Down with the Electoral College, Voting Alternatives Rise Up

At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

While it drives us to create what could be,

that world can't wait to see what you'll do.

Where will your wonder take you?

And what will it make you?

The University of Arizona.

Wonder makes you.

Start your journey at wonder.arisona.edu.

I'm Stacey Abrams and welcome to my new podcast, Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Crooked Media.

A lot of you know me from my work in Democratic politics, running for governor of Georgia, fighting against voter suppression, and working with a ton of people to flip Georgia blue in 2020.

And so I'm excited to be here with this new show in this very moment because I've been noticing that a lot of people feel like things are very chaotic right now.

And it can be frustrating because we can see what the world could and should be.

Yet more and more, it feels like the problems are too big or the bad guys are winning.

But let me tell you something, they're not.

They're just hoping that we stop fighting.

And that's what this show is all about.

I'm hoping it can be a place for us to come together, to strategize, break down complex issues, crowdsource solutions, and meet the change makers who can help us get it done.

Because even if we can't fix everything everywhere all at once, we can each do something somewhere soon.

And if you're feeling like everyone you know has a podcast, you should know you sound like my niece Faith.

Say hi, Faith.

Hey.

Faith, for those who don't know, you just turned 18.

How does it feel?

Do you notice anything different?

Feel a little older, feel a little elderly, you know.

You don't get to be elderly until at least there's a two in front of it.

I guess.

Okay.

So, Faith, I invited you, my beautiful, inquisitive, and at times sharply sarcastic niece, to help me introduce my new show today because why not start with the toughest audience?

And because you are part of the reason I wanted to do the show in the first place.

Look, I know you.

I know you care about the world.

You're not afraid to ask questions when you don't understand.

And you don't let hard things stop you from getting involved.

Plus, you have that incredibly aggressive skepticism that both teenagers and good journalists are known for.

As such, I know you've prepared some questions for me.

Yes, let me get my phone.

Okay, here we go.

Unstacey, you do a lot: writing books, defending democracy, binging TV with me.

You always say your work is about fixing things.

So, what does this new podcast have to do with that?

And should I listen to it?

Things feel broken.

I start there.

I spent the last few weeks getting phone calls and emails.

People are worried and they want to know how the world gets better.

And part of what I like to do is be a part of solving problems, be a part of fixing things.

Some might call me a political busybody.

But for me, the podcast is about how do we take issues and topics and things that sometimes don't seem connected at all and figure out what we can do about it.

You, you know, yes, I expect you to listen to it because you've had to listen to the lectures for a while.

But I hope what you saw living with me for the last few years is that it's not just about identifying the problem.

It's about figuring out how did things get broken in the first place.

What else can we do?

And who else is helping us get it done?

The idea is, I want us to fix the world, but it's going to take a minute.

So let's get started.

Okay, second question.

You and I have some rules.

One is that if I make mistakes, stop digging and ask for help.

Because sometimes trying to solve a problem alone makes it worse.

I guess the podcast is for those who don't live with you.

Why should they listen?

So, our rule about stop digging and ask for help is because sometimes when we make a mistake or when we think something is broken, our trying to fix it alone actually makes the problem worse, or we get so deep in the hole that we can't see a way out.

I believe that this podcast can be for folks who see that there are problems, but they are so overwhelmed by it.

And they're overwhelmed by being the person they think is the only one who sees that it's a problem.

I want us to meet each other.

I want people to know there's someone else out there thinking about this.

You're not the only one who sees what's wrong.

So you don't have to be the only one who tries to make it better.

When I started working on voter registration in Georgia, it was because

We were losing elections.

And yes, my party was losing the elections, but what really was happening was that people weren't getting what they needed and i kept hearing people talk about oh if we just had more people who participated in our elections things would get better so instead of complaining about it i started looking into it and i realized that we had 800 000 people in georgia people of color who simply weren't registered to vote.

And because they weren't registered, they never got to ask for help through our elections process.

So I didn't do it by myself.

I found some friends.

I raised some money and we started going around the state asking people if they wanted the right to vote.

And then we told them how to do it.

Together, we created organizations that led to thousands and thousands of people getting registered.

And now in the state of Georgia, we have one of the highest registration rates in the country.

And I didn't do it alone.

And I wasn't even the first person to think about it.

But I was one of the folks who who said, let's figure out what can we do.

And that's what I want this podcast to be.

Okay.

So after COVID, everything felt hard and impossible.

Lots of people still feel exhausted and they say they just don't care.

I don't have a choice.

I have to care.

I live with you.

But how do we get others motivated to do something?

I hear people.

accusing those who don't get involved of being apathetic, of saying they don't care.

