has all the information it needs about someone's age, someone's citizenship status, their address, et cetera, to determine that they are a valid voter.

Right. And that is very exciting to me because the possibilities here are endless. I mean, if you think about all the different governmental institutions that a citizen interacts with during the course of a year, you know, there are many different points of entry into this automatic registration system. So really we could reduce the gap of people who are unregistered significantly through this reform. So there are many other reforms that we that can again register more people because again, you know, we're going into an election season soon and oftentimes we don't ever take a step back and realize just how absurd it is the amount of resources and time that we spend every year or every two years or every four years to register people, when really this should be an automatic process. This should be, it should be much easier to register people and not have to waste all that time and resources. And instead we could spend that time educating people about policy or about elections or whatever, you know, instead of just registering people and then having to get them out to vote, it seems like it's wasted effort. And so there are other reforms here too that I want you to talk about, namely same day registration and pre registration for minors.

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we know about registration deadlines is that essentially the longer a deadline that is, the more days before election day when the voter registration system is cut off, then the lower turnout. So in states that have a 30 day registration requirement that you have to be registered 30 days in advance of an election, they typically have the lowest turnout among the states and states with the shortest deadline or even same day voter registration where a voter can show up to the polls, bring the appropriate documentation to show that they're an eligible voter for that area, register and vote at the same time on election day, those states have the highest turnout among the states. And so it's really one of these reforms that if you just break down the barriers, you can have a tangible effect on election turnout. And you know, in this day and age of technological innovation, states don't need 30 days to check their voter registration list. They're not doing anything in terms of verifying their lists during that 30 days that they can't do much faster or even same day. You know, in the states that use same day voter registration, I'm thinking places like, you know, Minnesota, I believe Wisconsin, I have to check that. But I think Wisconsin is one of the states they don't have a massive fraud problem. Right. They don't have a system in which, you know, there's somehow problems because voters are able to register and vote at the same time. And so there's really no need for that early period. And same day registration actually does make a lot of sense for that reason.

And Josh, very quickly, before we go on to pre registration, I have to also add that same day registration is a phenomenal way to secure our elections. You know, the most vulnerable point of our election system, and there's been proof that it has been hacked, are the voter rolls. A foreign country could theoretically screw around with our voter rolls. It would cause chaos. But with same day registration, it would allow people to not be turned away if something, you know, were to happen to those roles. That it would allow people to still vote, still keep that right to vote despite foreign interference. And that's a good reason to do it.

Absolutely right. And again, an example of something that should have bipartisan or all partisan support. Right? We all want our election system to be free of foreign interference, or at least we should all want that. And so we need to come up with ways that ensure that every eligible citizen or person is able to vote and not turned away because of some nefarious thing that's happening. Now I do understand why it would make sense to have a voter registration list that someone can sign up for so they don't have to register every single time they go to the polls each time so that the lines don't get too long. And so these states have a voter registration list where you can get on the voter rolls before election day. But if for some reason you don't or you aren't or something's happened, then you're able to register at the polls as well. And again, so this is a win win, and all it does is improve turnout. I was actually really surprised when I looked and saw the top six states for voter turnout in 2016 were, I think all same day registration states and the bottom handful of states were all 30 day deadline states.

Right.

That I think, you know, just, just shows you the importance of this kind of policy.

Right. And you know where I'm recording this podcast right now in Massachusetts, and you know, we have a 20 day voter registration deadline here and you know, Josh, I almost missed it when I first moved here. And again, I focus on democracy reform. I mean, the ease at which you can miss these deadlines is unfathomable. Sometimes you forget how easy it is because you don't think, oh yeah, I need to make sure. I'm registered 20 days before the local election or state election. This is a clear barrier that we can break down and not increase the threat of fraud.

Absolutely. And you know, you and I and your listeners, you know, are probably more focused on elections and so are maybe less likely to have problems. But you know, think of the number of people who aren't paying close attention to the elections until the weekend before. That doesn't mean that they should be essentially stripped of their fundamental right to vote just because they didn't start paying attention until the weekend before election day. And, you know, I hear, sometimes hear this argument of, oh, well, I just want an informed electorate. And so, you know, you need that time to prove, you know, prove that you're worthy of the right to vote and then become educated. Well, one, the right to vote is not something you need to be earned. It's something that you're given as a member of our democracy. And two, there's no evidence that someone who registers on election day is making an uninformed vote. We do need to improve civics education. Absolutely. But to me, that's just such a bad argument. It's really being fearful of the voters, which, you know, I think we should be trusting the voters and let's let the best candidates and the best ideas win out and not the election rules.

