Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Good day, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles w. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry. The
Speaker 1: trio was reunited like Peaches and Herb and Cream. Peaches
Speaker 1: and Herb and Cream. Yeah, didn't Peaches and Herb sing
Speaker 1: reunited and it feels so good. Yeah, but I don't
Speaker 1: know how you're Clapton figures in. Well, there's three of
Speaker 1: us here. Oh, gotcha. And Clapton was an all cream.
Speaker 1: I mean, Ginger Baker was a force to be reckoned
Speaker 1: with two good point? He still is? Is he still alive?
Speaker 1: And unless he died recently. I saw a great documentary
Speaker 1: about him. Yeah. I haven't actually watched it. Is it good? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He just looks like it is. He's quite a dude. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm excited already to watch it and you should check
Speaker 1: it out, Okay, I will. Um. Oh have you seen Hereditary? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that in the theater. That's pretty cool. Huh.
Speaker 1: I liked it. I did too. I like just about
Speaker 1: anything puts out. Yeah. Yeah, shout out to eight to four. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um so, speaking of a twenty four and horror movies, Chuck.
Speaker 1: We were down in Australia recently. We just got back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sick. I know I am not. I can't believe it,
Speaker 1: but I'm not. Yeah, I got sicken. Where was it Sydney?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you were starting to kind of feel under
Speaker 1: the weather, Hugh, it just got full blown. You seemed
Speaker 1: okay on the flight back though that those were the beginnings.
Speaker 1: I think my body was in combat mode. And then
Speaker 1: when I got back here, it just it lowered its defenses.
Speaker 1: It said I'm home, and I got some weird Australian
Speaker 1: Australian rhino virus man walking around the airport. It was like,
Speaker 1: what what you just sneezed on me? What is that?
Speaker 1: What was that? Yeah? And we should point out to
Speaker 1: people that we took ten plane flights in eleven days.
Speaker 1: Is yes, we did, so that that's a pretty good
Speaker 1: way to get sick. Yeah, and let's see there it
Speaker 1: was Atlanta to l A five hours, LA to Sydney
Speaker 1: fourteen hours, Sydney to Perth another four or five hours.
Speaker 1: This was all in like one stretch. There was like
Speaker 1: two hour layovers in between those three flights, and it
Speaker 1: was it was about a thirty three hour experience getting there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not the same on the way home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, and it was totally worth it too, I
Speaker 1: would agree, although when we come back, we're gonna route
Speaker 1: things a bit differently. Yeah. Yeah, Like when when we
Speaker 1: landed in Sydney, I remember my first thought was, why
Speaker 1: can't we just start here? Yeah? Uh, but there there's
Speaker 1: no magic route, but there's probably a better one. Well,
Speaker 1: we did the black Magic route if there, if there
Speaker 1: is such a thing. Yeah, but boy, uh it was
Speaker 1: a grind, but we had a great time. Um had
Speaker 1: a couple of days off in between, which was I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would have made it had it
Speaker 1: not been for those days. Yeah. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think has been too grueling to do like five
Speaker 1: cities in five days. Yeah yeah, and those yeah, they
Speaker 1: were cool down days too. You spent most of the
Speaker 1: time in Melbourne. Actually south of Melbourne, I went to
Speaker 1: the Mornington Peninsula. Well yeah, so you, me and I
Speaker 1: were down there too. That's where we saw the penguins
Speaker 1: marching from the ocean and gorgeous down there. That's like
Speaker 1: their wine country, right, it's one of them. There's another
Speaker 1: wine country the year of valley north of Melbourne, but
Speaker 1: this is the one by the ocean. Yeah, so wine
Speaker 1: country Slash the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, and
Speaker 1: you pretty much get happy chuck. Yeah, that's cool, man.
Speaker 1: And we spent another day in Sydney to which is
Speaker 1: a pretty cool town. Um, just walking around the Opera
Speaker 1: house alone is worth it. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: cool stuff to do there too. Yeah. I went zip lining,
Speaker 1: I went nice, I went to the beach, I went
Speaker 1: to drink a lot of wine, went to a lot
Speaker 1: of wineries. And it was that time of the year
Speaker 1: in midweek. It was just sort of shut down. So
Speaker 1: you know, my buddy Scotty came over. As you know,
Speaker 1: I'm telling everyone else, but my buddy Scotty came over
Speaker 1: and met me in Melbourne. So we felt like we
Speaker 1: kept joking that we had rented the Mornington Peninsula because
Speaker 1: there were never more than two people anywhere we went.
Speaker 1: That's really And I'll bet the wine tastings they had
Speaker 1: a heavy hand. Yeah. They basically was just like, let's
Speaker 1: go sit on the porch, Fellas. They brought the bottle
Speaker 1: out and we just sat around and drink with the
Speaker 1: loveliest people on the face of the earth. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: are some really lovely people. And not just in I'll
Speaker 1: tell you. We did New Zealand too, which sure he knew.
Speaker 1: You mean, I've been to New Zealand before, so I
Speaker 1: already had a pretty good idea of just how awesome
Speaker 1: New Zealanders are. And we says they call themselves sometimes, um,
Speaker 1: but I mean you got to experience the firsthand too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean everyone is just so nice and accommodating. Like
Speaker 1: the whole no worries thing is it's not just something
Speaker 1: they throw around like you feel it. It's four real. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool man to to just experience it is
Speaker 1: is a very cool trip. Yeah, And even flying ten
Speaker 1: times in eleven days, their airports in the t s A.