And sometimes folks will say, well, I just don't care.

Most of those people are lying.

They do care.

They just don't know what to do about it.

And COVID was one of those moments where we were so overwhelmed by how hard everything felt that it's taken a while for us to find our equilibrium.

I love TV and there's this show I love called Community where they have the darkest timeline.

And some of us feel like we're stuck there.

My point is that we aren't controlled by the roll of the dice.

We're controlled by the actions that we take.

And one of the ways to get motivated to do something is to believe that something can be done.

As you said, you don't have much of a choice.

You live with me.

But for everyone else, I want this show to be a place where they can feel like we're not in the darkest timeline and that we're about to hit the reset button if we are.

We have a chance and we have a choice, but we have to take the first step.

The other guys, the ones who are making things feel hard, they don't care.

They don't want you to get engaged.

They don't want you to get involved.

And there are some who simply have gotten used to being depressed and gotten used to being exhausted.

And I want them to know that we're thinking about them too.

No one should have to just live with not enough.

We all have the right to thrive.

My mission and the mission of this show is to make sure that we get people motivated to act because they believe that action can actually turn into change

good answer well thank you i have your t-shirt that says be curious solve problems and do good stacey abrams what does that mean to you

i was doing a conversation once and i was asked what's your mantra i immediately thought about yoga and thought i don't have one

but then i thought about what does a mantra mean it's about what drives you what's the thought that keeps recurring What's the principle that keeps you active?

And for me, it was those three things.

One, be curious, ask questions,

figure out what's going on.

Like, you know, mom is a research librarian.

When she used to tell us, look it up.

And this is before, and I don't want you to shudder.

This is before the creation of the internet.

I used to have to go and look through encyclopedias and dictionaries.

And I couldn't say, well, I can't find the answer because she literally worked in a research library.

So I learned how to be curious.

But part of curiosity is not just the questions you ask, it's being willing to ask lots of them and to know that

there aren't questions that you shouldn't ask.

You should find out what's out there, but you should also find information that can help you make it better.

I'm a busybody.

I do not enjoy.

watching things be broken and not trying to do something about it.

My business partner and I started a company that did financial technology.

We helped people get access to capital for their small businesses.

And it was solving a problem that we had because we couldn't find money.

We didn't find money for us, but we found money for other folks.

Solving problems is for me the best way to show you care because when you fix something,

people can see that they can fix something else.

And it doesn't have to be something that benefits you directly.

Solving problems by its nature makes the world better.

And then that gets to my last one, which is do good.

Doing good is about improving others' lives, whether it's your life or the life of someone you care about or someone you've never met.

One of the reasons I got involved in government is because I think government is the most extraordinary attempt at good.

Because think about it, Faith.

Government is about people we've never met

putting money together, giving up a little bit of their own power to help somebody that they don't know.

When government works well, when communities work well, when society works, it's because we've tried to do good, whether the good benefits us or not.

And so my mission is to go through life trying to do good, trying to be a better person who tries to help other people be the best they can be.

Be curious, solve problems, do good.

I put it on a t-shirt.

I love when humans, human.

So

you've definitely joined the podcast world.

What's this first episode about?

Okay, you may have noticed that the world is constantly changing.

You know, we'll talk about the news on this podcast, but my goal is to help us navigate the crazy and to figure out where we fit in.

Which brings us to this very first episode about elections and who's in charge.

Now, you know from living with me that election season has definitely started.

Last month, Republicans held their convention, and next week, Democrats will converge on Chicago to nominate our presidential candidate.

There's been a lot of moving parts and a lot of talking heads and a lot of figuring out what any of it means.

Look, you recently turned 18, which the world celebrated.

One of my proudest moments on your 18th birthday was the unexpected gift that you got in the email.

Can you talk to your new podcast friends about the email you received?

At 1.45 in the morning on my birthday, I got an email that said that my voter registration was complete.

And I jumped all around the house and I was very excited because I pre-registered to vote as soon as I turned 17 and a half and it was on my calendar.

I'm so proud of you.

And as proud as

I really am, I think I'm the only person who is as excited as you were about that email because now that you're a registered voter, you have manifested what I've wanted for you since you were two years old.

You probably don't remember this, but

you spent the entire month of October 2008 watching ads on satellite television on repeat.

These were ads for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

And you would only let me change the channel if I turned it to Beyonce and single ladies.

Do you remember this?

I remember everything, including the whole choreography of single ladies.

Thank you, Beyonce.

What do you remember about President Obama and that election, if anything?

You know, I remember because I went with mom and dad to the polls and I remember yelling out Barack Obama, Barack Obama.