Completely agree. All right, give us a quick overview of pre registration.

Yes. So here this is a situation where 16 and 17 year olds can get on the voter rolls before they're 18, so that on their 18th birthday they're automatically now registered and able to vote. And so, you know, 18 is this kind of strange time period in our lives where you're moving off typically you're moving out of the house, you're entering the workforce, you're going to college. And you know, we also, in the states that don't have pre registration, require you to register ahead of election day, sometimes 30 days before election day. You know, why not make that just easy? And we can do that as part of social studies class in schools. And so a handful of states have pre registration either for just 17 or 16 to 17 year olds, and you can get them on the voter rolls right away. In fact, California has moved, I believe, to automatic voter registration for pre registration as well for 16 and 17 year olds at least. I think they're in the process of implementing that kind of reform. And you know, What a great 18th birthday present to be already on the voter rolls. The concern is when you have a state like North Carolina that had it, it was working well and the state legislature repealed it for really no good reason. I can't think of a possible reason that's not partisan. We're afraid of young voters to take away pre registration. But unfortunately that's what the North Carolina legislature did.

Right. And you get to an important point here, which is when it comes to voting rights, all of these reforms are iterative. They're all additive that you can, you can, you know, a state can pass automatic voter registration, same day voter registration, and then pre registration, and that will, each reform will build off of each other to make our elections even more or increase participation even more in our elections. That these are not one and done. It's. This is a long process that requires many different ways to reform the registration system.

That's right. And you know, something like automatic voter registration, the first time the state adopts it, likely you'll have a huge wave of newly registered voters. But hopefully if it's being implemented the right way, each successive election there'll be fewer and fewer people who need to be automatically registered because we've captured so many of them previously. So it's people, you know, newly moving into the state or moving addresses or whatnot. And so, you know, some of these reforms give you a big push initially, some of them are successive and then becomes about list maintenance, which again is also a good thing.

So you and I saw each other in Nashville, Tennessee at the Unrig the System conference earlier this year. And we spent some time with the team at Vote at Home. And I believe you're on the board of advisors for Vote at Home, if I remember correctly. Can you explain what Vote at Home is and where it's been implemented and why?

Sure. So Vote at Home, sometimes referred to as universal vote by mail, is a system in which every voter is automatically mailed the ballot a couple weeks before election day. So they receive it as part of the mail system, and then they can take the time at home to educate themselves about the candidates about the issues and then return the ballot by election day. And in fact, about half the people return the ballot via a secured Dropbox. And so it's universal ballot delivery by mail, but actually the voting takes place at home and then it's delivered back to the election officials. These states use a system called Ballot Trace, so an individual voter can actually watch their ballot go through the system to make sure it's been received and processed correctly. And of course, that's separate from who you voted for. So the secrecy of the ballot is maintained. I'll tell a Story again, this was implemented for the first time statewide, again in Oregon, but it actually started at local level. First, San Diego used universal vote by mail for a bond initiative I think back in the 90s. And then Oregon, a county in Oregon adopted it because they had an election in which only two people voted. It was a school bond or property bond issue and the voter turnout was two people. And the measure passed 2 0. So everyone knew how those two people voted because it's a public record as to whether you showed up. And the election officials said, this is crazy, right? We can't be running a system. And so they decided to work on passing universal vote by mail first at the local level for local elections and eventually statewide. And the secretary of state there, Phil Keesling, now one of the people who started the national Vote at Home Coalition at first was opposed because he said, you know, I like going to vote feeling the crunch of the autumn leaves on a fall day as I go to my polling place. And he said, you know, I realized that I was conflating the essence of voting or the ritual of voting with its essence, which is participation. And he then became a champion. So he changed his views on national or on vote at home policies. And the kind of amusing story is, you know, this guy just like you and I breathes elections, lives and breathes them. And he didn't realize he had a local election about a year ago and he received his ballot in the mail and so he sat down and researched the issues, researched the candidates. Now, universal vote by mail or vote at home is a reality in Oregon, all elections in Washington state, in Colorado, all but one county in Utah has used vote at home. And the last county just said they're going to implement it. Now all of Utah, Hawaii just passed it. And Hawaii actually has pretty low turnout. I think this is going to improve turnout significantly in Hawaii. So again, you see a mix of different kinds of states, all seeing the benefits of vote at home.

