WEBVTT - Prediction Elections, Vote-Counting Machines 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.520 Hey, we know investors certainly watching what's happening on the 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:05.320 campaign trail audience. We've heard a lot in the last 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:08.160 couple of weeks from some of investing in markets. Guess 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.720 how they and their clients waiting election? What possibly mean 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.560 on the so called and the prediction markets. I gotta 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:20.160 tell you. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.239 On Friday, but I was watching the prediction market and 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.280 Jim stat actor from and they were moving very quickly 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.520 away from this clear Trump victory over Harris and emailed 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.120 John Authors. I was like, have you seen what's happening here? 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.400 And sure enough, yeah, he'd been watching it too. We 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.360 got John Authors with also joining us Bloomberg News markets 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.279 reporter Justina Lee. She writes about the election gambling facing. Uh, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.159 it's a moment of truth. John, Justina, Welcome to the program. 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:49.840 Both of you writing about the prediction markets. Uh, Justina, 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:51.720 I do want to start with you, though, because remind 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.480 everyone what exactly we're talking about here. I think for 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:56.480 a lot of people, this is the first election where 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:57.680 they're hearing about this stuff. 0:00:58.120 --> 0:00:58.320 Yeah. 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.000 What's really interesting is just before the start of this election, 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.160 I mean, we were we had kind of a judge 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:11.399 overturned this ban on a US legal kind of exchange 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.640 that is going to offer contracts on the election. And 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.240 because of this, there's more attention on election betting than ever. 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.520 And also there's also this crypto exchange off tour that's 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.600 been seeing really large volumes and kind of electoral betting, 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:27.640 and I think because of this, there's been a lot 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.000 of attention on those odds, and in particular because over 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.880 the past month they've they've shown like a way higher 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.280 probability for Trump than we're seeing in you know, forecast 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:39.520 models like five thirty eight or Nate Silver. 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.320 John come on in on this. You've got to calum 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:43.640 out noting that the prediction markets are giving now Donald 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.400 Trumps November surprise, not necessarily a good one. 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.280 Not necessarily a good one for Trump at all. I mean, 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.080 with prediction markets, you've always got to remember there is 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.960 an issue with them. Garbage and garbage out to the 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:05.240 and Zel sip Iowa poll at face value, if it's accurate, 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:07.720 means CAML Harris has won the election. 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:10.000 What does garbage in garbage out mean? 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.560 Gub it's it's it's a computer term. If that, if 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.920 the data you're putting into the prediction market is bad data, right, 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.520 there's no reason to produce to expect it to produce 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:20.240 a good outcome. 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.880 So I get that. So with the predicted prediction markets, 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.000 does that mean sometimes there's good data coming in, sometimes 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:26.079 there's not, or is. 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.480 I think it's been true of any market that you know, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.519 if you got bad data from Enron and you thought 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.000 it was an absolutely fantastic for company for a long time, 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.639 and then you realized it wasn't right, And amazingly I 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:40.200 looked up yesterday it was replaced in the S and 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:41.360 P five hundred my own video. 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:42.280 Wow. 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:47.519 Okay, that's yes, yes, But that's that's why John, I 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.040 think it was. I think it might have been exactly 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:50.720 a week ago you sat in this chair. You'd written 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.800 another column that talked about how the Trump trade was on, 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.640 and it looked like it gave the former president about 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.600 a two thirds chance. Do you do you want to 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:01.280 update that prediction ahead of tomorrow? 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:07.040 The current prediction is that it gives him. I'm inclined 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.640 not to trust polymarkets as much as the others because 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:14.440 there does seem to be an oddly determined positive gloss 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.280 on the on the Republican chances. The others suggest that 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.840 he still has a chance, a better chance than Kamala Harris, 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.800 but it's a much narrow one, like three fifty four percent. 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:30.880 That sounds broadly accurate to me, simply because we don't 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.000 know what the narratives are that here that are going 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.920 to decide things. It's possible Madison Square Garden Rally and 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:42.120 everything around it really may decided a lot of people 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.160 that know they weren't going to go vote for this guy. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:45.960 We don't know yet. We will know soon. 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.320 And if I recall, was it twenty sixteen that you 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:53.520 said that initially it was the markets in favor of Hillary. Yes, 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.160 And obviously we know Donald Trump exactly well. 