And apparently everybody was just looking because apparently not everybody was voting Barack Obama in there.

But I was going to say Barack Obama because you're going to be loud and proud like I am now.

Exactly.

Well, for context for our listeners.

I live in Georgia now.

We live in Georgia, but we're originally from Mississippi.

But the area of Mississippi where we lived was not exactly Barack Obama country.

And so when mom and dad went in to vote for Barack Obama and the very cherubic faith at the age of two shouted his name, I do recall mom and dad pointing out that that was not most, it wasn't widely accepted as the thing to do.

We have come a long way since 2008 and Obama TV.

However, one of the reasons we're doing this podcast is because the fundamental way we tally up our elections hasn't changed since 2008.

In fact, it hasn't changed since the inception of this country.

And that's what I want to focus on today, the Electoral College.

Now, Faith, I think you studied the Electoral College in 10th grade.

I don't want to cause a traumatic episode by sending you back to 10th grade, but what do you remember about the Electoral College?

That unlike every competition show ever, the person who gets the most votes does not automatically win the presidency.

Instead, each state has a set number of electors who actually pick the president.

It feels unfair.

That's because it is.

So let's back up.

Here's what you need to know about the Electoral College.

Number one, it was created

in part, in fact, almost in total, as a response to slavery.

The southern states that held enslaved persons didn't want to lose out on the right to fully participate in elections, but they didn't want to recognize the humanity of those they were enslaving.

And so they created this convoluted, racist, and horrific system called the Electoral College.

It changed everything about the way we vote.

As you pointed out, in most competitions, it's first past the post.

Whoever gets the majority of votes, whoever gets a plurality, that's the person that wins.

But in the United States, when it comes to the top job, it's a handful of states that actually make the decision.

They're the ones that get the money.

They're the ones that get the canvassers.

They're the ones that get the ads.

Almost everyone else just sort of watches from the sidelines.

The Electoral College forces voters to narrow down their choices.

And the way that happens is that because we have so few states that actually get to participate, candidates have to essentially fit into a frame.

They've got to narrow the way they talk about what they want.

And they do it because they want to collect votes in a few swing states that are considered the ones that make the decision.

And that means that voters who aren't in swing states are left feeling like their votes don't really matter.

Now, if you live here in Georgia, we are one of those swing states this year, but we haven't always been.

It wasn't until 2020 when we finally demonstrated that it might be worth talking to voters here that we got some attention.

And now we are in that maelstrom where there are ads playing and folks are calling and knocking on doors.

But not every American feels this way.

Not every American gets this kind of attention.

And I care about this because I know that young people like you and a lot of others simply feel discouraged sometimes.

And when you feel discouraged, you choose not to vote.

If you know you're not going to like your options, you're probably going to decide to stay home.

And so for me, the issue is how do we make people care not about the election, but care about their participation?

How do we make them feel like they do have a choice?

So, are you saying getting rid of the Electoral College is the answer?

Eventually, and it turns out that's what most people want.

According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 65% of American adults say that the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide actually wins the presidency.

Basically, if their vote counted, more people say they'd participate.

However, there's a slight problem, which is that the Electoral College is in the Constitution.

So it's hard to change.

And if you tell folks, well, maybe one day we'll change the Constitution, they don't exactly believe you.

And that kind of gets to what this whole show is about.

We can see how things should be, but not always how we can get there.

And let's be honest, we can't change the Electoral College system overnight.

We can't change it this year.

It may be a few years.

Faith, I want you to imagine something with me.

What if we could create a system that lets voters have better choices and we can prove that it works already on the local level?

And by doing so, we create a real chance to eventually change how we pick presidents.

If we had more control, maybe more Americans would not only be willing, but excited to vote.

Faith, are you with me?

Is this like one of your Avery Keene novels, or is this an actual possibility?

Are we dreaming right now?

It's for real.

Changing our electoral system is possible.

In fact, we've been doing it, but shh, most people don't know.

So today we'll be joined by Cynthia Ritchie-Terrell, the executive director of Represent Women and the co-founder of Fair Vote.

We're going to talk about how ranked choice voting is one of the tools we can use to break open the electoral process and invite more folks in.

How's that sound, Faith?

Sounds great.

Well, good.

I've really enjoyed this little interview.

I know you are heading off to college.

You've got some plans already, but if you decide you want to add journalist or co-podcast host, let me know.

And thanks for helping me kick off my show.

Of course, I'll be back.

More after the break.

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Cynthia Ritchie-Terrell, welcome to Assembly Assembly Required.

Thank you so much.

Great to be here.

I appreciate you taking the time.

So, my siblings and I first experienced elections by going with my parents to our local elementary school, and we crowded around them as they voted.