Speaker 1: And just the way people are it really made it
Speaker 1: pretty pretty great. Like I would have it would have
Speaker 1: been a different experience flying ten times around the United
Speaker 1: States and lemon days, I think like it would have
Speaker 1: been awful, But it was great. We had a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: We're definitely coming back. Uh. We both loved on koalas
Speaker 1: and kangaroos. Yeah, It's like it doesn't get any better
Speaker 1: than that. Oh man. So yeah, you guys will see
Speaker 1: us again sometime in the new future. Will do another
Speaker 1: tour for sure. And I'm now getting up at six
Speaker 1: am tomorrow to watch another AUSI rules football final match.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you got into that, like for real? Huh
Speaker 1: big time. That's cool man, it's great. Why not add
Speaker 1: another sport to the pile. Well, I've lost a bunch
Speaker 1: of sports. Oh yeah, I'm kind of down to NFL
Speaker 1: and college football. No more NBA huh, very little, I see.
Speaker 1: It's very It's tough with the Hawks and I'll watch
Speaker 1: a little bit of the finals maybe, but and then baseball.
Speaker 1: You know, I follow the Braves a little bit, but
Speaker 1: since they moved to the suburbs, I'm not as pumped.
Speaker 1: It's a little different, isn't it. Yeah, it's just not
Speaker 1: as cool. I'm like you, Okay, well shoot, might as
Speaker 1: well just add another one, Australian rules football. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: cool man. Well, thank you for having us Australia and
Speaker 1: New Zealand. We'll see you guys against you right, yes,
Speaker 1: And what a great segue, because Australia happens to be
Speaker 1: one of the countries in the world as far as
Speaker 1: I know the only country in the world that utilizes
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting. No, there's there's two others. But yeah,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, there's just the three in
Speaker 1: Australia has used at the long What are the other two?
Speaker 1: The other two are Malta in Ireland. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean big countries. Okay, no disrespect to Ireland. Australia is
Speaker 1: the only country that's also a continent that uses ranked
Speaker 1: choice correcting. So um and yeah, like I said, they've
Speaker 1: been using it from what I saw at least a century.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find exactly when they started using it, but
Speaker 1: I believe it's tied to Robert's Rules of Order, which
Speaker 1: is a you know, a book of rules for order
Speaker 1: that you can use if you're you know, voting on stuff,
Speaker 1: or you have some sort of parliament or whatever you're
Speaker 1: trying to do. It's the preferred way of voting, this
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting. Right. Oh, they've been doing it for
Speaker 1: that long yeah. Century. Oh I thought it would just
Speaker 1: for the past five years. No, No, that's it's actually
Speaker 1: it's coming around in the US again, even though it
Speaker 1: was around before about a century ago. But in Australia
Speaker 1: it's stuck for the last hundred or so years. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I wonder I read a big article that felt like
Speaker 1: they they felt a need to explain to people how
Speaker 1: to do it five years ago. So maybe they forgot.
Speaker 1: Oh really, you're freaking me out now. But here in
Speaker 1: America we are not quite on board. So no, let
Speaker 1: me give you a Let's let me give you a
Speaker 1: little intro here, Charles. You're ready, yes, okay. So um,
Speaker 1: back in the two thousand election, it was the presidential election.
Speaker 1: It was a squeaker, you might say, between George W.
Speaker 1: Bush and Al Gore. Yeah, apparently the the state of Florida.
Speaker 1: So everyone knows about the electoral college. And if you
Speaker 1: don't go listen to our episode about the electoral college.
Speaker 1: But you can win in the United States the popular vote,
Speaker 1: meaning you got you got more people voted for you
Speaker 1: than your opponent. But if your opponent wins some very
Speaker 1: strategic states, states that have more electoral college votes, they
Speaker 1: can actually win the presidency without winning the popular vote.
Speaker 1: It happened in two thousand and sixteen, happened in the
Speaker 1: two thousand election, and every time time it does happen,
Speaker 1: everybody just gets up in arms. And in my opinion,
Speaker 1: rightfully so, because the will of the people has not
Speaker 1: been served right like clearly the majority of people voted
Speaker 1: for somebody else who is not the winner, and it
Speaker 1: just really ticks everybody off in this country when that happens.
Speaker 1: And in two thousand, it was so close that the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court had to decide who was president and it
Speaker 1: all came down to Florida. Florida had a lot of
Speaker 1: electoral College votes and Bush and Gore were neck and neck,
Speaker 1: although Gore ended up winning the presidency as far as
Speaker 1: popular voting went, Bush one because in Florida it came
Speaker 1: down to he won forty eight point eight four seven
Speaker 1: percent of the vote and al Gore won forty eight
Speaker 1: point eight three eight percent of the vote. Okay, so
Speaker 1: point zero zero nine percent of the vote made the
Speaker 1: difference in the state of Florida, and with the electoral college,
Speaker 1: if you win that state, you get all the electoral votes,
Speaker 1: which pushed Bush over the edge and made him president. Right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of people pointed to Ralph Nader, who,
Speaker 1: as we all know and love from the Pinto's episode,
Speaker 1: is a like a crusader for people, just a great guy.
Speaker 1: But for since two thousand, a lot of people have
Speaker 1: hated Ralph Nader because they said that he handed the
Speaker 1: presidency to George W. Bush by acting as a spoiler.