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.840 We also and the markets will convince the prediction. Markets 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.560 were convinced in Britain that Brexit was not going to 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.000 succeed in the referendum earlier that year, and that one 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.640 wasn't That one wasn't right either. I mean, the other 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.800 thing you've got to be very careful with in real 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.440 markets with capital at stake. I did just check up 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.600 that S and P E mini futures were down more 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:24.400 than five percent in the immediate wake of the network's 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.480 calling twenty sixteen for Donald Trump. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:28.200 Remember that, I remember watching. 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.000 It, and they's pretty deep up by the time they 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:37.120 markets actually opened the following day. So you know, there 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.640 are some fairly clear things. You would imagine Bond yields 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.320 would go up a lot, and that stocks would gain 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:46.080 a lot with a with a comfortable Trump victory tomorrow night, 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.919 you don't necessarily assume that that will hold on for 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.680 a terribly long time once people can begin to think 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.960 about this without the uncertainty surrounding it. 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.479 Just in a polls versus we've talked a lot about 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.400 the polling. Bloomberg has been involved in polling poll versus 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:04.600 prediction markets. What do investors in Wall Street respect as 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:05.720 we go through this process. 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:08.680 Yeah, what's been really interesting lately is that we've seen 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.840 a lot of cell sized strategies, in particular citing the 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.000 betting odds rather than the poles based forecast. And I 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.719 think one edge that the betting ods definitely have is 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.080 that you know, as people trade, they can more quickly 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.960 in corporate you know, every new drip of information or 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.520 whatever kind of you know, the vibe shifts. That might 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.120 be a bit harder for a model to quantify. But 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:30.760 I think that the flip side of that is that 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.560 you can more easily have kind of a hurting mentality, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.760 or maybe it's more easily affected by one sided bets, 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.680 whereas I guess like the poles based forecasts are more 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.960 grounded on data, but you really need sort of the 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:47.239 trends to be roughly similar to history for that poles 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.440 based forecast to really have any insight. 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.680 I love this. We've got a listener saying, can Americans 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:55.720 bet on the winner? How does someone do it? 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.560 Yes, Justina can tell you more bets can let you 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.480 do it. We are in the interactive Brocus studio. 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:02.599 Are we not? 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.960 Are you can not the time necessarily saying you should? 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.120 But you can bet on it's only attractive breakase if 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.320 you like and robin Hood. Thanks to the CFTC's loss 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.840 in court, a number of people will will let you 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.000 do it legally, even without getting a VPN and pretending 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:20.760 not to be American. 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.040 Well that's why, Justina. You know in your story you 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.039 note that the prediction markets have entered the big leagues 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.280 with the twenty twenty four presidential vote. I mean this 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:33.800 is kind of new territory for everyone, for investors, for betting, 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.280 for the betting public here in America. 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.640 Yeah, that's right. I mean, we're seeing really large volumes, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.400 especially compared to before. And one thing that I think 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.240 is really interesting is, you know, when it comes to 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.360 financial markets, we always think the moral liquidity the better, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.680 and so kind of by that logic, I mean, this 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.640 year's all should be especially informative. But at the same time, 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.720 it's kind of funny because I spoke to an expert, 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.560 you know, on Friday, and he was saying, maybe pay 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.640 attention to the smallest market of all, which is predicted, 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.440 because predicted kind of limits the sizes of your positions 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.560 and so you don't really get kind of any of 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.920 these big whale traits, so you get on the polymarket. 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.000 And of course that's kind of a really interesting question 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.320 now because Predicted is the one platform that's giving even 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.600 odds to the two candidates at this moment. 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.880 And it also if you look back to the summer, 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.440 Predicted saw Kamala Harris coming a long way before the 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:32.280 other prediction markets that were out there. It saw the 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:37.040 chance that I presumably because the often the academics who 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.440 are betting on Predicted are fairly well plugged in the 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.640 democratic politics, they got that Joe Biden was likely to 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.920 have to stand down, and that Kamala Harris would be 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.480 nigh on unstoppable if he did to get the nomination 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:55.680 far before Polymarket did. So they're not dumb. The other 0:07:55.880 --> 0:08:01.040 thing that is, if you're trying to produce a prediction, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.640 if you're not hedging your bets, if you're not trying 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.400 to make money, but you're looking for the public, get 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:11.800 better of a good prediction on predicted everybody, including you 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.440 students who are just finishing their PhDs, is worth as 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:16.280 much as elon musk. 