I remember the excitement of watching them go behind those curtains, and I snuck inside with my mom to watch her cast her ballot.

It was my first time seeing the ballot.

What is your voter advocacy origin story?

That's a great question.

I grew up in a small town in upstate New York.

My father was a professor of philosophy and ethics.

My mother was active in the League of Women Voters.

And I remember the 1972 presidential campaign.

I was eight years old and there was a lot of great campaigning to be done for the Democratic Party candidate.

And I remember my father promised me that he would wake me up in the middle of the night and give me a soda.

Seems weird, very out of character for him if George McGovern won.

And I remember waking up in the morning after election day and realizing I hadn't gotten woken up, and my whole family had just been very involved in the McGovern campaign for president.

And I had that sense then that there are these big decisions that we all get to participate in, or many of us get to participate in, that have real consequences for all of us.

So I guess that's perhaps my earliest legitimate memory.

Some of the voter highlights that we pay attention to these days, battleground states, third-party candidates, and sadly, low voter participation.

I see their impact as intrinsically linked to the hegemony of the Electoral College.

How do you see these issues connecting, or do you see them as connected?

I definitely agree that there is a rigidity, and our system is just an antiquated relic of another era that we inherited from the UK, along with Canada and Australia and New Zealand, a number of other countries.

Very sensibly, Australia and New Zealand have moved well beyond the winner-take-all first-past-the-post system that we all inherited and upgraded their system.

And in both those instances, it was a very democratic process.

I was actually in New Zealand in 1993 on behalf of Americans fighting for election reform to be part of that country's move.

toward a more proportional system.

And I think that's the kind of conversation that we've seen growing in the United States over the last 30 years, because we all know voters are not only disconnected, they don't have a real voice in very many states in the presidential election.

I think there are just six states that really matter this year, and that's an atrocity in a democracy.

And similarly, there are very few congressional districts that matter.

I think they were just maybe 17 or 18 crossover districts, meaning the candidate who won the congressional seat was supported by the winner of the presidential race.

So I see that we have a real dysfunction in our democracy where voters don't have very much power at all.

We have these antiquated rules.

But the good news is we can change rules.

It's harder to change human nature, but we can change systems and rules.

And we have a legacy of doing that in the United States.

One of the things that really motivates my work for a stronger democracy and power for marginalized voices is that we've seen over the last 150 years the expansion of voting rights for black men and then for white women.

And then we had the Voting Rights Act and then we had Title IX, which was a systems change we didn't simply encourage girls to try harder in schools we recognized wow there's a disparity in funding and then of course we had the americans with disabilities act and we often address inequity and lack of power through systems change so that's what i'm all about so you spend your time imagining what could be and you've gotten to visit places where they I would say did what should be.

Speculate with me right now, how would the way we experience presidential elections be transformed if we did away with the Electoral College?

Great question.

I think the direction that the country is going is to a national popular vote.

It's passed in, what, two-thirds of states.

You probably know this stat better than I, as an early proponent and advocate for the national popular vote in the Georgia state legislature.

But the impact of that would mean, quite simply, that every voter in every state would have a consequential vote in the presidential election.

And we just said there are, what, six states that matter right now, and only a handful of voters in those states that are really going to have an impact on the outcome.

So, if we had a national or popular vote for president, again, candidates would know there were votes to be found in every state.

They would campaign everywhere.

And I think voters would feel a renewed sense of connection to the presidential election process.

And there are, of course, additional reforms that we could make to the primary process that would make things more competitive.

But I think that idea that every voter, no matter what state they live in or territory, would have an actual vote and voice and say in the arguably one of the most important elected offices on this planet, I think that's an idea whose time has definitely come and we really need to embrace the national popular vote.

As you pointed out during my time in the Georgia state legislature, I was one of the lead sponsors of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

And we got really close in Georgia.

And at the very last minute, people noticed we were doing it, a bipartisan effort and it got scuttled actually the last day on the Senate side.

And it's hard.

It's hard to make this kind of structural change.

It's hard to shift the balance of power or more importantly, how people get power.

So let's assume we're going to be stuck with the Electoral College for a while.

You and advocates like you, founders of the National Popular Vote, folks like me who work on voter issues, we've decided that we're going to approach these issues from a different angle.

And in some ways, it seems to be working.

So for your part, you are one of the national champions of ranked choice voting.

Talk to me about what it is, how does it work, and why does it work.

Ranked choice voting is the fastest growing election reform movement in the country at this point.

I think it's one in 27 of the last jurisdictions where it's been on the ballot.

It's used in Maine and Alaska.

