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September 9, 2025 19 mins

More than 130 million voters never cast a ballot. Why? Because gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and felon disenfranchisement turn democracy into a maze. Jerremy and Dave reveal how politicians redraw maps to lock in wins, why ID debates leave millions shut out, and how outdated rules and money in politics fuel distrust. The barriers aren’t glitches—they’re features of a system built to keep power in the right hands.

Timestamps:

(00:00) 130 Million Missing Voters: Who Got Ghosted?

(01:47) Voting Problem or Power Play?

(03:34) Gerrymandering’s Funhouse Maps

(11:13) ID Laws: Gym Cards vs Ballot Access

(19:35) Modernizing Democracy: Tech at the Polls


📢 Solving America’s Problems Podcast – Real Solutions For Real Issues

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex (00:00):
"Your face unlocks your phone, your thumb pays for coffee—yet
we're marking ballots like pioneers.
Digital voting tempts with ease, butEquifax hacks and TSA lines remind

us (00:10):
convenience comes with risks.
Let's unpack if Silicon Valleydeserves our democratic trust."

Jerremy (00:17):
The fact that 99% of the time when a vote comes around and I get
to go, alright, where am I voting?
What random facilitydo I have to drive to?
Is it a middle school this time?
Is it an elementary school?
Is it a library?
Like I'm looking for?
I don't know where I'm gonna go vote.
I have no idea.

(00:37):
I have to look it down, find itout, go to a place I've never
been to before a church, right?
Like I'm going to some really randomlocation, which is, and everyone there
has always been extremely kind and
courteous.
And the process is very simple.
I have to show a license.
Oh my goodness.
An id that's crazy.
I know this ahead of time.

(00:59):
So it is not a gym, right?
So I bring my physicallicense to this location.
They do the thing, they write somethings down and I go cast a vote.
Okay?
actually think that weshould make voting easier,
and I do think that it would bewith very simple scanning devices.

(01:19):
It, you do it through TSA right now.
So in TSAI actuallydon't have to have my id.
I use it, but I could justdo a biometric scan on my
And give them my boarding pass.
And that's all I need.
We should be able to have a inputyour social security number.
Everyone knows that.
Do a biometric face scan.
Got it.

(01:39):
Vote
done
on your phone.
What?
Every American has a phone,

Dave (01:44):
yep.

Jerremy (01:45):
right?
99.3%
of Americans have a cell phone.
So you can have a cell phone nowthat you just instantly scan in
and go, yep, I'm, I am a person.
my social, here's my biometric scan.
You get to place one vote.

Dave (02:01):
Yep.

Jerremy (02:02):
That's, that seems very doable

Dave (02:06):
So I think everybody has a social right?
If you ever paid taxes, if you evergot a utility bill, if you've ever
done anything, like at least you havea social security card and number.
And if you are okay.
Here let's flip this around.

Jerremy (02:20):
Flip it.

Dave (02:22):
Non-citizen, you're not an American.
Let's, put aside any immigrationstuff that we've just been
talking about the last few weeks.
But you live in this society,you live in this community,
you participate in this nation.
In some places you can voteat least in local levels.
You still can't on the federal, butshould you be able to, I think people

(02:46):
have strong feelings on this one.
I'm like, I don't know.
It's you're here and you live here andyou do have some sort of vested interest.
Maybe not.

Jerremy (02:55):
I think that's even easier.
Yeah, of course.
If you live somewhere and youget to vote in a local election
pretending people actuallycare 'cause they don't.
But let's pretend

Dave (03:07):
Make.

Jerremy (03:08):
care about their school commissioner vote.
Or their mayor or something.
They don't, but let's pretend they do.
And again, you go to avoting location again.
Let's remove my phone.
Biometric face scan idea.
'cause that's too easy.