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.320 You guys, thank you so much. A great round the 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:22.600 table on that. John authors of Bloomberg Markets and Bloomberg Opinion, 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:24.760 just in the lead Markets are put her up Bloomber. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.840 You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:38.120 live weekday afternoons from two to five pm. Easter Listen 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.360 on Apple card Play and then brod Auto with a 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.400 Bloomberg Business app, or want us live on YouTube. 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.120 All right, from the ground game to the money game, 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.480 we go to Yeah and the eleven thousand political groups 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.439 that have spent nearly fifteen billion dollars to influence the 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.080 twenty twenty four election. It brings us to a great 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.280 deep dive into the money that runs the US political systems. 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.280 It's an interact story. It's best read on the Bloomberg 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:05.079 terminal or online, so I encourage everybody to do that. 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.680 It's also, Carol one story that's really important understanding who's 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.439 spending to support the process and the candidates. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:13.520 You've been talking about this story a lot, and we 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:15.080 talked about it a lot on our call this morning. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.800 Let's bring in Bloomberg News campaign finance reporter Bill Allison. 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.760 He is in Washington. We should note that Michael Bloomberg, 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.840 the founder majority owner of Bloomberg News parent company Bloomberg 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.720 LP and Bloomberg Philanthropy is has given money to several 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.079 political groups, including House Majority Pack, Future Forward Pack, and 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.480 every Town for Gun Safety Victory Fund. All right, Bill, 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.480 so let's get to your reporting, great and informative deep 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.320 dive into all the money in the twenty twenty four election. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.839 Tell us how you went about reporting this story out, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.000 What you looked at, what you found out. 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.360 Well, first of all, it was wrangling this data was 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.200 one of the hardest things we ever did, in part 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.160 because committees give so much money to each other. I mean, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.880 there's you know, the if you look at the main 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.040 Senate super PACs that they're spending tons of money, and 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.480 the Senate battlegrounds. You know, there's a group called Win 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:07.120 Senate which is backing Democrats, but it's actually funded by 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.679 the Senate Majority Pack, which is tied closely to to 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:11.760 Charles Schumer. So we basically the first thing we did 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:13.439 was to try to get all of that double counting 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.880 out of the numbers and really just focus on the 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:17.520 money that was coming in and the money that was 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.839 going out and uh, and what we found is is 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.040 that you know, there's there's a hundred committees that are 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.880 really the most active that are spending you know, close 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.839 to a third of the money in this election. And 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.080 it and you know, the it's just we've just seen 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.760 blockbuster amounts of money being spent. It's going to it's 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.839 most likely going to set the record, it's on track 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.679 to set the record for for the most expensive election ever, 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.400 even more than twenty twenty when you had a huge 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:52.240 attic field for the primaries and uh for the general election. 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.640 It's there's just the amounts of money that are being spent. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:56.199 Or just staggering. 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.520 Yeah, fifteen billion dollars is just a mind boggling number. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.599 I wonder though, how we got here, Bill, Is this 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.320 all a result of that twenty ten Supreme Court Citizens 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:07.480 United decision. 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.200 That's a big part of which got rid of soft 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.200 money to the parties. We had things like Swift vet 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.839 Vote Swiss, Swift Vote, Swift Vote Vets, Yeah, which was 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.199 the group that went after John Kerry. We had on 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.960 the left, we had a bunch of different They were 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.959 called Section five twenty seven organizations, and they basically ran 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.520 negative ads without using the words vote for, vote against, 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.719 which was fine under Citizens United. So, you know, I 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:35.800 think that the amount of money in politics, you know, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.400 was always going to be I mean, it's there's so 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:40.839 much at stake in a federal election, whether it's you know, 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.719 control of Congress, control of the House, the Senate, or 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.240 the White House, that you know, interests just pour tons 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:48.040 and tons of money in. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:50.520 One of the things that I always think about, you know, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:52.439 on a story like this, Bill is yep, I think 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.959 about you know, the final dollar amount. That's serious, serious money, 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.280 and we all see it in the you know, campaigns 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.719 and ads that have been bombarding us. Having said that, 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.280 I also think about influence, and I do wonder in 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:06.839 terms of where a lot or the bulk of the 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:11.240 money came from. What were those entities were it? You know, 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:13.160 we know about Elon Musk. Can we keep talking about 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.000 the billionaires that are in the election, But where did 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.240 most of the money come from? Where is most of 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.680 the influence coming from in this in this campaign? 