It was used in the 2020 elections in the presidential primaries on the Democratic side in a number of states.

Interestingly, it's used for military and overseas voters.

I believe Georgia is one of a number of southern states that extend that opportunity for voters to rank their candidates because it solves the problem of split votes when there are multiple candidates.

When more than two candidates run for office, which seems like a natural thing in such a big country that more than two candidates might want to run, there can be a split vote.

If no candidate wins over 50%,

we end up with winners who have a plurality of the vote and don't necessarily speak for the will of the voters, the majority of voters.

So ranked choice voting solves that problem by giving voters the chance to rank their candidates in order of preference.

It has a lot of advantages.

It helps to make sure that every voter matters to every candidate.

much like the national popular vote effort actually.

It increases civility because if you and I were running for the same seat, you and I would want to find common ground so that your voters might rank me second and vice versa.

It increases turnout.

And I think perhaps most excitingly, for the work that I do at Represent Women, it elects far more women and men of color to jurisdictions across the country.

So you use the term that I think is important for us to dig into.

And you talked about split voting.

Can you talk about how pivotal the 2000 presidential election was as one of those visible and visceral examples of split voting and why it was a fuel for your interest in ranked choice voting?

Stand by, stand by.

CNN right now is moving our earlier declaration of Florida back to the

too close to call column.

Ah.

George Bush, governor of Texas, will become the 43rd President of the United States.

Yes, that 2000 election really was a turning point in the movement for ranked choice voting.

We'd been working in the 1990s with people like Lonnie Guinier and others to really develop the case for a better voting system that would lead to majority outcomes.

And then the 2000 election happened and we saw a strong third-party candidate.

He wouldn't necessarily call himself that, but Ralph Nader ran.

Al Gore was running.

Of course, George Bush was running.

And Ralph Nader got enough votes to siphon off support from Al Gore.

We know from polling afterwards and exit polling that something like close to 90% of those Ralph Nader voters would have cast a vote for Al Gore second had they had the opportunity.

Needless to say, the outcome of that election would have been different.

I would argue the health of our planet would be different.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and others' lives may have been saved.

But importantly, it was a real wake-up call, I think, for the movement because people began to understand what we were talking about when we referred to split votes.

And it was such a visceral and public example of the need to accept the solution that is ranked choice voting.

One of the issues you were raising earlier when you were explaining ranked choice voting, you talked about how ranked choice voting helped voters pick their candidates.

Can you talk a little bit about how you see ranked choice voting helping people find their own political voices in our system?

Why is that important?

And I'd love for you to talk a little bit in the context of how it's played out in New York and in Maine and California.

Just give us a little more texture to how people themselves, those who are not necessarily always thinking about voting or who don't think it matters because the two options don't seem to reflect their needs.

How does ranked choice voting help them find their own political voices?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think it's twofold or multifold.

Of course, it enables additional candidates to run who've been told to wait their turn.

I suspect that's a challenge that you're familiar with, but many people who are not white men have been told to wait their turn.

In fact, many are still told to wait their turn.

And in a ranked choice voting election, that just doesn't have any, hold any water.

In New York City, for example, multiple women decided to run because they knew they weren't going to split the vote.

And there was no party insider group saying, hold up, hold wait, but you haven't earned your dues.

You've got to wait 10 years or 15 years or get a law degree.

But multiple women ran for those seats in the New York City Council.

Endorsing organizations could endorse multiple candidates.

They weren't just limited to one choice.

And that meant that communities of voters who were following those candidates and maybe parts of those labor unions or the teachers or nurses or the endorsing organizations felt a greater sense of connection to the candidates.

And the candidates, because they didn't have to

fear that gotcha moment that they were going to be caught up in saying something they didn't mean, or they realized they could just campaign on the issues on which they really believed in.

That meant that more voters participated.

I think it was the highest turnout election since 1988 when it was first used in New York City.

And as a result, more women won.

I think women went from holding 27% of seats in the New York City Council to holding 61% of seats on the New York City Council.

And 80% of those women are women of color under the age of 40.

So when you look at a transformative election cycle, New York City is a great example of that.

And so I think that really speaks to that, the impact not only on the candidates who choose to run and have the freedom to run, but on the voters who have more options and really better choices on the ballot because multiple candidates are running and they may find a congruence on a set of issues among a certain set of candidates.

And then they can say, she's my first choice.

I'm going to rank her second.

I'm going to rank her third.

One of the beautiful things, and this came up.

recently at an event I attended.

We can talk more about Alaska in a minute, but with Mary Paltola and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, they were telling just great stories about how they told their supporters to rank them second if they preferred the other candidate first.

And that's quite a different message than just it's only me in this race.