Speaker 1: That's something like ninety thousand people voted for Ralph Nader
Speaker 1: in the two thousand election, sorry, almost nine thousand, and
Speaker 1: since it was that close in Florida, those thousand votes
Speaker 1: in Florida for Nader pushed Bush into the lead. Well,
Speaker 1: that's just totally unfair because it turns out actually like
Speaker 1: three and eight thousand registered Democrats actually voted for Bush.
Speaker 1: So you could say that actually the Democratic Party didn't
Speaker 1: run a very good campaign in Florida if that was
Speaker 1: the case. But for ever, Ralph Naders born the brun
Speaker 1: of everyone's hire because of this and the same we
Speaker 1: see this in election after election after election, people calling
Speaker 1: out people of similar views for voting for a third
Speaker 1: party candidate, saying that they split the vote and and
Speaker 1: handed them the office over to the their shared enemy. Right.
Speaker 1: And one way to solve this problem, the spoiler um,
Speaker 1: is by fixing what we call this plurality voting system
Speaker 1: which we have, which is if you get more votes
Speaker 1: than your opponent, even if it's not the majority of votes,
Speaker 1: you still win. It's called winners winner takes all elections,
Speaker 1: and that's what we have right now, and it's actually
Speaker 1: creating a lot of polarity and polarization in the United States.
Speaker 1: That was impressive. Well thanks, Uh yeah, man, I mean
Speaker 1: it's basically what you have is, at least in the
Speaker 1: United States, is a situation where if you vote for
Speaker 1: your favorite candidate, you can actually hand the election to
Speaker 1: your least favorite candidate. And that's you know, like with
Speaker 1: the Bernie your Busters in the last election, that's kind
Speaker 1: of what happened that people that voted with their heart
Speaker 1: that were like, I can't vote for Hillary Clinton, or
Speaker 1: I don't want to vote for Hillary Clinton on gott
Speaker 1: to vote for Bernie. Uh. Very clearly that's that you know,
Speaker 1: that does swing an election. People should vote who they
Speaker 1: want to vote for. Uh, but there is potentially a
Speaker 1: better way. Uh. And we're talking about what Australia does
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting, what some cities in the United States
Speaker 1: do UM on small local elections. It's sort of seeing
Speaker 1: a test run UM all around the country and little
Speaker 1: markets to see what people think. UM. Sometimes people are
Speaker 1: voting on whether or not they should try. Uh. This
Speaker 1: style of voting. Sometimes that passes and then they actually
Speaker 1: vote on candidates. But what ranked choice voting is is
Speaker 1: when you fill out a you don't just say I
Speaker 1: want to vote for this person. You say I want
Speaker 1: to vote for this person, and then you know my
Speaker 1: second choice would be this person, and my third choice
Speaker 1: would be this person. Sometimes it stops there at three.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's capped, but sometimes you just rank all the
Speaker 1: candidates in order of how much you want them in office. Right, so, um,
Speaker 1: the whole point of ranking them is not just for
Speaker 1: the satisfaction of putting the person you like the least
Speaker 1: dead last right, maybe filling in the name or the
Speaker 1: little bubble next to their name with a skull and crossbones.
Speaker 1: The point is it comes after the ballots are tallied.
Speaker 1: If Chuck, everybody um voted for one single person, a
Speaker 1: majority of people voted for one single person in the
Speaker 1: first count, that person won if they had a majority
Speaker 1: of the vote, say plus one single vote. Right, yes,
Speaker 1: it's done. It's just like a normal election under that,
Speaker 1: under that um that circumstance. But let's say one of
Speaker 1: the candidates didn't get a majority of the vote. This
Speaker 1: is when ranked choice voting really kicks in. And this
Speaker 1: is another reason why it's also called an instant runoff vote,
Speaker 1: because what happens is an instant runoff election from those ballots.
Speaker 1: And I think we should take a break. Oh you
Speaker 1: tail this, that's a cliffhanger. Yeah, right after this. Well,
Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh damp chuck
Speaker 1: it stuff you should know? All right, all right, everybody,
Speaker 1: If you remember we were talking about don't ranked choice voting,
Speaker 1: You list out your candidates in order preference, and then
Speaker 1: after you hand your ballot in, they just kind of
Speaker 1: work from the bottom up almost and start striking people
Speaker 1: out until they get to someone that has a majority. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's really that simple. It really is like if
Speaker 1: you if you think too hard on it, you can overcomplicated.
Speaker 1: It's actually pretty easy. And if like what we're going
Speaker 1: to explain doesn't quite make sense, go onto the web
Speaker 1: and watch there's a couple of minute and a half
Speaker 1: long videos that do a really good job of explaining
Speaker 1: and using visuals. I think once by k q E
Speaker 1: d out in San Francisco and others by Minnesota Public
Speaker 1: Radio and both Minneapolis and San Francisco use ranked choice voting. Um,
Speaker 1: so go watch those videos and you will totally get it.