Dave (03:20):
I personally find super creepy, but I hear you

Jerremy (03:24):
Oh, it's creepy.
But we're already doing it.
We're already full creep todo the thing is it's 2025.
We already do
it.
Or, okay, look.
But if you don't wannado that, bring your id.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like you go to the church,

Dave (03:37):
is already in a database, right?

Jerremy (03:39):
Go to the thing and do a scan and put in your Id if
you don't wanna do it on your
phone, but yeah, the locallevel, absolutely easy.
Bring a utility bill, bring your id.
Oh, I don't have an id.
That's cool.
You don't have to have an ID here.
You don't have to have a socialbecause you're voting for local.
We get it.
It's smaller, it's efficient.

(04:02):
But again, having a centralizedlocation, having a building,
this is where everyone goes.
We could call it Voting

Dave (04:09):
Voting.
Voting land.
Yeah,

Jerremy (04:10):
voting Land.
And it has a carousel and popcorn.
And when you go to Voting Land,you know what, it's there.
It's easy, it's simple, it's effective.
It's Hey, I have everything I need.
I know where I'm going.
Just if I told you, Hey man, let's go toCold Sum Creamery and get a milkshake.
You know where to cold.
Boom, let's go.
All right.
Hey, let's go vote
at our local for our local voting.

(04:31):
Pop in again.
Either an id, but now they realize,all right, you don't have to be a
federal a, a US citizen to vote.
Okay, cool.
You don't have to be 'cause you live here.
So you're paying local taxes, local state
taxes, local income taxes, roadtaxes, employment taxes, whatever
you're paying, all these things.
You know who your watercommissioner is or who your dis

(04:52):
you want to know these people.

Dave (04:53):
have a physical address and you live here.

Jerremy (04:56):
gimme some evidence.
And that's relatively simple tocreate evidence of physical, where
you live, like that's not that hard.

Dave (05:02):
No, that's easy.
Yeah.
Okay.
So like, when we did our justice, uh,and punishment series, we know that
I think we should talk about felons.
Uh, but also not everybody has a car.
Clearly.
If people don't have IDs, they don't,they're not driving, or maybe they're
driving and they shouldn't be.

(05:22):
You know, I live in a hoity-toity partof Miami and like, I literally walk
out my door and there's voting right.
I mean, I just walk to it.
I would want to ensure that also that.
Poor areas, like where people don'thave a lot of public transportation,
where they may not have cars.
They also can vote too, like they'revoting land, there's lots of voting lands.

Jerremy (05:44):
I totally there's gonna be more than one.
Just like gas stations, it's really not,

Dave (05:48):
but what about

Jerremy (05:49):
hard to

Dave (05:50):
what about people who can't get there?
Like maybe they're in a, an oldage home, maybe they're in the
hospital, maybe they're out of town.
How do you feel about mail-inballots and that kind of stuff?

Jerremy (06:01):
a great question.
How do I feel about mail-in ballots?
I think they're old and antiquated,and I think that we should
bring in 2025 plus technology.
Again, if you're old and can't travelanywhere, you probably have a cell phone.

Dave (06:15):
Yep.

Jerremy (06:17):
And I think mail-in ballots should be an opt-in, meaning like it's
a service that you probably pay forand it has extremely high levels of.

Dave (06:26):
So you're, you're down with remote voting electronically, right?
Like, because you know, like if you'reusing a credit card online, it's
like, that's you and, and that's that.
If you're you know, like I know ifwe do a lot of investing in things,
it's like when you open up like aninvesting account, like you have to
take a photo of yourself, you haveto submit your ID and all this stuff.
It's like, okay, this is you.

(06:47):
You know, like we're putting our faceand our fingerprints into our phone.
So that's you too.
So you're saying do that when it,during the research there was also
like, yeah, there are people whocan't, leave, who can't, whatever.
And they actually send likevoting representatives, like
whatever they're called.
Ballot people.
They send them to like, like homes and tohospitals and they, they will just like

(07:10):
go through, like, they'll go door to doorand be like, you know, gimme your vote.
Which I think is super cool.