Voters have responded to it very positively and candidates have certainly learned to campaign with it very effectively.

So let's talk about that.

What was Alaska Measure II and why is a place like Alaska so open to the initiative given what can sometimes

be seen as very stuck politics?

I think one of the things that's true of Alaska and of course a growing number of states is the high percentage of independent voters or unaffiliated voters.

A number of Western states

have this experience of having a lot of voters who don't register with one of the two major parties.

And in some states, they're completely excluded from the political process.

They can't vote in a party's primaries, and it's often difficult to vote in the general election.

But in Alaska, I think the energy for reform was born out of a sense of the need, the desire to represent the voters more

accurately.

There were quite a few mainstream Republicans, I think, who felt apprehensive about the move to the right of some of their party membership.

And I think there was just an amazing set of things that fell into place that enabled a really amazing ground game for the ballot measure to get it on the ballot in the first place.

The native community was very involved, and good government groups like the League Women Voters and the campaign finance folks were really involved.

And so that combination of opening up the primaries so that independent voters and unaffiliated voters could cast a ballot and then using ranked choice voting again to ensure there were no split votes in the final outcome.

That seemed to really catch fire.

And it won as a ballot measure.

And then I would say it won again, essentially, when it was used by voters and they elected, I think.

The governor is considered to be one of the most conservative governors in the United States.

Those same voters elected a moderate Republican woman, Lisa Murkowski, to the Senate and a terrific Democrat to the House of Representatives.

And I think that shows, like no other statistic, that voters really are nuanced and they want to have more choices and they want to vote for candidates whom they feel represent them.

And they don't want to feel caught in a system that says, oh, no, sorry.

You've just registered in this party.

Here are your only choices.

And oops, careful, don't vote for that person because that person might spoil the ballot or create a split vote and have a wrong way winner.

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So given that ranked choice voting is working, we have seen it actually play out and force candidates to be responsive to politicians.

So of course, we're seeing pockets of resistance.

Yes.

We know many Republicans are pursuing legislation to ban ranked choice voting.

Why has this become such a partisan political issue given that, for example, in Alaska, Republicans got two out of three, but we are seeing this very strong pushback.

which is what we often see when we start to make moves that let voters actually choose their politicians instead of letting politicians choose their voters.

Exactly.

It's really driven by the Heritage Foundation.

Frankly, I hate to be conspiratorial, but the same talking points are used in every state.

It's like they've got a blueprint.

They see it as an unknown and an uncertainty.

Even while Republicans are using it effectively to select candidates in congressional primaries, they selected Glenn Yunkin.

They sought it out.

Republicans sought it out because they wanted a candidate who could win, which indeed he did.

I think they're suppressing the reality that ranked choice voting is really just a tool.

It's a nonpartisan tool that helps voters have more power to elect candidates of choice.

But the Heritage Foundation and some other organizations have really spotlighted ranked choice voting, I assume, because of the very power of it, that it's giving voters more power and more say in an electoral system.

that isn't really designed right now to have multiple candidates run for office.

Now, let's be fair.

It's not just Republicans who who have raised questions.

We know in June, Colorado's Democratic governor Jared Paulis signed a bill to delay ranked choice voting due to some legislators' concerns about local implementation, and those concerns were raised by county clerks.

Can you talk a little bit about the practical challenges that you've seen that others have seen to making ranked choice voting work?

Absolutely.

I think one of the real beautiful things about our electoral system and challenging things is that every state is different, every jurisdiction is different, they're very different sets of people in charge of elections.

And I think we've seen since the previous presidential election, a sense that election administrators, 85% of whom are women, are really under attack overall, literally physically under attack, and then have been accused of things false.

And so I have a lot of empathy for election workers right now who are literally at the front lines of our democracy and trying to ensure that voters have access to the ballot and education about the ballot and so forth.

So I think it doesn't take much to make election administrators worried.

The good news is that election administrators in a lot of states have administered ranked choice voting elections with ease, and I applaud their efforts and I'm quite confident that election administrators in Colorado can get the information and the education they need to make sure that the implementation of ranked choice voting is smooth and effective.

I was heartened to see that in the statement by Governor Paulus, that he made quite a effort to say that he didn't appreciate the fact that this anti-ranked choice voting measure was tucked in with no real debate or conversation in the legislature at the last minute, seemingly, and that he felt like it wasn't really fair to the voters to essentially ban it before they'd even had the choice to vote on it.

But I think it's an interesting opportunity in Colorado Colorado and some other states to hear, to really listen to what people are saying who are concerned, to make sure to provide the resources election administrators and other stakeholders need to really understand the process, to work with the actual voting system equipment companies to make sure that process is smooth, that the equipment, both the hardware and the software can handle ranked choice voting without any issues.