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:22.840 Boy? 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.800 That's you know, there's there's a huge base of small 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.040 dollar donors that are giving, you know, that are accounting 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.520 for you know, billions of dollars the amount of the total. 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.520 And those folks really aren't you know, they're much more 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.679 ideological givers. And I think at the upper end of 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:40.640 the spectrum too. And it's kind of funny that you 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.080 mentioned Elon Musk when you're talking to Ted Man. He's 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.120 he started as a very transactional giver. He gave to 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:51.240 the Obama campaign, but relatively small amounts for him, certainly, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.200 like fifty thousand dollars I think was what he gave 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.240 to the Obama Victory Fund in two thousand and eight. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.600 And he gave to politicians who could help his business estress, 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.880 whether it was SpaceX or ESLA. And now he's become 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.960 kind of much more of an ideological giver. The way 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.439 he talks about politics. You know, it's it's and I 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.520 think you see this kind of across the board. You know, 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.839 we did the story earlier on fair Shake the Crypto Superpack, 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.599 and you know it's supporting Democrats and Republicans based on 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.120 where you stand on Crypto. And one of the big 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.880 donors to that to Fairshake was a big Democratic donor 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.640 who got very angry when he found out that they 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:31.800 were going against Shared Brown because he says that the 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.760 cher Brown has to win his seat to hold the Senate, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.160 and he stopped giving to the super pac. And I 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.600 think this kind of really shows how ideological and how 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.920 Democrat versus Republican and just kind of in the same 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.760 way that the country is really starkly divided, donors are 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.840 starkly divided between, you know, the visions for the country. 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.280 Bill big money versus small money. What's the story there? 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.040 Certainly the big money from folks like Elon Musk and 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.360 the Light get a lot of attention, But small money 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.439 donations have powered the Trump campaign in the past. How 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:07.640 did do this year and how did Harris' campaign do 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:08.640 with small money donors? 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.800 Actually, Harris's campaign is doing better, I mean with with Trump. 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.079 You know, in the past, he got much more support 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.400 from small dollar donors. I was giving less than two 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.360 hundred dollars in aggregate for the election. Maybe, you know, 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.760 it's not just people. If you give like ten dollars 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.040 twenty one times, you're a you're an itemized donor. So 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.000 he's gotten like a ton of support from people who 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.440 don't didn't give very much in both twenty sixteen and 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.280 twenty twenty, and much more from from millionaires this year. 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:38.680 It's it's the millionaires or people making donations of a 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.120 million dollars or more. Cause a lot of more billionaires 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.040 we're doing that. They're the ones who are really fueling 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.920 his campaign. He's his outside money. There's about I think 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.200 it's close to seven hundred million dollar dollars that are 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.080 in outside money going to super packs compared to about 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:57.440 three hundred and fifty million that he's raised for his campaign. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.400 So he's doing much better now with wealth donors than 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.080 he is with the small dollar donors. Part of that 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.760 might be inflation that's hit his donor base, and part 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:09.760 of it might be that just you know, the appeal 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.400 isn't the same. You know, he's been hitting these people 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.720 up in the same people since, you know, since he 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.720 won the nomination in twenty sixteen. Yeah, and you know, 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:20.280 you wonder if he's gone to the well one too 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:20.880 many times. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.880 Great stuff, Bill, Thank you, Thank you so much. Bill Allison, 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:29.160 Bloomberg News Campaign Finance reporter, joining us there from Washington, 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:29.560 d C. 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.200 You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.960 each weekday. He's starting at two pm Eastern on Apple 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.920 car Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Ad. 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.000 You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.360 flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty. 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.520 The other thing that is, you know, thinking about the election, 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:54.360 and I feel like it's safe to say that it's 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.760 been a big piece of the election, whether it's concerns 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.720 or actuality of it. Is just our own Bloomberg News 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.680 team reporting out how it has been permeating the US 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.760 presidential election on an unprecedented scale, with online instigators escalating 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.120 doubts about the integrity of the electoral process as millions 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.800 of Americans have been casting their ballots. So there's been 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.880 a big question tim about can you trust the vote? 