And I personally love the idea of vote at home because I think a lot of people go and even I do too, especially for down ballot races. It almost feels like a pop quiz or with a ballot initiative that unless you've done significant research, you know exactly what's on the ballot. Going to vote can seem like a pop quiz at school. And so when you're mailed the ballot a couple weeks ahead of time, you actually have time to sit down, research things that you don't know. You don't have to be voting blind. It's a great way to increase you know the knowledge base of the electorate. So vote at, vote at home is really intriguing for me. And personally, I mean, to be, you know, to be frank, I never really thought about it much until I sat down with Phil Keesling and he really pummeled it into me that this works. This is a really good reform for the United States.

And you know, one of the most surprising things to me was the actual effect it has on turnout. I mean, turnout numbers almost skyrocket when you use vote at home. And especially in elections that are usually very low participation, you know, off cycle local elections or bond initiatives or whatnot, where, you know, normally you'd get maybe even single digit or low teens turnout and you get double, triple that when people are just handed their ballot. It just makes life so much easier when one less thing you have to worry about. I need to carve out time out of my day to go to the polls. A lot of people ask me about early voting. I want to expand early voting days. I think in principle I'm fine with that. But honestly, early voting has not had the effect that I think a lot of people expected it would, which is to improve turnout dramatically. You know, what early voting does is it basically time displaces when people who are already going to vote decide to turn up. Whereas vote at home actually has a tangible, verifiable effect on turnout. And you know, it's kind of like early voting, but it's just you do it at your house instead or your home or your apartment or wherever you happen to live. So I think it just makes a lot of sense.

So let's turn to public financing of elections because a lot of people, this is about the right to vote and getting people to vote. But some people just don't feel like their vote matters if both parties are, are being, you know, bought or their, their incentives are skewed by big money interests. You know, listeners, longtime listeners of Equal Citizens podcast and those who have followed Lawrence Lessig will know a lot about public financing. But give us a quick overview of public financing of elections and then also explain, I want your take of why has public financing not spread as rapidly or as successfully as some of these voting rights measures?

Sure. So, you know, public financing obviously is where someone can agree to certain restrictions on the amount of money that they'll raise and spend in exchange for government funding for their campaigns. And different places do it in different ways. There might be a match, like for every dollar I raise, the government will give me $5 in a public match. That's A pretty common system. Up to a certain end, you get up to a certain amount. The most innovative, as you mentioned earlier, is Seattle's Democracy Vouchers, where every citizen is automatically given four $25 vouchers to hand to candidates of their choice who have opted into the public financing. And to receive democracy vouchers as a candidate, you have to agree to not take out outside money, agree to a certain number of public debates, et cetera. Again, I like stories. And so I point to the example of someone like Alison Smith in Maine, who was really a public face of passing campaign finance reform and public financing in Maine. She was working with the League of Women Voters, and they were looking for an everyday person to be a public spokesperson. She went on TV to add, advocate and explain, essentially, look, we don't want our politicians tied to wealthy interests. And she said it was kind of strange she went on TV to advocate for it because she didn't even own a TV at the time. But what this individual was able to do is tell the story of why having the ear of a candidate, not because you gave them money, but because you're a constituent, is so powerful. I talked to a member of the Maine legislature, Speaker of the House, actually, who told me about how the Maine legislature was considering a consumer protection bill involving, I think it was mattresses. And a bunch of outside lobbyists came in and tried to influence the legislators. And so many of them just said, we don't care what you think. We're going to talk to our constituents. And that's what democracy should be about. And public financing helps to make that happen. Now, why has it not taken hold? I mean, unfortunately, I think part of the problem is the U.S. supreme Court and some of the rulings that is issued. You know, I'm not talking just about Citizens United, which is the kind of boogeyman that everyone points to. But, you know, go back to the case, a case that is kind of the father of Citizens United, a case called Buckley vs. Vallejo from the 1970s, which is really where the court did say that spending money on elections is a form of speech. And I'm not so sure that giving a dollar to a candidate is actually a speech act. And I think there are good arguments to be made against that. It's not the same as standing on a street corner with a bullhorn or having a public gathering and a campaign event. And once we get this, money equals speech. And so it has robust First Amendment protection, then it becomes very difficult for the government to place meaningful restrictions on that speech. And so that's where you have, I think, when public financing is available, but wealthy interests are able to avoid all of that and just fund their money from their campaigns from their own pockets, their own deep pockets. You get a system where public financing makes it hard to win. You need a certain amount of money to make yourself competitive. And that's where I think a lot of the problems come in.