Speaker 1: But again, if you have a let's say you have
Speaker 1: candidate A, B, C, and D, and you cast your
Speaker 1: ballot and you like you like them in that order,
Speaker 1: Canada as your top choice candidate beats your second choice
Speaker 1: candidate SEES three and D is fourth. Right, Okay, easy enough,
Speaker 1: so far right, Chuck, Yes, okay. So um, let's say
Speaker 1: that after all the tallies are are are all the
Speaker 1: ballots are tallied, your guy Canada Day just didn't make
Speaker 1: the cut. He he came in dead last. Your your
Speaker 1: ballot doesn't get thrown away, It gets set to the
Speaker 1: side because whatever all the people who voted for Canada
Speaker 1: A chose for a second, those votes get distributed to
Speaker 1: those candidates in this next round. Yeah, exactly, And that
Speaker 1: is how you end up with a majority. So you
Speaker 1: you what you won't wind up is a situation like
Speaker 1: you had with the current governor of Maine where he
Speaker 1: won the election with thirty eight percent of the vote,
Speaker 1: And like, there's something wrong with your voting system if
Speaker 1: only thirty eight percent of the people in a in
Speaker 1: a in a voting pool like this candidate enough and
Speaker 1: they end up winning. Yeah, I mean, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: the big problem that everybody points to with our current
Speaker 1: plurality system is you could if there's three candidates, you
Speaker 1: can win with thirty percent of the vote, which means
Speaker 1: sixty six percent of the people who voted didn't vote
Speaker 1: for you. They voted for somebody other than you. And
Speaker 1: the other part of the thing that I've seen from
Speaker 1: research in this, Chuck is that when when it's a
Speaker 1: winner takes takes all kind of election, like a plurality
Speaker 1: election like we have, that seems to um incentivize incentivized
Speaker 1: candidates to be more polarizing because what they're trying to
Speaker 1: do is energize their base and get their base out,
Speaker 1: but they have no incentive whatsoever to reach out across
Speaker 1: the aisle to other voters. Um, all they're doing is
Speaker 1: getting their base charged up to get out and vote
Speaker 1: frequently about issues that don't really mean anything. They're just
Speaker 1: kind of like, um, I'm not quite sure what the
Speaker 1: term is for him, but nonsensical issues that don't really
Speaker 1: mean anything. They just tick everybody off. That kind of
Speaker 1: polarization comes from this plurality thing and one of the
Speaker 1: ways that UM or one of the reasons so many
Speaker 1: people are pointing to rank choice voting as a as
Speaker 1: a UM as a kind of a way to solve
Speaker 1: this is because it does the opposite. It incentivizes people
Speaker 1: to reach out to as many voters as possible because
Speaker 1: you want to end up as their number two choice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's an interesting argument. Um In theory, it
Speaker 1: would push politicians towards the center. Uh. However, a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't want centrist politicians, and you know, as
Speaker 1: we've seen in recent years, people there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people that are very hard right and very hard
Speaker 1: left that I imagine would reject this kind of voting
Speaker 1: because they don't want to go towards the center. Um.
Speaker 1: Although right now, you know, independence are largely ignored, third
Speaker 1: party candidates are largely ignored, so they would probably embrace
Speaker 1: something like this. Uh. But again, I mean, we had
Speaker 1: a situation in Kansas where the gubernatorial primary was decided
Speaker 1: by less than two hundred votes, So that meant that
Speaker 1: fifty votes basically didn't count. I mean, they counted, and
Speaker 1: that people got to to speak their mind and vote
Speaker 1: their conscience, But fifty two those fifty people, if you
Speaker 1: pulled them, they would probably say, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I might like a second chance to vote then on
Speaker 1: these two jerks. That was decided by lesson two votes,
Speaker 1: right right. And that's where ranked choice voting comes in,
Speaker 1: because if you, if you you know, vote your conscience,
Speaker 1: which I think it sounds like both of us agree,
Speaker 1: you totally should. And I think even further, you should
Speaker 1: not deride people who vote their conscience. It's a pretty
Speaker 1: terrible thing to do. Um. But if if you share
Speaker 1: similar views um with another candidate, they might be your
Speaker 1: second choice. You might not like them, maybe they're the
Speaker 1: establishment candidate and you're more like the uh, the more
Speaker 1: progressive or more far right candidate. You like that person first,
Speaker 1: but you're also saying, you know, this person might have
Speaker 1: a better shot, so I'm gonn to make sure that
Speaker 1: they're my number two rather than the other person. And
Speaker 1: so what you're doing then is, rather than the vote
Speaker 1: being split like in a winner takes all, if if
Speaker 1: your person, your third party candidate doesn't win that first round, um,
Speaker 1: the your votes are going to go to that other
Speaker 1: more like minded person. So rather than splitting the vote,
Speaker 1: you're actually going and helping UH to bowl straight if
Speaker 1: your candidate of choice doesn't make it to the second round. Right, Obviously,
Speaker 1: you need at least three candidates for something like this
Speaker 1: to happen, which doesn't always happen, so you can't always
Speaker 1: use this this kind of voting. UH. And Maine, the
Speaker 1: state of Maine is an interesting well, it's interesting in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways because manners are weird and they
Speaker 1: know that. Um, they're very independent and just sort of
Speaker 1: a state into themselves in a lot of ways. So
Speaker 1: what you've had here, nine of the past eleven governors
Speaker 1: have been elected with less than fifty of the vote.
