September 15, 2025 • 18 mins
Ever wonder why your ballot feels rigged from the start? Hosts Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley, with guest Reid Bauman, expose gerrymandering as the stealth thief distorting democracy, locking in extremes and sidelining voices amid low voter trust (just 59%). Drawing from raw first-vote tales—like Reed's 2008 firehouse debut—this episode uncovers systemic frustrations, urging reforms to reclaim fair play before it's too late.
Timestamps:
- (00:00) Introduction: Forces Shaping Elections
- (00:26) Reid Bauman's First Vote: A Rite of Passage
- (01:02) Voter Trust Crisis: Stats and Anxiety
- (01:55) Personal Stories: Lines, Booths, and Surprises
- (04:26) Voting Frustrations: Bonds, IDs, and Confusion
- (14:32) Gerrymandering Exposed: Distorted Districts
📢 Solving America’s Problems Podcast – Real Solutions For Real Issues
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jerremy (00:00):
Dave D.
C Conley.
There's thousands and thousands ofpeople all over the United States
that are eager to learn what we'retalking about in this episode.
Dave (00:09):
In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we take on the forces
shaping not just who wins elections,but how our choices are boxed in before
ballots are even cast gerrymander.
Districts lock in extremes overcompetition, leaving us on the sidelines
and wondering if voices even matter.
Our guest, Reed Bauman joins us withthe perspective of an everyday voter
(00:30):
whose first ballot in a Georgiafirehouse back in 2008 for John
McCain against Barack Obama was botha rite of passage and a glimpse of the
frustrations baked into the system.
From rickety booths, long lines and vagueballot measures to the larger machinery
that decides outcomes before election day.
Reid helps us trace how individual votesconnect to a systemic failure and where
(00:51):
reform could restore real representation.
And that's this week onsolving America's problems.
Unpacking gerrymandering, how polarizationsteel solutions with Reid Bauman.
Jerremy (01:02):
I've got an interesting stat for everyone.
65%, only 65% of Americans, whichis 154 million people voted last
year, which believe it or not, isthe third highest turnout in decades.
But those same Americans, if theytrusted the system to count their
(01:24):
votes, only 59% of those people say yes.
We've built the largest votingsystem of any democracy on the
planet while simultaneouslymaking it the most confusing.
Every state and territoryhas different rules.
21 states expanded access, 10 Titansecurity, and somehow we're more
(01:47):
anxious about democracy than ever.
My name is Jerremy Alexander Newsom.
My co-host is Dave Conley, andthis is Solving America's problems.
Today we're hearing from Reed B.
On what it's really liketo step into the booth.
Reid,
thanks for being here, man.
Reed (02:05):
anytime?
Jerremy (02:06):
It's gonna be exciting conversation just to go back and
forth and just share what we're doing.
But this is a fun first question, Reid.
Paint us a picture, man.
What's the very firstmemory you have of voting?
And then I want to hear from myboy, Dave, and I'll share mine.
Reed (02:21):
I grew up pretty electorally involved.
But my first election was 2008,John McCain versus Barack Obama.
And,
it was in my hometown, likefire station voting booth, and I
walked in and cast my ballot for
John McCain.
(02:42):
That was my first memory.
Voting.
Jerremy (02:44):
Nice.
Nice.
In a fire in a firehouse
station.
I love it.
What about you, Dave?
Reed (02:52):
Georgia.
Dave (02:53):
Oh let's see.
It was
Jerremy (02:55):
1917
and,
Dave (02:57):
not quite the it was it was Bill Clinton against George Bush.
And my first memory, and thisis this was the same for years
because it was exactly the same.
I grew up in Northern Virginia and I wentto everybody goes to this high school
that's nearby, and it's the only highschool that covers that, that part of the
county and the lines were out the door.
(03:20):
Now I think what was great aboutit was, and again, I, it's probably
the exact same as it is today.
You're in this line, it's a littlebit cold outside because it's
the fall in Northern Virginia.
And you wait and you wait and you getinside a gymnasium that has like those
crazy bright lights and this very oldlady comes up and hands you a ballot
(03:42):
and you then you have to wait in lineagain and you go to these funny booths
that, they clearly just set up, right?