Jerremy (07:16):
So those are called Ballad people.
Is that official

Dave (07:19):
Dave's ballot people.

Jerremy (07:21):
hi ballad person,
Yeah.
But

Dave (07:23):
okay, so here's the other side of this is that like millions
and millions of people actuallydo vote remotely by paper ballots.
They're called US military andthey're also called expats.

Jerremy (07:34):
They're
already doing

Dave (07:35):
ballots.
But you're saying, okay,do that electronically too.

Jerremy (07:39):
Yeah.
absolutely right.
So due to electronically,you already have a phone.
Every single personmilitary has a phone, right?
They have access to aphone, they can scan you.
It has all your information.
That's easy.
I'm not saying that we getrid of mail-in ballots.
I'm saying a mail-in ballotis a higher level of business.
Like you have to have certain thingsthat do a mail-in ballot and so if

(07:59):
you're in, if you're serving in Iraq.
Or wherever and you haveto do a mail-in ballot.
'cause you're in the military.
That's the level of scrutiny.
Like you, you're gonna passthat level of scrutiny.
I'm not worried about those guys you'regonna pass that level of scrutiny.
But yeah, you come over into the statesand you have a mail-in ballot like there
needs, you should have a bunch of thingspretty much systematized down, right?
Social security number, copy of yourdriver's license, a utility bill.

(08:24):
You can go down a pretty long list ofthings that you definitely need to mail
in along with your mail-in ballot justto verify and prove like that part, since
it is slightly archaic and relativelyeasy to manipulate, like check fraud.
Check fraud of financial fraud.
That happens in the US because it's aphysical, tangible thing that can be

(08:47):
physically altered and manipulated.

Dave (08:48):
Yeah,

Jerremy (08:49):
And so same thing with mail-in ballots.
Listen, I like them.
They're cool.
I get it.
I understand it.
Welcome to 1974.
They were really fantastic,
but as 2025, we can fly drones.
We can fly a Chipotle orderto your house via drone.

Dave (09:04):
Oh.

Jerremy (09:05):
Let's get some higher level of scrutiny for mail-in ballots.
If you're going to want one or youneed one for whatever particular
reason, I'm down for all the reasons.
Yeah, you're gonna have to includea lot of documentation in this
stuff because heaven forbidyou fail all of the verifiable.
Again, this is my belief.
You fail every single line,every tier that needs to be

(09:27):
verified in order for you to vote.
You can't vote, homie.
I don't know what to tell you.
I
probably don't wannalisten to your vote anyway,

Dave (09:33):
you are not responsible enough to run your life, much less the country.

Jerremy (09:37):
Yeah.
If you can't get the 47 differentthings that I'm asking of you to
just simply vote, I don't reallycare for your opinion honestly.
I don't think most otherpeople are going to either.
Yes, you're a human, I'll give you humanrights, but just 'cause you're a human
doesn't mean you need to be able to vote.

Dave (09:55):
I, so if I was to sum up where we are right now.
You and I are totally aligned onany big thing that disenfranchises
a lot of people because we wantmore people to vote than not.
And right now there are someissues that, you know should be
changed in order to make sure, likegerrymandering, like making sure you
have an ID easily, like all of thesethings would, would help the process.

(10:19):
And if we're managing to the exception,then we might be actually making it
worse for the most of the people.
I don't know.

Jerremy (10:26):
Yeah.
Man, that's pretty much I definitelyagree that we should make it
easier, not harder easier to access.
But essentially just if an individualwould say oh you're making voting
harder because you're adding morerequirements like physical id,

Dave (10:41):
Let's look, can we swing back by the e-voting real quick?

Jerremy (10:45):
Yeah.
E-voting.

Dave (10:47):
I think at least once every couple of months, I get some sort of notice
from some service that says, Hey, welost all of your information again.
Hey, sorry uh, you know, like it's beenhacked and all of your stuff is out there.
Change your password.
And it's like, wow, it'shappened so many times.
I'm like, that's not good.