And I think we've made such great progress on that around the country.

I'm sure we'll be able to do the same in Colorado.

There's a positive spin on a tricky situation for you.

Which we're always looking for.

So let's think about this.

We've got ranked choice voting.

We've got the national popular vote instead compact.

They are both trying to tackle the Electoral College, which we agree is the most egregious example of potential minority rule.

But we also know that the U.S.

Senate is increasingly undemocratic.

And I'm using the small D there.

It's currently possible to pass an item out of the Senate with a coalition of members who represent a fraction of the total population, around 18%.

And on the other hand, roughly half of Americans, some 169 million people, live in the nine most populous states.

And together, those states only get 18 out of 100 seats in the U.S.

Senate.

And so if you like math, that's really uneven.

Very much so.

So how do you think about this growing issue?

And

if we think about the role that NPV, that ranked choice voting, these opportunities are playing in how we expand our politics, how do you think this growing imbalance can be addressed?

And where do you see your work fitting into that space?

I think that's such an important question, such a crucial question that I wish a lot more people were talking about, which I hope they will be over the course of the summer and the lead up to the November election.

I think there are some really clear legislative pathways.

Our dear friend Jamie Raskin, who's my member of Congress, is going to be introducing the Ranked Choice Voting Act soon, which is a provision that is just ranked choice voting for the House and the Senate.

And I think that would help to address some of the ways that power is poorly distributed in the election of Senate candidates in the states.

It's not a panacea, but I think it would go very far toward giving voters more power to make sure we're electing candidates who really represent the will of the voters in key states.

Of course, the entire Senate isn't up in any one election year, so there's still a lot of challenges as to who's on the ballot and what else is going on in those states.

But I see the Frank Choice Voting Act as a real positive mechanism to change the formula.

Of course, the Senate is hard because it's in the Constitution, the election of two candidates from every state.

I see the House of Representatives, there are a number of ideas for addressing the lack of representation in the House of Representatives that might help to offset the inequity in the Senate.

I think there's a lot of really interesting conversation about adding members to the House of Representatives.

We haven't done so since 1920.

And there are some really great papers out there and arguments to be made around adding about 120 or 150 members to the House of Representatives.

I think one reason I like that is that incumbents don't have to step aside.

And we know that incumbents like to hang on to their power.

But I suspect, given the plethora of amazing training organizations and candidates who are coming up the pipeline, that many of those 150, let's say, additional House seats would go to women and younger voters and men of color and people who have really been marginalized from the political process.

So I think expanding the number of members of the House is a great step toward more representativeness and power for people.

And then I think another key part of that is the Fair Representation Act, which was introduced by Don Beyer and supported again by Jamie Raskin and others, Teresa Legere Fernandez from New Mexico.

And what it does is really address the limiting rigidity of those single winner-take-all districts for the House of Representatives and importantly and always creates a multi-seat district elected with ranked choice voting to ensure that there's partisan fairness.

so voters don't feel this great disconnect.

We'll be electing Republicans in Manhattan, who are probably more liberal than Republicans in Georgia, I suspect, and Democrats in Oklahoma and other states where they exist.

We know they exist because they vote on statewide ballot measures, but they don't have an opportunity to get elected to Congress given our current single winner-take-all rules.

But with a multi-seat district, not only is there partisan fairness, but multiple communities of color will have the power to elect candidates of choice.

More women will get elected.

more younger voters.

I think really combining the power of the Fair Representation Act to shake up the status quo with additional seats in the House of Representatives would help to address the power imbalance, as you so well described it.

The one part I want to push a little further on, going back to the Senate, because I think you're absolutely right.

And I'm excited about what we're seeing in the House.

I think you might have an opinion on statehood efforts and what that would do for the Senate.

So tell me more.

Yes, I do believe that folks in Washington, D.C., just a stone's throw from where I am, should be a state and we should have full voting rights and an opportunity to have representation in the country in which they serve in the armed forces and pay taxes and have the same voice and the same power as all the rest of us.

What about Puerto Rico and other territories?

Do you have an opinion?

I have an opinion, but I feel like I should defer to what the majority of Puerto Ricans think because it's not, boy, we've seen enough of what a white privileged person's opinion can do to people living in the so-called territories.

I just, I would, I do have an opinion that I think we should come up with a better term for the what we call the U.S.

territories, because I think there are people who live there who deserve full political power and voting rights for sure.

I will say that.

That is my opinion.

So, you believe in fair and equitable representation?

Shocking.

Indeed.

Okay, so I've got two last questions for you.