They just unfolded it, it'slike this rickety table.
And it has these dividerson the left and the right.
I think they were paper or plastic.
And you get there and you you fill outthese bubbles and then inevitably somebody
around you goes, ah, I messed up my thing.
(04:04):
And so then they have to go andthey have to shred the ballot.
Little old lady comes back upto you, hands you the ballot,
and then you go and do it again.
You fill out the bubbles.
then you hand in the bubble,it goes into this machine, it
looks like a giant shredder.
It goes ZZ and that's it.
They hand and then they stamp you, likethey, they give you the I voted sticker so
you can show everybody at work that, hey,I voted, and then it was out the door.
(04:26):
They, the only thing that reallysticks with me not necessarily like
voting for the president or anyof that is all the things that I
didn't know was gonna be on there.
Particularly like all the crap thatthe county puts on there because
they refuse to do their job.
Like they, they will, they, theydon't want to actually balance
the budget of this giant county,Fairfax County, it's monster, right?
(04:49):
They want to make youvote for extra money.
So they'll put these bond initiativeson there and they'll always
make it like the craziest thing.
They'll be like.
Do you wanna feed orphansand protect puppies and have
your schools open next year?
Vote for this a hundredmillion dollar budget, right?
(05:09):
This bond.
And I'm like, of course everybody wants tovote for that, but that's not the point.
They refuse to do therest of the budgeting.
And so like they, they'll put thelike craziest thing that you say,
of course I wanna vote for this.
And that's what always stickswith me is that my county didn't
want to really do its job.
So they'll take care of everythingthat, that is actually controversial
and put like the least controversialthing that everybody has to vote
(05:32):
for on the bond initiatives.
That's, that was myfirst memory of voting.
What about you?
Jerremy (05:38):
I like it.
Maya's weird man, becauseprobably a little bit of a blend
maybe between both of yours.
But so as growing up a Jo'sWitness, one of their doctrines
is that you don't vote, right?
Because they don't want you to be anypart of this world or this system as
I say in air quotes for our listeners.
And so I was in that religionmentally and physically until I
(05:59):
was 24, which is only 13 years ago.
So my very first vote castwas Obama versus MIT Romney.
And I voted for Mitt Romney,although I knew Obama was gonna win.
And when I walked in, it wasa middle school, so I had to
(06:21):
Google where the heck do I vote?
I remember doing that,like, where do I vote?
And like it was like, put in your zipcode, it will tell you where to go.
And I put on my zip code andI was like, there's no way I
go to a middle school library.
And sure enough, and they'relike, make sure you bring your id.
And this was in Tennesseeat the time Nashville.
And I'm trying to think of what theschool was Reed, but it was somewhere
(06:44):
out in Bellevue, some random middleschool in Bellevue, in a library.
And I went into this library and toyour point, Dave, I went in there and
I thought I would go to something andjust put in my vote for president.
that was it.
Here's the president.
Boom.
You pick.
Nope, there's 75 things I voted for andI had no clue what any of them were.
I was like I felt like so stupid.
(07:06):
I just started clicking buttons'cause they were all mandatory, and
I just was clicking people's names.
I was like, I'll pick somes and I'll pick some Ds.
I like, I'll let megive like half and half.
Dunno who this person is.
Dunno what this is.
Should have looked that up.
Should have researched that.
Didn't know any of it.
Filled out this horrible voting forum.
I'm positive I votedfor something terrible.
Some.
(07:26):
So someone that's actually been a fear ofmine, someone's gonna pull up that voting
history and go, Jerremy iss a neo-Nazi.
Like he voted, you won't believewhat he voted for in 2012.
And yeah man I just filled outthis random thing and, or sorry.
Yeah it was just ultimatelyone of those situations where I
got my sticker and that was it.
But afterwards, man, I researched somuch about who and what and all the
(07:49):
things and just started becoming a littlebit more inclined into the political
sphere as I started stepping out of thatparticular religious belief into the
fact that I am okay to be a part of thisworld and all that kinda good stuff.
And so I will say, going up to thatvoting booth, I did not feel empowered.
I felt uninformed.
(08:09):
I wouldn't say frustrated for sure,but I would certainly say that I didn't
really think what I was doing mattered.