Speaker 1: Nine of the past eleven, which is amazing, five of
Speaker 1: those with less and as I mentioned earlier, the current governor,
Speaker 1: Paul Lapage or la Page UH, he won with thirty
Speaker 1: eight percent, and as of hours ago, as as of
Speaker 1: this recording, he just vetoed a bill for this kind
Speaker 1: of voting to continue on his way out the door. Basically,
Speaker 1: I saw that there was like there's been a real
Speaker 1: push in Maine against this too, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of allegations that it's basically the status quo is worried
Speaker 1: that they're not going to be able to get enough
Speaker 1: centrist people to vote for them, and so they're gonna
Speaker 1: start losing elections rather than these winner polarized winner takes
Speaker 1: all um contests that they can win by energizing the
Speaker 1: base into a frenzy. So pushed by politicians, I guess right,
Speaker 1: pushed by incumbent politicians. No less, Yeah, because the people
Speaker 1: voted for it. They had a record turnout, apparently, because
Speaker 1: one of the worries is is that more complicated voting
Speaker 1: in theory leads to uh, people being less interested in voting,
Speaker 1: like this sort of sadly American thing where you have
Speaker 1: to make voting super easy and super dumb uh or
Speaker 1: dumbed down at least, and if it's just confusing, people
Speaker 1: want to understand it and they won't know what to do,
Speaker 1: so they may not even vote. But at least in
Speaker 1: Maine they had a record turnout, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people think it was because they moved to rank choice voting.
Speaker 1: And I saw also a two thousand and fourteen study
Speaker 1: from the University of Missouri that um they looked at
Speaker 1: like seventies six elections or seventy nine elections in twenty
Speaker 1: six cities that used ranked choice voting, and they found
Speaker 1: that overall there was like a ten percent higher turnout
Speaker 1: than in elections that hadn't used ranked choice voting UM,
Speaker 1: and that that definitely flies in the face of one
Speaker 1: of the great criticisms of ranked choice voting that it's
Speaker 1: way more difficult than regular voting. Like you were saying, right,
Speaker 1: The thing is is it's not that much more difficult.
Speaker 1: It's really pretty easy and the average person can figure
Speaker 1: it out. What I think it calls for more though
Speaker 1: Chuck is a more informed voter, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: you can't just scantron it. You can't just make a
Speaker 1: Christmas tree out of it and expect any kind of
Speaker 1: good result, rather than just knowing about your one candidate
Speaker 1: and that, yes, I like this person. They most aligned
Speaker 1: with my view, so I'm going to vote for them,
Speaker 1: and I don't need to know anything about the other
Speaker 1: people except I don't want to vote for him. It
Speaker 1: means that you need to know something about all of
Speaker 1: the candidates because you've got to figure out who's second
Speaker 1: and who's third, and who's fourth and who's fifth, um.
Speaker 1: And to do that you have to be an informed voter.
Speaker 1: Maybe they should in the States do it with pictures
Speaker 1: as a who's hot and who's not, or who were best,
Speaker 1: who were best in in terms of ranking, just so
Speaker 1: we can understand it. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a
Speaker 1: there has to be as as far as ranked choice
Speaker 1: voting goes, there has to be a a UM, real understandable,
Speaker 1: really robust public education campaign that goes along with it.
Speaker 1: UM or else it's not gonna get anywhere, I don't think.
Speaker 1: But I think so far in like Maine, which I
Speaker 1: think you said already is the first state to ever
Speaker 1: uses in statewide elections in the US. Right, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: hand count there too, they do, but this article what
Speaker 1: kind of worried about that? It's like, well, how long
Speaker 1: is this going to take if they're hand counting? Well
Speaker 1: if if if under the first count like they normally do,
Speaker 1: there isn't a clear winner, a majority winner. All those
Speaker 1: battlets gets sent to the capital, which which I think
Speaker 1: UM uses software from that point on. So it's not
Speaker 1: that big of a deal as far as Maine goes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I read, uh the governor remains UM. The reason
Speaker 1: why he vetoed it, he wrote like a op ed
Speaker 1: or whatever, made a statement and he he had a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One was financial, because they came back
Speaker 1: and said it would cost an extra three thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars or something, and he said, you know, they're sticking
Speaker 1: it to you. They're sticking to you the taxpayer, with
Speaker 1: more money for this election, which I don't know if
Speaker 1: I haven't done the math, I can't imagine that would
Speaker 1: amount to very much money per person, like per voter. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he also said that it was it was sort
Speaker 1: of voted on and run through in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. Uh. One of those type of deals where
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people weren't there, It wasn't debated,
Speaker 1: it was voted on in less than five minutes at
Speaker 1: you know, late at night, and that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: that kind of sneaky politics. So that's that's what that
Speaker 1: was his contention. Although I imagine if the people have
Speaker 1: Maine voted for it to begin with, then uh. I
Speaker 1: mean from everything I've read, it sounds like he was
Speaker 1: just sort of like on the way out the door,
Speaker 1: given everybody the finger. Yeah, that's that's what every That's
Speaker 1: what I've read too. That's that's kind of my interpretation.
Speaker 1: I want to hear from people the people of Maine
Speaker 1: though about this. Well, the people of Maine have already
Speaker 1: spoken on. On I think June eighteenth, they using the
Speaker 1: ranked system for the first time. The first question on
Speaker 1: the ballot was do you want to keep using ranked voting?
Speaker 1: And it was um. It was passed with like a vote,
Speaker 1: So clearly a majority of people in Maine at least say, yep,
Speaker 1: let's give this a shot. Was that ranked choice? Was it? Yes?
Speaker 1: I used ranked choice? Right, right? And then maybe but
Speaker 1: only if this and well, I guess if they don't
Speaker 1: do this, and we should do this, right, so maybe
Speaker 1: let's take a break, talk about some history. Let's well,
Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh? Can chuck
Speaker 1: stuff you should know? All right? All right, Chuck? So
Speaker 1: ranked choice, like we said, it's been around for a
Speaker 1: little while in the US took a stab at it before. Um,
Speaker 1: I think back in the nineteen thirties in New York, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the Brits used to do it in the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, and then America tried it in New York.