Number one, and this is a fun question: if you had to pick a book, a movie, a song that for you signals what we should be aiming for as a society, given the work that you do.

What would that be?

So, something that someone can go play or read or watch.

What do you want them to do?

One is, I don't know whether you've had an opportunity to see the musical suffs about the suffragist movement.

It just won a couple Tony Awards.

And the finale of the song, which I would try to sing, but I think that might upset viewers and listeners.

Will you fail or prevail?

Well, you may never know.

Keep marching.

But the basic gist is that we've got to keep marching.

There's a line in there that the suffragists didn't end all injustice and neither can we, but we have to keep marching.

We have to keep trying.

And

we may not live to see the impact of our work, but that we have to keep striving for that, for doing what's just and right and building a true participatory democracy where voters power is the gold standard.

So anyway, keep marching from the finale of Suffs, the musical.

I really recommend that, written by Shanna Taub.

And then there's a new movie out called Majority Rules, which had its world premiere in Washington, D.C., and stars Lisa Murkowski and Mary Paltola and Sarah Palin and all the biggest crowd pleasers you could imagine.

But it's a really great deep dive into the new electoral system in Alaska and the extent to which it really changes the way candidates campaign and, of course, the outcomes as well.

They do not want open primaries ranked choice voting because they would give up power.

Everyone has been slow to catch on to this.

Everyone.

Not taking the opportunity is the enemy.

Not a lot of party leaders are naturals for the cover of Do Good or magazine.

So I recommend that.

Majority rules.

I hope people can get a chance to check it out.

Okay, so last question.

Here at Assembly Required, we believe in building a toolkit.

And so you're going to be one of our first contributors to that toolkit.

What one concrete action item would you give to listeners if they want to get involved?

Now we're going to talk about your websites later.

If you had the microphone, you could give people one concrete action item.

What would you tell them to do?

This seems so typical for me to say, but I would definitely say to make sure to participate in the campaign, in the election in one way or another, either through voting for a candidate, running as a candidate, writing a letter to the editor about the candidate, but get involved in the campaign process in one way or another, in whatever way you feel you can.

The election election administration work is so important.

Volunteer at your local precinct as a poll worker if you can.

Actually, maybe that, I'll choose that.

I'll say, if you want to really

understand the kinds of questions voters have, who's on the ballot, what the education is like, what the actual mechanics of the process are like, I would say go volunteer, sign up to be a poll worker in your precinct.

There are precincts all over the country that need support and need your involvement.

So that would be my recommendation.

And we will leave it there.

Cynthia Ritchie-Terrell, thank you so much for joining us.

Now, where would you recommend people find out more about your work at Fair Vote and Represent Women?

You can go to fairvote.org and representwomen.org, and I hope you'll visit both and find out a lot about our research and our programs and our partnerships and all that we are writing and saying about how to build a stronger democracy.

Each week, we want to leave y'all with something tangible.

And since the show is called Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams, we thought we'd call it our toolkit.

It's an opportunity for you all listening to the show to hone your curiosity, your problem-solving skills, and to empower you to make a difference.

First, be curious.

We want to hear your questions about ranked choice voting.

Send us an email at assemblyrequired at crooked.com or or leave us a voicemail and you and your question might be featured on the pod.

Our number is 213-293-9509.

And speaking of questions, what would you like to know about the Democratic Party's message to youth voters?

We'll be in Chicago for the DNC next week and I'd love to ask on your behalf.

Seriously, there's no such thing as a stupid question, just the ones that don't get asked.

To learn more about our electoral system and election administration, I'd recommend you pick up the new book, Minority Rule, by journalist Ari Berman.

And finally, let's look at how we can all do a little good.

Like Cynthia encouraged, think about signing up to help support democracy in your area.

Volunteer to be a poll worker in your precinct.

Visit www.eac.gov forward slash help dash America dash vote to learn more about how to sign up in your state.

That's all from us today at Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams.

Talk to you next week from Chicago.

Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is a crooked media production.

Our lead show producer is Stephen Roberts and our associate producer is Paulina Velasco.

Kirill Polaviev is our video producer.

Our theme song is by Vasilis Futopoulos.

Thank you to Matt DeGroote, Kyle Seglund, Tyler Boozer, and Samantha Slossberg for production support.

Our executive producers are Katie Long, Madeline Herringer, and me, Stacey Abrams.

I'm going to put you on, nephew.

All right, Uncle.

Welcome to McDonald's.

Can I take your order?

Miss, I've been hitting up McDonald's for years.

Now it's back.

We need snack wraps.

What's a snack wrap?

It's the return of something great.

Snack wrap is back.