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.440 And that's exactly that Bloomberg News technology reporter Austin Carr 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.880 tried to answer. He's set to figure it out. It's 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.640 all in his Bloomberg BusinessWeek story about how US voting 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.920 machines became safer than ever. Austin joins us from the 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.600 Bloomberg News bureau in Boston. Austin tell us about Chip 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:40.600 Troutbridge and the Clear Ballot Group. So Clear Ballot is 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.480 a startup that's based in Boston. It's about a decade 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.200 holl It's backed by Best Summer Ventures, and it's one 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.160 of the companies that's trying to compete with Dominion, the 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.640 sort of larger incumbent in the space, which you would 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.920 think would make them a very tech forward sort of 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.960 player in the voting machines. But it actually turns out 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:00.720 that I spent some time with the team. They're both 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.320 their office in Boston as well as their factory in 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.639 New Hampshire, and it turns out they're really pushing a 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:09.440 paper centric approach, just as a lot of election vendors 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.040 are doing themselves. It's actually turns out that paper marking 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.960 things physically and keeping an audit trail is incredibly safe, 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.080 and so a lot of the technology that's being invested 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.280 into this industry is really around tabulating votes rather than 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.640 changing actually how we're marking them in a very old 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.080 school way with pens and paper, so meaning that we 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.919 are going to be using paper ballots for the foreseeable future. 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:30.080 Correct. 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:33.280 I mean, it's really funny you hear. You hear a 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.760 lot of noise from you know, people like Elon Musk 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.399 saying that, you know, voting machines are super vulnerable to 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.439 hacking and connected to the Internet, and we should move 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:43.520 back to paper, and a lot of people I talk 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.120 to you say, you know what I mean, These voting 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.040 machines are, for the majority of them, are not connected 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.359 to the Internet, and about ninety eight percent of ballots 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.200 will be cast on paper tomorrow. So it's actually a 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.200 very paper centric approach, which I think sort of cuts 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:57.760 against a lot of the noise you hear around how 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.600 much hacking and manipulation and all these that are apparently 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:03.879 going to corrupt the election, just as they did in 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.640 twenty twenty from some of the more conspiratorial voices we heard. 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:08.600 All Right, so I'm just playing Devil's advocate. Why do 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.840 we care what Chip has to say? And what Clear 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.680 Ballot group has to say as we think about how 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:15.399 safe our voting process is. 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.960 So Chip Troutbridge is the CTO of Clear Ballot. He 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.400 came from a company called in Deco, which was later 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.879 acquired by Oracle. They're very good at data analytics, and 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.000 in fact Clear Ballot got it start auditing elections. What 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.840 their technology originally does is sort of scan all the 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.440 paper ballots. You know, when you get to a voting 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.280 booth and you mark it down with a sharpie and 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.040 a kind of gleat bleach to the paper. Maybe you 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.399 just check it off, maybe you scribble, maybe you're a 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.120 person who inadvertently circles the choice of the candidate you want. Well, 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.200 this technology scans all those ballots and provides a visualization 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.200 of all of them digitally, so if there are votes 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.160 that are a little bit less clear, they can actually 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:54.320 view them on a computer. But it's just sort of 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.399 a corresponding sort of representation, a digital image of the 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.720 physical paper ballot. That's just helping to speed up the 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:03.879 process so there aren't long delays when they have to 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.320 do recounts or post election audits. 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.000 No no, no, yes, and forgive me go ahead, please? 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.680 Oh just so the longer there is between sort of 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.560 the time that votes are cast and when election results 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.320 are given, that's what a lot of conspiracies fill that void. 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.000 People start thinking something must be nefarious happening when actuality 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.080 is just there's a lot of bureaucracy and slow moving 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.920 of mechanisms that keep canvassing very slow. So this technology 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:31.320 is designed to speed it up and make it a 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:33.960 lot faster. But again it's still fundamentally a paper based 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:35.119 voting system. 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.480 So if paper based is the thing, I mean the idea, 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:40.760 is hanging chads something that we have to be worried 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:42.800 about in the future. We all remember or not everybody 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.360 maybe remembers, right, it's twenty twenty four. That was back 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.440 in two thousand, but that was quite a fiasco, unexpected 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.960 and some say we it played out differently, we might 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:55.480 have had a different president in the White House. But 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.200 do we have to be worried about something like hanging chads? Though? 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:03.440 No, so that actually after the two thousand Florida fiasco. 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.800 Those were based on mechanical levers. So those are the 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.640 punch cards that you have, those hanging chads from physically 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.640