Speaker 1: Of course, and if this weird thing hadn't happened, it
Speaker 1: may still be around today. You never know. But in
Speaker 1: a nineteen thirty seven city council election, a communist actually
Speaker 1: want a seat because of rank choice voting, and that
Speaker 1: changed everything. And I think if it hadn't been for that,
Speaker 1: it might have actually caught on. Yeah, because I think
Speaker 1: a decade later they used the um the red scare
Speaker 1: to basically say, look, you can't have ranked choice voting.
Speaker 1: It gets communists in power, you crazy, And everybody said, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get away with rank let's do away with ranked
Speaker 1: choice voting. And they did. But as in this case,
Speaker 1: as in all the other cases where ranked choice voting
Speaker 1: has been tried out and then left behind later on,
Speaker 1: it's been tied to some other issue, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like ranked choice voting itself is the problem. It's the
Speaker 1: the establishment who's threatened by ranked choice voting tends to
Speaker 1: tie it to an unpopular political thing, and then UM
Speaker 1: gets rid of it that way, like in Burlington, Vermont
Speaker 1: back and I think the mid two thousand's they tried
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting and this mayor that got elected was
Speaker 1: a super progressive UM who upset I think a Republican incumbent,
Speaker 1: and the progressive was doing fine, everybody's happy with him.
Speaker 1: But then he got embroiled in a scandal where apparently
Speaker 1: he used public funds to keep a telecom company in business.
Speaker 1: That did not make the people of Burlington, Vermont very happy.
Speaker 1: So he he became a very unpopular mayor, like almost overnight,
Speaker 1: while he had been elected through ranked choice voting. So
Speaker 1: the republic Kins the next time around said, look what
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting did? It got this, this scandal plagued
Speaker 1: mayor in office. Let's get rid of ranked choice voting.
Speaker 1: And people voted voted against ranked choice voting, and it
Speaker 1: was a very close vote, and it was mostly Republicans
Speaker 1: who voted against it, but more of them turned out
Speaker 1: to vote against ranked choice voting, so it went away.
Speaker 1: Same thing with the communists in New York. The Democrats
Speaker 1: did that. They said, look, it elected a Communist to
Speaker 1: the New York City Council. Let's get away. Let's do
Speaker 1: away ranked choice voting. Same thing. So it's not like
Speaker 1: the ranked choice voting there's anything wrong with it, and
Speaker 1: there may be a lot right with it. It's just
Speaker 1: that it gets tied to political scandals pretty frequently. To
Speaker 1: get rid of it, I think it's it's because it's
Speaker 1: a new thing. People are like, oh, yeah, that was weird.
Speaker 1: That was weird. Let's go back to the old way,
Speaker 1: even though the old way is broken. Yeah. Oakland, California
Speaker 1: is a pretty interesting situation too in two thousand ten,
Speaker 1: because people could make arguments I guess on either side here. Uh.
Speaker 1: In two thousand ten, for its mayoral election, there were
Speaker 1: ten candidates on the ballots. You gotta rank all ten, um,
Speaker 1: And I didn't see anything about like, is a ballot
Speaker 1: counted if you only rank like four. Oh, that's a
Speaker 1: really good point. I wonder if that's an incomplete ballot.
Speaker 1: It is. And all that's counted though, is your first vote.
Speaker 1: So in the first round of voting, your ballot counts
Speaker 1: whether you rank one person or four or three. However,
Speaker 1: if you don't fill it out and you just fill
Speaker 1: out one, it gets counted once. So you could write
Speaker 1: nine out of ten and it only counts the first
Speaker 1: from what I understand. Yes, interesting, alright, So in Oakland
Speaker 1: and there were ten candidates, Uh, there was a front
Speaker 1: runner named Don Parata. He got thirty of what they
Speaker 1: called the first choice vote, which is, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: pretty low for first choice did not win, and then
Speaker 1: Jane Kuan she finished pretty far behind. She only got
Speaker 1: of the first preference, but she ended up winning with
Speaker 1: fifty to Paradas forty eight percent after they rolled all
Speaker 1: those other votes up. Yes, because she had gone to
Speaker 1: the other candidates who were long shots and said, hey,
Speaker 1: let's let's form an alliance here. Let's let's try to
Speaker 1: like get as many voters as possible to vote for us.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that ranked choice voting does, Chuck,
Speaker 1: is it incentivizes you to appeal to as many voters
Speaker 1: as possible rather than alienating another candidates voters and just
Speaker 1: appealing to your own base. You want those second choice
Speaker 1: votes too, because they count in later rounds, and that
Speaker 1: means that you have to say, hey, I know I'm
Speaker 1: not your first choice. I'm I might even be from
Speaker 1: a different party than the one you're planning to vote for,
Speaker 1: but let me tell you about some of the things
Speaker 1: that we have in common that might change your opinion
Speaker 1: of me, which means that there's probably going to be
Speaker 1: less negative ads, less negative campaigns, and in some some
Speaker 1: um cases, I think for the main Attorney General's office,
Speaker 1: some candidates have them together to um to basically run
Speaker 1: ads like joint campaign ads saying hey, everybody, I know
Speaker 1: you're playing in the vote for me, but maybe put
Speaker 1: this person is number two and the other person says
Speaker 1: the same thing. And in doing so, what you're doing
Speaker 1: is is is rather than splitting the vote, you're consolidating
Speaker 1: what would have been previously split votes into something that
Speaker 1: could actually lift one or the other to to office. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean as far as appealing to the center
Speaker 1: one of the people want that, that's that's got to
Speaker 1: be better than what we have now, which is people
Speaker 1: digging in so far and so hard to the left
Speaker 1: and the right that they're basically they might as well
Speaker 1: just come out and say screw you of the country.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a broken system. Uh. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people, including uh Bloomberg View columnists Leonid
Speaker 1: Breschitzky speaking of communists. I'm just kidding, Leonid. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're a fine American. Uh. He you know, he basically
Speaker 1: came out and wrote an article that said, if we
Speaker 1: had gone with this type of thing, Donald Trump would
Speaker 1: not not only would he not be president, he would
Speaker 1: not have even won the primary because there were so
Speaker 1: many sort of establishment traditional conservatives that would never have
Speaker 1: voted for Donald Trump, and may have even set out
Speaker 1: the election that would have written in like maybe John
Speaker 1: casag first, then Jeb Bush second, and then who knows third.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't imagine who they would have picked third,
Speaker 1: But they probably would have put Donald Trump dead last.