Ultimately, I was just excited to doit, 'cause I'd never done it before.
Reid, lemme throw this question to you.
If 59% of Americans say they actuallytrust the count, what's your gut reaction
(08:32):
to that number and what's your opinionon, does your vote actually matter?
Reid?
Reed (08:36):
As to whether your vote matters it's an aggregate, it's
like a hive mind type thing.
So individually, are yougonna swing an election?
Almost guaranteed thatyou won't but your vote.
That doesn't mean your vote doesn'tcount, as far as 59% of people I would
be interested in historically, whatnumber of people have trusted the system?
(08:56):
I
would make a pretty confident assumptionthat number is higher than it used
to be.
People have distrust in thesystem has gone up as a result of
certain political forces basicallybenefiting them to sow distrust
amongst the populist of the system.
(09:18):
So I think
that's probably a result of a lotof political action and rhetoric.
Jerremy (09:23):
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like 59% is pretty high for
sure.
So you, you mentioned in your vote,did you have to show ID at all when
you went to your firehouse station?
Reed (09:37):
I don't remember, to be honest with you.
I have no recollection of that.
I don't
think Georgia had a voter ID lawat the time, so probably not.
Jerremy (09:44):
What's your general take on that?
Should we like have some typeof verification, registration
for voting.
Reed (09:52):
I think it's a prickly issue.
You can't come right out and say thatyou're against voter ID because that
is a political, it's a toxic statementbecause if you're against voter id,
then you must be for voter fraud.
But I think as I read through the researchthat you guys have done, and you need
to lay the groundwork to basically, diginto the studies and everything, but
(10:16):
there's a lot of evidence that doesn'treally have an impact on elections.
So I think what it amounts to isprobably more of a waste of state
funds than anything to pass to havevoter ID laws and stuff like that.
And it's a show of electionsecurity more than it is actual
election security because, who'scommitting fraud in the elections?
(10:40):
Illegal immigrants or people likethat who are coming, are they coming
here to commit social engineeringfraud and go steal elections?
The amount of kind of collaborationand expertise that would require.
Just is not really there for, and plus thepotential punishment if they're caught,
(11:02):
which it's not hard to be caught becauseelections are secured by census data.
And backing up with people'saddresses so that there is one vote
per person even without voter ID
laws.
That answer the
Dave (11:16):
Yeah, it totally does.
It made me make a note because Iwas thinking about all of the people
who've been actually convictedof voter fraud, and it's almost
exclusively politicians, politicaloperators, working for politicians.
So I think I'm on theside that all politicians
need to
show their ID before they vote.
Reed (11:36):
Those are the people who would have a motive to commit fraud.
If I'm one person and my vote is gonnabe one of millions, what incentive is
there for me to try to commit fraudjust so I can cast my one vote that
probably
wouldn't want swing anelection, to go to prison.
Jerremy (11:53):
So, what you're saying and what I hear you saying is
the voter challenge is much higherup the chain than an individual I a
person having or not having an id.
Reed (12:04):
Yeah,
Jerremy (12:05):
I like it.
I
like
it.
Reed (12:07):
about right.
Jerremy (12:08):
Yeah.
Okay.
Reed (12:10):
I was gonna say earlier, how funny would it be if they
were like
This initiative passed by onevote and it was Jerremy Newsom.
Jerremy (12:16):
Yeah, In 2012, this dude.
Reed (12:20):
You're like, what did I vote for?
Jerremy (12:22):
Yeah.
That's a good point.
But David and I in the lastepisode, which you haven't heard
yet 'cause we just recorded it.
But to your point, one of mythoughts and theories was.
It would probably be pretty easyto require a voter id if every
state was like, Hey, listen,you gotta bring a license.
Pretty straightforward.
(12:43):
Some verification form.
It wouldn't be very hard, Idon't think, to implement it.
Mostly because I just went,I told Dave the story.
I went to a gym and I couldn't get intothe gym without a physical license,
like a, like it was a lifetime fitness.
They're like, you can't work out here.
You obviously, even though I had a pictureof my id, it didn't have the physical id.
So nah, sorry man, you can't do this.
(13:05):
And it was just a comical situation.