(11:08):
So cybersecurity is a thing and it,it, like no system that's attached
to the internet is completely safe.
And like all of them are vulnerable.
So what do we say about that?
Is that still just the exception?
But that does happen.
That happens to you and me all.
It happens all the time where ourstuff is lost by these major companies.

(11:31):
It's not just small

Jerremy (11:32):
it's not only lost, into,

Dave (11:34):
Companies that spend, I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars
probably securing information.
They still lose ourinformation to some crazy,

Jerremy (11:43):
you knew my favorite one that was hacked was Equifax.
my favorite.
Oh, dude.
Yeah.
So Equifax got hacked.
Ah, man, this could have been six or sevenyears ago, maybe a little bit longer,
but they get hacked and they had to sendeveryone a message, a phone call, and
an email and a physical letter saying,Hey, one out of every two Americans had

(12:03):
their identity stolen, and we're sorry.

Dave (12:06):
sorry about that.
Just it's like you have two jobs.
One of 'em is to provide usfinancial information to other
people and to keep it safe.

Jerremy (12:15):
Unbelievable.
Who like that is just wild town Equifax.
Yeah.
Me, you, we definitely got our socialdate of birth, all that stuff stolen.

Dave (12:23):
Here's the thing, right?
This is what, I think is a seriouspolicy consideration for you going
forward, which is this keeps happeningbecause there is no punishment.
Like we are not perp walking theCSO and the CEO and the board of
directors for Equifax, or, like insertcompany put them in jail and make

(12:45):
sure that all of their informationis published widely on the internet.
Being like, okay, there you go guys.
If we make this like serious consequences,then you have serious action acts.
You have serious action.
And right now there's nothing.
It's oh, just kidding.
Like a few years ago, more towards thedawn or second round of internet stuff,

(13:07):
there were consequences where companieshad to pay to make sure that your credit
system, things were monitored, thatyou would, be a part of this program to
sure that your identity isn't stolen.
Now, it's nothing.
They just give you a oh, hey, sorry.

Jerremy (13:22):
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
My bad.

Dave (13:24):
Yeah, sorry about that.
Go change your password,which doesn't matter.
Here's.

Jerremy (13:29):
To your point, yeah, there should definitely be a little bit more.
Repercussions to some degree.
I wouldn't throw the CEO in jail, butI'd probably fire them or find them.
Or someone, the company, likesomeone should get fined.
But then also the people that did it, weshould actually, I don't know, have a task
force to hunt those people down and, yeah.

Dave (13:46):
I don't know why every affected person shouldn't get a check for,
$15,000 each to go fix your shit.
So if there's no pen, if there'sonly a financial penalty, then I
think the financial penalty shouldbe able to put the company to death.
Like these companies can't just dothe math and be like, oh, we don't
have to spend money on cybersecuritybecause we'll just pay this a

(14:08):
hundred dollars fine and be done.
It's no, make it serious.
It's a $10 billion fine.
It's a fine for everyperson that lost their stuff

Jerremy (14:16):
Come on, dude.
I like that.
Here's the thing, man so I know,I'm sure you heard about this, but.
The US government just bought10% of Nvidia sorry, Intel.
The US government justbought 10% of Intel, right?
Because Trump and the CO are best buddies.
And so he goes, Hey, we now own 10%of, so they bought 440 million shares

(14:36):
of Intel.
Now here's the reason I'm saying that.
Do you think the US governmentcould go, Hey Apple, hey Google,
here's what we need to do.
To, to your point, yes, absolutely.
Let's have some rules and regulationsand fines, but hey, go, we're gonna
pay, since you guys are the, the majorproviders of all information here in the

(14:58):
us, we'll pay you annually, $10 billion.
Let's call it like the governmentpays, apple pays Google 10 billion,
and everyone is gonna get on thissystem and they're gonna be protected.
And the same way that you'realready protecting them now.
Me and you, bro.
We got our cell phones.
We have all of our credit cards on there.