Speaker 1: So he would have never rolled up in the primaries
Speaker 1: even right. And so the reason why people would have
Speaker 1: put Trump dead last in this case is because he
Speaker 1: was so he was so far away from the clump
Speaker 1: of the other guys who were a little more towards
Speaker 1: the middle, and just by day of their being more
Speaker 1: of these guys more towards the middle, that means that
Speaker 1: there are more voters voting for those people, and so
Speaker 1: Trump would have been left out and somebody like Jeff
Speaker 1: Bush or somebody who was a centrist would have been
Speaker 1: more likely to to reach the primary. And that's the point.
Speaker 1: Because more people tend to aggregate towards the center than
Speaker 1: towards the fringes. Ranked choice voting serves the center a
Speaker 1: lot more clearly than it does the fringes, and it
Speaker 1: it drags the fringe candidates toward the center more and
Speaker 1: and and get it does away with the polarization that
Speaker 1: creates the fringe candidates in the first place. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I guess we should point out that center center of
Speaker 1: your own party more like, I don't know, man, I
Speaker 1: think center. The thing about the center of the own
Speaker 1: party is that the difference between the two is not
Speaker 1: as pronounced and so like there's a lot more reaching
Speaker 1: across the aisles, which I think is why a lot
Speaker 1: of people value you know, centrist Paul. It takes a
Speaker 1: lot more is there's a lot more compromise that comes
Speaker 1: out of it rather than gridlock. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess in theory center right and center left is more
Speaker 1: towards the overall center. But when I hear things like
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is more centrist, I mean, it depends on
Speaker 1: who you compare him to. I guess exactly he's he's
Speaker 1: a little more central compared to Donald Trump, maybe on
Speaker 1: the Republican side, but I don't think any Democrat would
Speaker 1: identify with him. Sure, agreed, So I think you could
Speaker 1: make a case that ranked choice voting would probably keep
Speaker 1: somebody like Ted Cruz from being president one day too,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe, So who knows what I'm interested in.
Speaker 1: Is the money, like one of the things that Governor
Speaker 1: la Page or Lapage, do you know what's one it is? No,
Speaker 1: I don't, or however you pronounce that in Maine. Let's
Speaker 1: go with Lapage. It sounds fancy. Yeah. So Lapage talked
Speaker 1: about the money, and that is one of the things
Speaker 1: that critics bring up is it will cost a lot
Speaker 1: of money. But I'd be curious just to see dollars
Speaker 1: lines on runoff elections and what they cost um. I saw, Well,
Speaker 1: that's the other thing too, because this would eliminate those
Speaker 1: it would right now, from what I saw, there's twelve
Speaker 1: states that have run off rules. The rest of the
Speaker 1: states don't. It's all winner takes all. But the only
Speaker 1: the states that do have runoff rules, that's only in
Speaker 1: the primaries. Interesting. Yeah, so in a federal election, uh,
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting UM or a general election, it's going
Speaker 1: to cost more just because it's it's a little more expensive.
Speaker 1: But what I saw was that cost Maine. There's a
Speaker 1: Boston Globe editorial by the editors of the Boston Globe
Speaker 1: that said, let's do this in Massachusetts. They said it
Speaker 1: was just like a hundred and ten thousand dollars more
Speaker 1: for the entire state of Maine to run this UM
Speaker 1: this election over ones that didn't have ranked choice that
Speaker 1: used plurality voting. Yeah, that's like fractions of a penny
Speaker 1: per voter, probably right, I should say. Also, since talking
Speaker 1: about bringing it to Massachusetts, UM, I thought of doing
Speaker 1: this episode because remember our friend Dave who used to
Speaker 1: work at Sweetwater Dave Morrell. Oh yeah, he is running
Speaker 1: for the UM I think District five House for the
Speaker 1: New Hampshire House District four New Hampshire House. He's got
Speaker 1: my vote. He the same here. Unfortunately we can't vote
Speaker 1: for him, but UM Dave was saying one of his
Speaker 1: platform planks is bringing rank choice voting to New Hampshire. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm happy to be your number three.