I'm like, all right if they can do it,I'm sure there's probably a few other
places that could just implement arelatively easy policy to make sure, but
to your point, even if you had every.
and I don't know the exact numberoff the top of my head, but we did
just have a very long discussion onimmigration and illegal immigration.
(13:26):
But every single individual that did,if they colluded somehow to together,
they'd have to all go to probablythe same state and all vote illegally
simultaneously for there to be anytype of swing or massive decision.
And then to your also point, if they didthat and they and everyone pulled that
off what actual change would they make?
(13:47):
So if the challenge is a lot higher,Dave or Reed, where do we think it lays?
Is it in the electoral college?
Is it somewhere different?
Is there something else thatwe should be looking at?
Reed (14:00):
I have a thought on that, but as to what you just said, with the
illegal I immigrants all moving toone state and voting one way, that,
that would be very obvious, that
was occurring
Jerremy (14:10):
Of course.
Reed (14:10):
data, like looking at the data and stuff like
that.
So it wouldn't, you can catch that
stuff by just going through the data andmaking sure it matches reality, which
is something that political scientistsdo, and that's part of the reason why
it's over the head of a lot of thegeneral public and that it's, they
don't trust political scientists or theydon't understand, the things like that.
(14:32):
But the issue that I think ismost important when it comes to
voting is gerrymandering 100%.
Because districts are gerrymanderedso that they're not competitive and.
You have essentially like in avery heavily gerrymandered, let's
say red district, a congressionalcandidate needs to win the primary.
(14:54):
If they win the primary, theywill win the general election.
It's basically a slam dunk,already known outcome.
And therefore we're competing forthe primary and therefore there's
no incentive to nominate a personwho can win over moderate voters.
You're only looking for someone whocan win over the hard ideological
(15:16):
voters on one side or the other whichcontributes to more polarized politics.
If we have districts across the boardwhere people have to compete for
moderate voters, we wouldn't haveas polarized of a political system.
We would have politicians who can workacross the aisle with the other side
(15:37):
because most Americans are actually nothard ideologues on one side or the other.
Most people fall in the middle, andthat's the re part of the reason why those
people feel like they're not representedbecause most of them live in a district
that's gerrymandered, so that someonewho is ideological on one side or the
(15:57):
other will always win their district.
And
therefore you have no one thatyou really like to vote for.
No one's really competing for your vote.
Dave (16:07):
So could you, So Jerremy and I have been trying to do this.
Can you steal, man,the other side of this?
What's good about gerrymandering?
If anything?
Can you think of anything like, ah,
Jerremy (16:18):
I mean for the higher up political people
who wanna win, it's great.
Dave (16:21):
yeah, that's it.
Reed (16:22):
Gerrymandering, gerrymandering helps us win.
We barter with the other side.
We'll rig these
districts so that we can win andyou can rig the other districts.
But it's not, that's notreally the way that it is.
For, I don't know if they're havingthose conversations like in higher up
rooms that we don't get to know about.
(16:43):
I doubt it because I thinkit's a zero sum game.
We're trying to win asmany seats as we can
and basically disenfranchise theother side because that's what it is.
It's anti-democratic.
Jerremy (16:56):
Fascinating.
Love that term.
So here's a fun one
for you, Dave, right?
Gerrymandering.
It was a coin coined term fromMassachusetts governor in 1812.
Your third birthday.
I'm just kidding.
bunch of old jokes today.
Just a joke.
Governor.
Elbridge, Jerry noted thatone of the districts looked
(17:18):
like a mythical salamander.
And so I think that's probablywhen it, but 18, 12, a little
bit ago, like a couple days ago,but that's when he noticed it.
That's when the phrase gets coined.
So you can only, that's just a coupleof years before the nation gets founded.
(17:40):
17 seven.
It's not that,
Dave (17:43):
by a guy named Jerry?
Jerremy (17:45):
so they just coined it Exactly that.
That's just when it gets coined.
So it's been around
Reed (17:48):
It was coined by some political cartoonists because it was, they called
it a gerrymander,
the district, because it looked like a,
Jerremy (17:58):
yeah.
Dave (17:58):
Oh, because it looked like a salad, ma.
Okay.
