WILL RANKED CHOICE VOTING BRING UP VOTER PARTICIPATION? Nick Troiano from Unite America joins me at 12:30 to talk about how few of us decided so many races in the primaries and how ranked choice voting would change that. Find out more about it by clicking here.
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(00:00):
An organization called Unite America and Nicklast night, there are a lot of
people who are probably going to votefor Joe Biden, who are not going
to vote for Joe Biden now andfind themselves in a pickle because their choices
are cast a ballot for a thirdparty and a lot of people say that
could be a wasted vote or they'renot going to vote for Trump. And
(00:21):
I thought it would be interesting tohave a short conversation about how does rank
choice voting change any of this,if at all? What is this?
What kind of situation are we facingnow that would be different under a system
like that? Well, Mande,I do think a lot of people are
looking at that debate last night wishingthere were a third, fourth, or
(00:42):
maybe in a fifth podium right ina country of three hundred and thirty million
people. Is not the best youknow we could do. And that feeling
well acute right now in the presidentialrace is what I think a lot of
voter voters feel up and down theballot years on end in our election system.
How do we change that? That'swhat election reforms like ranked choice voting
(01:03):
or opening party primaries can do,which is bring more and better candidates sort
of into our democracy at a verypractical level. One of the reasons why
there's not a third podium on stageis it's very hard for third party candidates
to be competitive. That's because whenwe vote, we vote in a system
that's known as plurality elections. Youchoose your favorite. Whoever gets the most
(01:26):
votes, even if it's not amajority, wins. Well, what that
means is if you're a third partyor independent candidate, people fear of voting
for you because they think they'll eitherwaste their vote or worse cause the election
of their least preferred candidate. Undera system where you can rank your candidates,
not just choose only one, itguarantees a majority winner, so you
(01:46):
can vote for who you really want, even if they may or may not
be viable, so that you canalways have your second choice count if no
one gets a majority on that firstround. And now, when I think
level the playing field for candidates,well, and here's the thing. To
use this as an example, andour audience lean's right, so they're they're
gonna poopoo my example. But thisis a great example. So there's a
(02:06):
lot of Democrats last night who watchedthe debate and came away and said,
Joe Biden cannot do this job.So maybe they're gonna look at RFK Junior.
Right, So they look at RFKJunior. But decide, to your
point, what if I vote forRFK Junior and then Trump ends up winning
because I voted third party and hedidn't get enough. So it would look
like this. You'd vote RFK Juniornumber one, you'd vote Joe Biden number
(02:27):
two, and after you were eliminated, all of those second place votes would
go for Joe Biden and ostensibly pushhim over the top. Correct. Correct,
And I think it works the otherway too, because there are a
lot of Republicans that I think youknow, would consider voting for RFK Junior,
but fear Biden would win if theydid, And so regardless of I
think political persuasion, what a rankedballot does is give the voters the freedom
(02:53):
to vote for who they really wantwithout having to strategically vote around who they
think they can win or what wouldhappen if they did that? And two
states will actually be doing it thisNovember, in Maine and in Alaska.
Are the two states still be usingrank ballots for president? What we're trying
to do here in Colorado, ofcourse, is bring that similar system to
(03:15):
all of our state and federal officeswithin this state and combine it with another
key reform, which is to openour primary so that all candidates can compete
and voters can choose whoever they want. The commonality between these reforms is just
giving more and better choices to votersand giving more power to voters to elect
(03:35):
who they really want. Nick,I've learned after talking to you the last
time, that the people who arewho are probably the most likely to be
for this are people who are registeredas independent or unaffiliated because people that are
in the two party system they don'twant it because it strips away a lot
of the power of the two partysystem. Is that a feature or a
bug? I would say, it'sless about parties, no part It's about
(04:01):
politicians honestly who are in office rightnow without really having to compete in competitive
elections, versus the people right whodon't have ballots that are really meaningful.
And so this is a pro voterreform, and I think Republicans, Democrats,
and independents like the idea of havingmore and better choices on their ballot
(04:25):
and more power in holding their leadersaccountable. It's the incumbent politicians that sometimes
fear the rules changing of the waythat they get into office in the first
place. Well, Nick, wejust saw this with the primary. So
many of my listeners who live ineither solidly Republican districts or solidly democratic districts,
they had no impact depending on wherethey were. If you were registered
(04:47):
Republican in a democratic district, youhad no say and who just got elected.
And by the way, you mightthink, well, it's just the
primary, let's wait to see whathappens in the general. No, most
elections eighty two percent. In fact, for our state legislature, they were
effectively decided on Tuesday, right,because those districts are so lopsided, meaning
(05:10):
heavily Democratic or Republican. So fords and ours in those districts, you
may have seen a primary ballot whereyou didn't have much choice on your ballot.
And then, if you're like meor half the state of Independence,
you got two ballots in the mailand you had to choose voting for one
or the other. Well, underwhat we're proposing with Colorado voters, first
(05:31):
everyone would get the same ballot,you'd be able to vote for any candidate
for any office, regardless of party, and the top four finishers go to
the general election. It would makeNovember elections matter again and you'd have more
choice, and then, like wewere discussing before, you get the option
of actually ranking those candidates. Whatdoes this all mean. It really just
means elected officials that have an incentiveto represent a true majority of their constituents,
(05:58):
not just that loyal party base thatwind up deciding primaries like we saw
on Tuesday. Nick Troyano with UnitedAmerica, I put a link on the
blog to you guys' organization. We'regoing to be talking a lot more before
the election because we are going tohave a valid agative on the ballot in
November. But I appreciate you makingtime to kind of give a little glancing
blow of what that might look likein real time after that debate, well,
(06:23):
last night's debate Tuesday's primary, twomore reasons why we need to improve
our elections here in Colorado, andwhite matters so much for the country.