(15:20):
All of our data, all of our photos.
You have so much stuff on our phone thatcurrently we trust Apple or Google to,
meaning you trust Apple who trust Google.
We trust Apple to keepour stuff protected.
So if we're doing these again, e-voting,biometric scan, op, face ID type of

(15:40):
voting system, we can rely on a thirdparty to help us keep that safer.
Will it get hacked at some point?
Sure.
But again, we already faced that risk now,
so that risk doesn't change.
It's okay, could someone go in andmanipulate the system by adding a bunch
of different votes electronically?
Sure.
But that could happen.
Now, I like if I knew how to hack,which I don't, could I hack into

(16:05):
the internet of a local high school
or a church?
Manipulate all the information that'sgoing through that system for all the
voters that are showing up with their IDs.
Of course I could I'm confidentthat could happen somehow.
So yeah, it can be daunted, but thatperson would also go to jail for a long
time if they did that, if they were foundout that they cracked into this code.

(16:27):
So I think the government could easilyspend a little bit of money to an
outside privatized company that makessure that aspect is either safer or
faster or easier or more efficientor more effective for all of it.

Dave (16:41):
But the CEO doesn't go to jail.
If you're at a bank and they leavethe doors wide open and they're
like, okay that's Jeremy's cash onthe table, but hey, don't touch it.
That bank manager's no, they're fine.
They, we'll give 'em a, likewhatever's in their wallet.
That's the, that's their fine.

Jerremy (16:58):
Should definitely be penalized.
The thing is, like CEOsare oblivious, bro.
They're dumb.
99.9%
of every CEO that runs a majororganization in this country is a moron.
They don't know what'sgoing on in their internal
world.
Their goal is to be thechief everything officer,
Right.
So they're just chatting with thesepeople and they're getting filled in.
So they don't know the local teller like

(17:19):
the j jp, none of these guysknow anyone who's working any
of their banks or anyone else.
So it's like someone should get penalizedsomewhere and I'm down for the CEO
to get fined, sign me up for that.
Jail's probably too much.
I would think for someone who doesn'treally have any awareness of what's going
on at all in that organization, however.

(17:43):
I do definitely think that you shouldhave some stronger, stricter protocols in
place if something like that does happen.
Yeah.

Dave (17:52):
All right.
I would also be like, okay, ifyour stuff does get compromised,
it's super easy to fix it.
Like, you're not responsiblefor either financial stuff.
You can get new social securitycards, you can get new.
Like, everything's like, okay,we'll just, you know, we'll
send a new packet to your door.
It'll be there tomorrow.
Like, I, I think a lot of people havehad their credit card compromised.
I have and.

(18:13):
I dunno if it was compromise, but it waslike, like there were some funky charges
on it that didn't seem, you know, likeand I was like, ah, this, this is su and
they canceled it immediately and sent me abrand new card and I had it the next day.
And I, I don't know, as long asyou can make it really easy to be
like, be able to fix your stuff.
I did have a, a dear friend, uh,get his identity stolen and I think

(18:37):
he was dealing with it for years.
You know, his credit, you know, likehis, his bank account, like every,
like, there was, it was random stuff.
Like he got a new cell phone and likehe, he had trouble getting it, uh,
because the cell phone company waslike, do you live in this country?
I'm like, no.

Jerremy (18:53):
Oh

Dave (18:53):
So like he, he had, yeah.
So all of that should be super easy tobe like, okay, I did get compromised.
Gimme my stuff.

Jerremy (19:00):
Yeah.
No, I totally agree.
I think that

Alex (19:02):
"We've navigated tech's highs and hacks—from TSA biometrics to those endless
breach emails shaking our confidence.
But the biggest twist?
No constitutional right to vote exists.

Up next (19:12):
Electoral College enigmas, founder flaws, and reforms to empower
the 130 million silent voices."
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