Yeah I'm following it.
Jerremy (18:03):
A
mythical salamander.
Yeah.
It's really interesting.
Dave (18:06):
Yeah.
Alex (18:07):
We've unpacked those raw, eye-opening moments from the
voting booth—frustrations thathit close to home and spark real
questions about trust in the system.
But what if the real twist happenslong before you cast your ballot?
Stick around for our next segment, whereReed breaks down how gerrymandering
rigs the game and shares straightforwardfixes that could change everything.
Dave D.
C Conley.
There's thousands and thousands ofpeople all over the United States
that are eager to learn what we'retalking about in this episode.
Dave (00:09):
In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we take on the forces
shaping not just who wins elections,but how our choices are boxed in before
ballots are even cast gerrymander.
Districts lock in extremes overcompetition, leaving us on the sidelines
and wondering if voices even matter.
Our guest, Reed Bauman joins us withthe perspective of an everyday voter
(00:30):
whose first ballot in a Georgiafirehouse back in 2008 for John
McCain against Barack Obama was botha rite of passage and a glimpse of the
frustrations baked into the system.
From rickety booths, long lines and vagueballot measures to the larger machinery
that decides outcomes before election day.
Reid helps us trace how individual votesconnect to a systemic failure and where
(00:51):
reform could restore real representation.
And that's this week onsolving America's problems.
Unpacking gerrymandering, how polarizationsteel solutions with Reid Bauman.
Jerremy (01:02):
I've got an interesting stat for everyone.
65%, only 65% of Americans, whichis 154 million people voted last
year, which believe it or not, isthe third highest turnout in decades.
But those same Americans, if theytrusted the system to count their
(01:24):
votes, only 59% of those people say yes.
We've built the largest votingsystem of any democracy on the
planet while simultaneouslymaking it the most confusing.
Every state and territoryhas different rules.
21 states expanded access, 10 Titansecurity, and somehow we're more
(01:47):
anxious about democracy than ever.
My name is Jerremy Alexander Newsom.
My co-host is Dave Conley, andthis is Solving America's problems.
Today we're hearing from Reed B.
On what it's really liketo step into the booth.
Reid,
thanks for being here, man.
Reed (02:05):
anytime?
Jerremy (02:06):
It's gonna be exciting conversation just to go back and
forth and just share what we're doing.
But this is a fun first question, Reid.
Paint us a picture, man.
What's the very firstmemory you have of voting?
And then I want to hear from myboy, Dave, and I'll share mine.
Reed (02:21):
I grew up pretty electorally involved.
But my first election was 2008,John McCain versus Barack Obama.
And,
it was in my hometown, likefire station voting booth, and I
walked in and cast my ballot for
John McCain.
(02:42):
That was my first memory.
Voting.
Jerremy (02:44):
Nice.
Nice.
In a fire in a firehouse
station.
I love it.
What about you, Dave?
Reed (02:52):
Georgia.
Dave (02:53):
Oh let's see.
It was
Jerremy (02:55):
1917
and,
Dave (02:57):
not quite the it was it was Bill Clinton against George Bush.
And my first memory, and thisis this was the same for years
because it was exactly the same.
I grew up in Northern Virginia and I wentto everybody goes to this high school
that's nearby, and it's the only highschool that covers that, that part of the
county and the lines were out the door.
(03:20):
Now I think what was great aboutit was, and again, I, it's probably
the exact same as it is today.
You're in this line, it's a littlebit cold outside because it's
the fall in Northern Virginia.
And you wait and you wait and you getinside a gymnasium that has like those
crazy bright lights and this very oldlady comes up and hands you a ballot
(03:42):
and you then you have to wait in lineagain and you go to these funny booths
that, they clearly just set up, right?
They just unfolded it, it'slike this rickety table.
And it has these dividerson the left and the right.
I think they were paper or plastic.
And you get there and you you fill outthese bubbles and then inevitably somebody
around you goes, ah, I messed up my thing.
(04:04):
And so then they have to go andthey have to shred the ballot.
Little old lady comes back upto you, hands you the ballot,
and then you go and do it again.
You fill out the bubbles.
then you hand in the bubble,it goes into this machine, it
looks like a giant shredder.