All right, Nick, thanks alot man. We'll talk again soon.
That is Nick Troyana. You canfind his information
An organization called Unite America and Nicklast night, there are a lot of
people who are probably going to votefor Joe Biden, who are not going
to vote for Joe Biden now andfind themselves in a pickle because their choices
are cast a ballot for a thirdparty and a lot of people say that
could be a wasted vote or they'renot going to vote for Trump. And
(00:21):
I thought it would be interesting tohave a short conversation about how does rank
choice voting change any of this,if at all? What is this?
What kind of situation are we facingnow that would be different under a system
like that? Well, Mande,I do think a lot of people are
looking at that debate last night wishingthere were a third, fourth, or
(00:42):
maybe in a fifth podium right ina country of three hundred and thirty million
people. Is not the best youknow we could do. And that feeling
well acute right now in the presidentialrace is what I think a lot of
voter voters feel up and down theballot years on end in our election system.
How do we change that? That'swhat election reforms like ranked choice voting
(01:03):
or opening party primaries can do,which is bring more and better candidates sort
of into our democracy at a verypractical level. One of the reasons why
there's not a third podium on stageis it's very hard for third party candidates
to be competitive. That's because whenwe vote, we vote in a system
that's known as plurality elections. Youchoose your favorite. Whoever gets the most
(01:26):
votes, even if it's not amajority, wins. Well, what that
means is if you're a third partyor independent candidate, people fear of voting
for you because they think they'll eitherwaste their vote or worse cause the election
of their least preferred candidate. Undera system where you can rank your candidates,
not just choose only one, itguarantees a majority winner, so you
(01:46):
can vote for who you really want, even if they may or may not
be viable, so that you canalways have your second choice count if no
one gets a majority on that firstround. And now, when I think
level the playing field for candidates,well, and here's the thing. To
use this as an example, andour audience lean's right, so they're they're
gonna poopoo my example. But thisis a great example. So there's a
(02:06):
lot of Democrats last night who watchedthe debate and came away and said,
Joe Biden cannot do this job.So maybe they're gonna look at RFK Junior.
Right, So they look at RFKJunior. But decide, to your
point, what if I vote forRFK Junior and then Trump ends up winning
because I voted third party and hedidn't get enough. So it would look
like this. You'd vote RFK Juniornumber one, you'd vote Joe Biden number
(02:27):
two, and after you were eliminated, all of those second place votes would
go for Joe Biden and ostensibly pushhim over the top. Correct. Correct,
And I think it works the otherway too, because there are a
lot of Republicans that I think youknow, would consider voting for RFK Junior,
but fear Biden would win if theydid, And so regardless of I
think political persuasion, what a rankedballot does is give the voters the freedom
(02:53):
to vote for who they really wantwithout having to strategically vote around who they
think they can win or what wouldhappen if they did that? And two
states will actually be doing it thisNovember, in Maine and in Alaska.
Are the two states still be usingrank ballots for president? What we're trying
to do here in Colorado, ofcourse, is bring that similar system to
(03:15):
all of our state and federal officeswithin this state and combine it with another
key reform, which is to openour primary so that all candidates can compete
and voters can choose whoever they want. The commonality between these reforms is just
giving more and better choices to votersand giving more power to voters to elect
(03:35):
who they really want. Nick,I've learned after talking to you the last
time, that the people who arewho are probably the most likely to be
for this are people who are registeredas independent or unaffiliated because people that are
in the two party system they don'twant it because it strips away a lot
of the power of the two partysystem. Is that a feature or a
bug? I would say, it'sless about parties, no part It's about
(04:01):
politicians honestly who are in office rightnow without really having to compete in competitive
elections, versus the people right whodon't have ballots that are really meaningful.
And so this is a pro voterreform, and I think Republicans, Democrats,
and independents like the idea of havingmore and better choices on their ballot
(04:25):
and more power in holding their leadersaccountable. It's the incumbent politicians that sometimes
fear the rules changing of the waythat they get into office in the first
place. Well, Nick, wejust saw this with the primary. So
many of my listeners who live ineither solidly Republican districts or solidly democratic districts,
they had no impact depending on wherethey were. If you were registered
(04:47):
Republican in a democratic district, youhad no say and who just got elected.
And by the way, you mightthink, well, it's just the
primary, let's wait to see whathappens in the general. No, most
elections eighty two percent. In fact, for our state legislature, they were
effectively decided on Tuesday, right,because those districts are so lopsided, meaning
(05:10):
heavily Democratic or Republican. So fords and ours in those districts, you
may have seen a primary ballot whereyou didn't have much choice on your ballot.
And then, if you're like meor half the state of Independence,
you got two ballots in the mailand you had to choose voting for one
or the other. Well, underwhat we're proposing with Colorado voters, first
(05:31):
everyone would get the same ballot,you'd be able to vote for any candidate
for any office, regardless of party, and the top four finishers go to
the general election. It would makeNovember elections matter again and you'd have more
choice, and then, like wewere discussing before, you get the option
of actually ranking those candidates. Whatdoes this all mean. It really just
means elected officials that have an incentiveto represent a true majority of their constituents,
(05:58):
not just that loyal party base thatwind up deciding primaries like we saw
on Tuesday. Nick Troyano with UnitedAmerica, I put a link on the
blog to you guys' organization. We'regoing to be talking a lot more before
the election because we are going tohave a valid agative on the ballot in
November. But I appreciate you makingtime to kind of give a little glancing
blow of what that might look likein real time after that debate, well,
(06:23):
last night's debate Tuesday's primary, twomore reasons why we need to improve
our elections here in Colorado, andwhite matters so much for the country.
All right, Nick, thanks alot man. We'll talk again soon.
That is Nick Troyana. You canfind his information
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