Speaker 1: I think he wants to be your number one. Well,
Speaker 1: another criticism that this one is the one that gets me,
Speaker 1: Like everything else sounds pretty good, but uh, a lot
Speaker 1: of these cities limit, like I said earlier at the
Speaker 1: very beginning, to the top three candidates. So there's something
Speaker 1: called ballot exhaustion. If all three of your candidates on
Speaker 1: your list are eliminated, then your ballot is basically just burned.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think they burn it. They hold it
Speaker 1: up and they burn it in front of your face,
Speaker 1: like Tony Collette and hereditary and then laugh at you.
Speaker 1: So you would think this probably didn't happen much though,
Speaker 1: But there was a study in electoral electoral studies in
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen set in four cities, between nine point
Speaker 1: six point seven percent of voters were eliminated due to
Speaker 1: ballot exhaustion, which those numbers are super high, they are
Speaker 1: very high. Well, one way to get around that is
Speaker 1: to um not just rank your top three, but to
Speaker 1: rank every single person. I wonder why they did that though,
Speaker 1: maybe to make it easier. I'm not sure, but the
Speaker 1: San Francisco just ranks the top three for their mayor
Speaker 1: mayoral races, which is kind of I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: because they frequently have like ten people in there in
Speaker 1: the race, like you were saying, so just to rank
Speaker 1: the top three that will lead to a lot of
Speaker 1: ballot exhaustion, which is a real problem. But again, if
Speaker 1: people just rank all the candidates, their ballot will keep
Speaker 1: getting getting counted round after round, because after your first
Speaker 1: two were eliminated in three and then four, those your
Speaker 1: vote for that rank keeps getting added depending on the
Speaker 1: round that you're on. It's pretty pretty interesting stuff. Man,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You think it'll catch on here? It
Speaker 1: has piqued my interest. Same here. I think anything that
Speaker 1: does away with um with um polarization and does away
Speaker 1: with people who share pretty similar views. But anything that
Speaker 1: does away with that, I'm I'm in favor of trying
Speaker 1: for sure. Agreed. Well, if you want to know more
Speaker 1: about ranked choice voting, go check it out some of
Speaker 1: those videos on the web, and um, you're probably going
Speaker 1: to learn to like it. But whatever, make up your
Speaker 1: own mind. And since I said that, it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail. All right, this is a bit long, but
Speaker 1: it's a good one. This is from an actual recently
Speaker 1: retired New York City detective. Hi, guys, love the show.
Speaker 1: I was a NYPD detective for twenty years and just retired,
Speaker 1: And I'm glad to say you guys remotely spot on
Speaker 1: with the lineups episode. And then he gives us some
Speaker 1: really interesting tidbits here. I can't wait. He says, double
Speaker 1: blind lineups are better, but they are a huge suck
Speaker 1: on resources. You have to transport a witness or witnesses
Speaker 1: who also need to be separated fillers the suspect who
Speaker 1: requires two detectives to safely transport from one site to
Speaker 1: the next. And now you have to find another detective
Speaker 1: who who knows nothing about your case, So that usually
Speaker 1: means to go to an outside detective squad, who themselves
Speaker 1: have their own cases for which they may need blind administrators.
Speaker 1: So you can see how this ripples outward. Photo arrays
Speaker 1: would be helpful in terms of logistics, but they are
Speaker 1: inadmissible as trial evidence in New York. You can only
Speaker 1: be used to identify a possible suspect, but in order
Speaker 1: to bring charges you have to conduct a live lineup. Additionally,
Speaker 1: many victims feel more confident looking at real people than
Speaker 1: it photos. UH defense lawyers will claim they want to
Speaker 1: be present for the lineup to verify it's impartiality, but
Speaker 1: do not actually want to be there and in fact
Speaker 1: rarely are UH. If they're not present, they can then
Speaker 1: accuse officers of all kinds of misdeeds and an effort
Speaker 1: to have the identification suppressed at hearing. If they are
Speaker 1: present and observe nothing untoward during the procedure, it becomes
Speaker 1: more difficult for them to later claim otherwise super interesting. Uh. Lastly,
Speaker 1: I spent the last four years of my career in
Speaker 1: a robbery unit that worked with federal prosecutors. We begged
Speaker 1: squad detectives not to show photo arrays or conduct lineups.
Speaker 1: As we know what Josh said. Many times, it's true.
Speaker 1: Witness testimony more often than not as terrible. We build
Speaker 1: most of our cases using co conspirator testimony, perpetrator statements, UH,
Speaker 1: DNA criminalistics, so, social media analysis, cell phone tracking, security video,
Speaker 1: license plate reader data, etcetera, etcetera. Uh, witnesses really just
Speaker 1: muddy the waters. Uh. They're best used to say, hey
Speaker 1: I got robbed and then just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: It also takes the emotional burden off them at trial
Speaker 1: should it ever come to that. Yeah, my wife and
Speaker 1: are big fans kept us entertained on many road trips.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, have a great day. And that is from
Speaker 1: former detective Jason Allison. That is an amazing email. Man.
Speaker 1: I'll bet social media is a huge tool because I'll
Speaker 1: bet there's so many goons just run around like I
Speaker 1: totally just robbed this place. Check it out here, here's
Speaker 1: the money. I guys, speaking of huge tools, yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: good one, Chuck. Well, if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us like the former detective did, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: We always want to hear from experts in the field
Speaker 1: that we talked about. You can get in touch with
Speaker 1: us via social media. Just go to our website, Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com and it's got all of
Speaker 1: our links up there um. Or you can send us
Speaker 1: an email. Just send it to Stuff podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.