It goes ZZ and that's it.
They hand and then they stamp you, likethey, they give you the I voted sticker so
you can show everybody at work that, hey,I voted, and then it was out the door.
(04:26):
They, the only thing that reallysticks with me not necessarily like
voting for the president or anyof that is all the things that I
didn't know was gonna be on there.
Particularly like all the crap thatthe county puts on there because
they refuse to do their job.
Like they, they will, they, theydon't want to actually balance
the budget of this giant county,Fairfax County, it's monster, right?
(04:49):
They want to make youvote for extra money.
So they'll put these bond initiativeson there and they'll always
make it like the craziest thing.
They'll be like.
Do you wanna feed orphansand protect puppies and have
your schools open next year?
Vote for this a hundredmillion dollar budget, right?
(05:09):
This bond.
And I'm like, of course everybody wants tovote for that, but that's not the point.
They refuse to do therest of the budgeting.
And so like they, they'll put thelike craziest thing that you say,
of course I wanna vote for this.
And that's what always stickswith me is that my county didn't
want to really do its job.
So they'll take care of everythingthat, that is actually controversial
and put like the least controversialthing that everybody has to vote
(05:32):
for on the bond initiatives.
That's, that was myfirst memory of voting.
What about you?
Jerremy (05:38):
I like it.
Maya's weird man, becauseprobably a little bit of a blend
maybe between both of yours.
But so as growing up a Jo'sWitness, one of their doctrines
is that you don't vote, right?
Because they don't want you to be anypart of this world or this system as
I say in air quotes for our listeners.
And so I was in that religionmentally and physically until I
(05:59):
was 24, which is only 13 years ago.
So my very first vote castwas Obama versus MIT Romney.
And I voted for Mitt Romney,although I knew Obama was gonna win.
And when I walked in, it wasa middle school, so I had to
(06:21):
Google where the heck do I vote?
I remember doing that,like, where do I vote?
And like it was like, put in your zipcode, it will tell you where to go.
And I put on my zip code andI was like, there's no way I
go to a middle school library.
And sure enough, and they'relike, make sure you bring your id.
And this was in Tennesseeat the time Nashville.
And I'm trying to think of what theschool was Reed, but it was somewhere
(06:44):
out in Bellevue, some random middleschool in Bellevue, in a library.
And I went into this library and toyour point, Dave, I went in there and
I thought I would go to something andjust put in my vote for president.
that was it.
Here's the president.
Boom.
You pick.
Nope, there's 75 things I voted for andI had no clue what any of them were.
I was like I felt like so stupid.
(07:06):
I just started clicking buttons'cause they were all mandatory, and
I just was clicking people's names.
I was like, I'll pick somes and I'll pick some Ds.
I like, I'll let megive like half and half.
Dunno who this person is.
Dunno what this is.
Should have looked that up.
Should have researched that.
Didn't know any of it.
Filled out this horrible voting forum.
I'm positive I votedfor something terrible.
Some.
(07:26):
So someone that's actually been a fear ofmine, someone's gonna pull up that voting
history and go, Jerremy iss a neo-Nazi.
Like he voted, you won't believewhat he voted for in 2012.
And yeah man I just filled outthis random thing and, or sorry.
Yeah it was just ultimatelyone of those situations where I
got my sticker and that was it.
But afterwards, man, I researched somuch about who and what and all the
(07:49):
things and just started becoming a littlebit more inclined into the political
sphere as I started stepping out of thatparticular religious belief into the
fact that I am okay to be a part of thisworld and all that kinda good stuff.
And so I will say, going up to thatvoting booth, I did not feel empowered.
I felt uninformed.
(08:09):
I wouldn't say frustrated for sure,but I would certainly say that I didn't
really think what I was doing mattered.
Ultimately, I was just excited to doit, 'cause I'd never done it before.
Reid, lemme throw this question to you.
If 59% of Americans say they actuallytrust the count, what's your gut reaction
(08:32):
to that number and what's your opinionon, does your vote actually matter?
Reid?
Reed (08:36):
As to whether your vote matters it's an aggregate, it's
like a hive mind type thing.
So individually, are yougonna swing an election?
Almost guaranteed thatyou won't but your vote.