Right in the places, I think in New York City, which has one of the most famous systems where it's now an 8 to 1 match. And I think of Seattle, I think of Maine again, which we were talking about, where basically your entire campaign is funded. There are problems with all of these systems, but the kind of revolutionary way in which it changes the incentives of politicians to actually care what their voters think is truly stunning. I mean, I remember the story of Deb Simpson, who is a state legislator or who wanted, who was actually a waitress at the time. And someone told her that she should run and she said, I can't run for office, I can't raise that money. And her friend said, Deb, you know, you just have to collect $5 from 50 people and you can have your entire campaign funded with the public financing program. And she said, oh, I'm a waitress, I talk to 50 people every hour. Maybe I can do that. And she did, she did that. She ended up being a five term legislator and people loved her. And this is the system that we can fight for to increase the power, the spending power of everyday Americans to actually influence our elections.

You know, and it's so depressing when you hear some of the numbers of members of Congress or those state legislators where they don't have any public financing. And how they spend their days, it's miserable. Two thirds of their days, if not more, are spent dialing for dollars where they have to make fundraising calls. And they do that because the party structure requires it. And if they want to have, if they want to have a chance at reelection, they need to build their war chest. I had lunch with someone who was newly elected Congress a couple years ago and it was about, I think it was December. So this person hadn't taken office yet. So I was like, oh, so what are you doing to prepare for your time in D.C. and he said, I've started to fundraise for my next campaign in two years for reelection. He hadn't even taken office yet. And it's just absurd. But on the flip side, you talk to people like Deb Simpson or others where they don't have to worry about that Money because they know that their campaigns can be funded as long as the public financing system is big enough or, you know, the money that is provided is large enough to have a competitive chance. And they spend their time talking to constituents, which is exactly what we would want.

Yeah. So hopefully in the future, I mean, the more and more groups like, you know, Equal Citizens and others keep pushing the issue, I mean, this is why we're doing it, because we want to change those incentives and bring people back into, you know, the rooms where decisions are being made. So I.

Well, and let me say one more thing about that real quick, which is, you know, again, we had this, we had a terrible Supreme Court decision out of Arizona involving Arizona's public financing match where basically if your wealthy opponent spent more than a publicly financed candidate could receive more in the government money than the initial allocation. And the court struck that down as violating the First Amendment. And I think that's wrong. So we have these bad policies, but at the same time, you have these success stories in places like New York City and Seattle and a handful of other localities. This is another great example where you can pass meaningful campaign finance reform that will make a difference in localities and actually change the incentive structure and change who runs for office and who can win. Once you see those successes in places like Seattle or New York or the other cities where it's being implemented again, you have greater ammunition to go to other places and eventually states to get them to pass, even consistent with the Supreme Court's restrictive ruling.

And again, you know, in HR1, there is public financing that the success in New York and in other places, and there's even, I think a democracy voucher pilot program in there as well. There's the matching and the voucher program that, that would not be possible if not having been proved to work on the ground. And so I look forward to seeing if that will expand. We certainly hope so. So.

That's right. And you can even do it in, you know, so called liberal cities and so called conservative states. So like Austin, Texas is looking into using democracy vouchers. And the more places you go and the more places where it may be surprising that you have successes, I think the greater overall success long term that you'll eventually have.

Yeah. So here we're going to do a little bit of a lightning round here. So let's start with felon disenfranchisement. Why do we disenfranchise people who are formerly incarcerated after being indicted or convicted of a felony? Where did that come from?

Because, because we have a racist history. It derives directly from Jim Crow era, you know, post Civil War efforts to disenfranchise newly freed slaves. And it's a legacy of voter suppression that unfortunately survives to this day.

So I want to be very clear to our listeners that there are a handful of states, among which is your state, Kentucky, where if you are convicted of a felony, you can never get the right to vote back unless I don't know the law in Kentucky, Josh, but unless you're individually pardoned or granted clemency, is that correct in Kentucky?

That's right. You have to petition the governor for individual clemency.

So that means that you will never get the right to vote again. And you know, the exciting part on this, Josh, is that obviously in Florida they had this law in the or they had this provision in the Constitution since the early or late it was either the late 19th century or early 20th century and voters finally overturned this lifetime ban. The state Republicans then tried to gut it or actually successfully gutted it with a poll tax. But this is an issue where it is so egregious again that these Jim Crow laws are still on the books over a hundred years later. And you know, but, but as you describe in your book, there are efforts to try and you know, fix this problem.