That doesn't mean your vote doesn'tcount, as far as 59% of people I would
be interested in historically, whatnumber of people have trusted the system?
(08:56):
I
would make a pretty confident assumptionthat number is higher than it used
to be.
People have distrust in thesystem has gone up as a result of
certain political forces basicallybenefiting them to sow distrust
amongst the populist of the system.
(09:18):
So I think
that's probably a result of a lotof political action and rhetoric.
Jerremy (09:23):
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like 59% is pretty high for
sure.
So you, you mentioned in your vote,did you have to show ID at all when
you went to your firehouse station?
Reed (09:37):
I don't remember, to be honest with you.
I have no recollection of that.
I don't
think Georgia had a voter ID lawat the time, so probably not.
Jerremy (09:44):
What's your general take on that?
Should we like have some typeof verification, registration
for voting.
Reed (09:52):
I think it's a prickly issue.
You can't come right out and say thatyou're against voter ID because that
is a political, it's a toxic statementbecause if you're against voter id,
then you must be for voter fraud.
But I think as I read through the researchthat you guys have done, and you need
to lay the groundwork to basically, diginto the studies and everything, but
(10:16):
there's a lot of evidence that doesn'treally have an impact on elections.
So I think what it amounts to isprobably more of a waste of state
funds than anything to pass to havevoter ID laws and stuff like that.
And it's a show of electionsecurity more than it is actual
election security because, who'scommitting fraud in the elections?
(10:40):
Illegal immigrants or people likethat who are coming, are they coming
here to commit social engineeringfraud and go steal elections?
The amount of kind of collaborationand expertise that would require.
Just is not really there for, and plus thepotential punishment if they're caught,
(11:02):
which it's not hard to be caught becauseelections are secured by census data.
And backing up with people'saddresses so that there is one vote
per person even without voter ID
laws.
That answer the
Dave (11:16):
Yeah, it totally does.
It made me make a note because Iwas thinking about all of the people
who've been actually convictedof voter fraud, and it's almost
exclusively politicians, politicaloperators, working for politicians.
So I think I'm on theside that all politicians
need to
show their ID before they vote.
Reed (11:36):
Those are the people who would have a motive to commit fraud.
If I'm one person and my vote is gonnabe one of millions, what incentive is
there for me to try to commit fraudjust so I can cast my one vote that
probably
wouldn't want swing anelection, to go to prison.
Jerremy (11:53):
So, what you're saying and what I hear you saying is
the voter challenge is much higherup the chain than an individual I a
person having or not having an id.
Reed (12:04):
Yeah,
Jerremy (12:05):
I like it.
I
like
it.
Reed (12:07):
about right.
Jerremy (12:08):
Yeah.
Okay.
Reed (12:10):
I was gonna say earlier, how funny would it be if they
were like
This initiative passed by onevote and it was Jerremy Newsom.
Jerremy (12:16):
Yeah, In 2012, this dude.
Reed (12:20):
You're like, what did I vote for?
Jerremy (12:22):
Yeah.
That's a good point.
But David and I in the lastepisode, which you haven't heard
yet 'cause we just recorded it.
But to your point, one of mythoughts and theories was.
It would probably be pretty easyto require a voter id if every
state was like, Hey, listen,you gotta bring a license.
Pretty straightforward.
(12:43):
Some verification form.
It wouldn't be very hard, Idon't think, to implement it.
Mostly because I just went,I told Dave the story.
I went to a gym and I couldn't get intothe gym without a physical license,
like a, like it was a lifetime fitness.
They're like, you can't work out here.
You obviously, even though I had a pictureof my id, it didn't have the physical id.
So nah, sorry man, you can't do this.
(13:05):
And it was just a comical situation.
I'm like, all right if they can do it,I'm sure there's probably a few other
places that could just implement arelatively easy policy to make sure, but
to your point, even if you had every.
and I don't know the exact numberoff the top of my head, but we did
just have a very long discussion onimmigration and illegal immigration.
(13:26):
But every single individual that did,if they colluded somehow to together,
they'd have to all go to probablythe same state and all vote illegally
simultaneously for there to be anytype of swing or massive decision.
And then to your also point, if they didthat and they and everyone pulled that
off what actual change would they make?
(13:47):
So if the challenge is a lot higher,Dave or Reed, where do we think it lays?
Is it in the electoral college?
Is it somewhere different?
Is there something else thatwe should be looking at?
Reed (14:00):
I have a thought on that, but as to what you just said, with the
illegal I immigrants all moving toone state and voting one way, that,
that would be very obvious, that
was occurring
Jerremy (14:10):
Of course.
Reed (14:10):
data, like looking at the data and stuff like
that.
So it wouldn't, you can catch that
stuff by just going through the data andmaking sure it matches reality, which
is something that political scientistsdo, and that's part of the reason why
it's over the head of a lot of thegeneral public and that it's, they
don't trust political scientists or theydon't understand, the things like that.
(14:32):
But the issue that I think ismost important when it comes to
voting is gerrymandering 100%.
Because districts are gerrymanderedso that they're not competitive and.
You have essentially like in avery heavily gerrymandered, let's
say red district, a congressionalcandidate needs to win the primary.
(14:54):
If they win the primary, theywill win the general election.
It's basically a slam dunk,already known outcome.
And therefore we're competing forthe primary and therefore there's
no incentive to nominate a personwho can win over moderate voters.
You're only looking for someone whocan win over the hard ideological
(15:16):
voters on one side or the other whichcontributes to more polarized politics.
If we have districts across the boardwhere people have to compete for
moderate voters, we wouldn't haveas polarized of a political system.
We would have politicians who can workacross the aisle with the other side
(15:37):
because most Americans are actually nothard ideologues on one side or the other.
Most people fall in the middle, andthat's the re part of the reason why those
people feel like they're not representedbecause most of them live in a district
that's gerrymandered, so that someonewho is ideological on one side or the
(15:57):
other will always win their district.
And
therefore you have no one thatyou really like to vote for.
No one's really competing for your vote.
Dave (16:07):
So could you, So Jerremy and I have been trying to do this.
Can you steal, man,the other side of this?
What's good about gerrymandering?
If anything?
Can you think of anything like, ah,
Jerremy (16:18):
I mean for the higher up political people
who wanna win, it's great.
Dave (16:21):
yeah, that's it.
Reed (16:22):
Gerrymandering, gerrymandering helps us win.
We barter with the other side.
We'll rig these
districts so that we can win andyou can rig the other districts.
But it's not, that's notreally the way that it is.
For, I don't know if they're havingthose conversations like in higher up
rooms that we don't get to know about.
(16:43):
I doubt it because I thinkit's a zero sum game.
We're trying to win asmany seats as we can
and basically disenfranchise theother side because that's what it is.
It's anti-democratic.
Jerremy (16:56):
Fascinating.
Love that term.
So here's a fun one
for you, Dave, right?
Gerrymandering.
It was a coin coined term fromMassachusetts governor in 1812.
Your third birthday.
I'm just kidding.
bunch of old jokes today.
Just a joke.
Governor.
Elbridge, Jerry noted thatone of the districts looked
(17:18):
like a mythical salamander.
And so I think that's probablywhen it, but 18, 12, a little
bit ago, like a couple days ago,but that's when he noticed it.
That's when the phrase gets coined.
So you can only, that's just a coupleof years before the nation gets founded.
(17:40):
17 seven.
It's not that,
Dave (17:43):
by a guy named Jerry?
Jerremy (17:45):
so they just coined it Exactly that.
That's just when it gets coined.
So it's been around
Reed (17:48):
It was coined by some political cartoonists because it was, they called
it a gerrymander,
the district, because it looked like a,
Jerremy (17:58):
yeah.
Dave (17:58):
Oh, because it looked like a salad, ma.
Okay.
Yeah I'm following it.
Jerremy (18:03):
A
mythical salamander.
Yeah.
It's really interesting.
Dave (18:06):
Yeah.
Alex (18:07):
We've unpacked those raw, eye-opening moments from the
voting booth—frustrations thathit close to home and spark real
questions about trust in the system.
But what if the real twist happenslong before you cast your ballot?
Stick around for our next segment, whereReed breaks down how gerrymandering
rigs the game and shares straightforwardfixes that could change everything.
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