Yeah, I'm an optimist. Right. So although I look at the horribleness of this racist practice and as you said, Kentucky and its Iowa are the two states left with the most restrictive laws. Even Florida, as you said, re enfranchised 1.4 million returning citizens and the state legislature has gutted that with essentially a poll tax. Even if the new legislature's law is somehow still implemented, I think it will get struck down. But if it's not, you're still going to have hundreds of thousands of people newly enfranchised in Florida. So it's not all bad news. It's just not as good as it really should be. But as an optimist, I look at the good news on this issue and see that there are a handful of places that are easing their felon disenfranchisement rules. Not only Florida, but you have Alabama, that made it easier to regain your rights. Even Kentucky, the worst state in the country, made it slightly better because it passed a felony expungement bill that allows some low level felons to get an expungement of their records, all thanks to a guy named West Powell who just basically stood up and told his story and convinced some legislators to change their views on this issue. So this is one of these things that although it's a horrible historical racist practice that continues to this day, there is actually some progress on it.

Right. So in your book, you also describe a movement to end gerrymandering in Michigan. We won't go into too much detail because I believe in a future episode we will have the star of that movement, Katie Fahey, interviewed by Lessig. You talk about the movement to revitalize civic education. You talk about ranked choice voting. You talk about how to reform and revitalize local media. But there's one point before we close, and this is gonna be the last thing that I want you to talk about. But again, I encourage listeners to actually pick up a book of Vote for Us because I really do think that there's a real slew of reforms that we can, we can implement that will make a huge difference that you persuasively argue are, are critical to achieving a better democracy. But, Josh, give us. I think your most controversial argument is to lower the voting age. Why?

Yeah, so, and I start the book after the prologue with lowering the voting age because I think it's one of the most controversial, but also one of the most exciting and powerful, and I've been arguing for several years now to lower the voting age of 16, at least for local elections. This makes a lot of sense for a good number of reasons, but the ultimate reason is that it can improve turnout for generations to come. So one of the biggest predictors of whether someone's going to vote is if they voted previously. Voting is habit forming, and so is non voting. So studies show that people who miss the first election when they become an eligible voter are much less likely to become habitual voters in their life. And so what do we do to get people to vote in that first election? Because that seems to be such a crucial one to determine whether they're going to become habitual lifelong voters. And 18, as we talked about with the registration discussion, is an odd time to begin the habit of voting. You know, you're moving away from home, we make you jump through a bunch of hoops to register and request an absentee ballot. But if we lower the voting age to 16 and couple that with improved civics education in really meaningful ways, then we can create a whole new generation of voters. And, and the biggest, to me, evidence of this is that it's really working in places like Takoma Park, Maryland, in Hyattsville, Maryland, in Berkeley, California, for school board elections. They're going to implement that soon. And even in other countries Like Scotland and Austria, we see the real engagement of 16 and 17 year olds. One of the biggest objections is on maturity and whether their brains are developed enough. And I've did a bunch of reading of psychological studies on cognitive brain development and Learned that essentially 16 and 17 year olds are perfectly capable to make what they refer to as cold cognition decisions or reasoned decision making. That's not heat of the moment. So this is just so many benefits to lowering the voting age, at least starting it at the local level and see how it works and let it spread to create a whole new generation of lifelong voters.

Right. And this would require a constitutional amendment to enact federally. Correct?

No, no, no. Because the voting age is set by the state. So what the US Constitution says is that states cannot deny the right to vote to those aged 18 or older. So it sets a floor, but it does not say that the states can't go lower. And so a state could lower the voting age to 16 or 17 for presidential elections in the state, statewide elections, and local elections. I think it makes sense to start locally because of what we discussed before about, you know, that movement can start at the local level through a grassroots effort and see it working well and then spread to other places. But I think California actually is considering a bill to lower the voting age to 17 for all elections in the state, which would include the presidential election and the congressional elections. This is a state based, state based requirement in terms of what the voting age is.

Well, that's actually very exciting. I didn't know that, but I think you make a very compelling case, Josh. I think that lowering the voting age might really do a lot to revitalize, or not revitalize, but really promote youth turnout in elections and get people excited.

Absolutely. Like I said, it has to be coupled with improved, meaningful civics education. And the places that have lowered the voting age are doing that. And what's happening is really, really inspiring.

Right. Well, Josh, this has been so great. I would love to go through every single point in this in your book and every single policy, but we don't have time. But Josh, I want to end with a quick reading from your book because I think for your listeners today, they might find it a nice takeaway. We must recognize that change is possible in our own communities. If we all do just a little bit more to promote democracy reform, collectively, those changes will add up to something big. Can each of us spend just an hour a week on improving our system? Might we all become democracy champions in our own communities? Can we all step up to create the kind of democracy and society that truly makes us proud. I'm confident that the answer is yes. I'm secure in knowing that our future is bright. If we all pitch in and do our part in a positive, proactive way, I'm assure that small wins will lead to larger victories. And I'm so excited to join you in that effort. See you on the streets. And with that, Josh, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Another Way.

Thank you. It's been my pleasure.