Nick Troyano with Unit America is going to be at a debate tonight at DU I believe I looked earlier and there was still some tickets left. Nick Troyano, who's joining me now? But I've got information about it on the blog today, Nick, can we do a rapid speed round of question and answer about Prop one thirty one?
Happy to Mandy first of all, tell my listeners briefly what it does.
This makes two changes to our elections that will give voters a lot more choice and power in their elections. The first is in the primary instead of you're an independent choosing between a Democratic or Republican primary, and everybody gets one ballot, and you can vote for the person, not the party. You can vote for anyone of any party for any office. And then the second change is that the top four finishers go to the general election, where you have the option of ranking them, not just
choosing one. And this ensures that whoever wins does so with majority support through an instant runoff process. The combination of these reforms mean that no longer will just five percent of the electorate to determine the outcome of most races and low turnout primaries but our elections will be decided in a November election when most voters cast their ballots and will get leaders who actually represent a majority of.
Us because we have districts in Colorado, both Democrat and Republican, that are considered so called safe districts, so they are essentially decided in the primary.
Correct. Yeah.
The sad reality is I can go through the list of all of our legislative seats and with one hundred percent accuracy for eighty percent of them, tell you who will win today, a week more than a week out from when any votes will be tallied. That's because most of these legislative seats are locked for one party or another, and the low turnout primary determines the outcomes back in June.
So in this system, if you did not want to rank your camp, say you've got candidate ABC and D. A is your candidate BC and D or communist? You don't want to vote for those people. If you don't vote for two, three, and four, what happens to your ballot?
Does it still get counted?
Your ballot absolutely gets counted. And in this scenario that none of the four candidates get an outright majority of support, it's the candidate with the least amount of votes that get eliminated, and then you look to that candidate's second choice, their supporters second choice vote, and redistribute an until someone
emerges with a majority. So it's to your advantage to rank more because if it goes into this runoff period of time, your vote will still be in the running, but you don't have to.
So one of the things that I get asked about a lot, and I'm just going to read this text message that I just got because this really encapsulates it personally perfectly.
One moment.
Please, Mandy, if one thirty one passes, Colorado will be one party rule within five years, how do you respond to that?
It's actually the opposite. This is going to create more healthy competition between both political parties and may even level the playing field for candidates to compete from outside the
two major political parties. And that's because we have something called the spoiler effect in our current system, where those who want to vote for an independent or a third party candidate fear that if they do, they'll take away a vote from their second preferred candidate and wind up helping to elect their least preferred Under this system, you actually get to vote your values and your views and express a fuller preference of your vote.
That seems to be the biggest concern is that people say in Denver, they always use Denver as an example. In Denver, a Republican will never be on the ballot, to which I respond, is there a chance of Republicans going to get elected in Denver?
Right now? So let's be real.
I mean, I'm not trying to be flippant, but is there no, there isn't what I see happening here is this? If it works, Nick, and God, I want this to work, okay, because I've really toss this around in my brain, trying to look at all the potential outcomes, all the potential positives,
all the potential negatives. I believe that if candidates get it, and if candidates campaign in the right way, meaning they try to cast a broad net right, they try to campaign to everyone, this could fundamentally change the way elections are in this country. Is that the only reason? Look, why did you guys launch this in the first place? What are the underlying motives here?
One motive is to give voters a ballot that truly matters. You know, I've looked at my ballot today, I got in the mail. I live in Denver. Most of these races, virtually all of them have already been decided in the Democratic primary. So this reform is really about making sure that when you vote in November, you have more choices
on your ballot, and your ballot actually matters. The second reason why we're proposing this reform is because it changes the incentives of candidates and elected leaders, to your point, to incentivize them to reach out to a roder coalition of voters to get elected, so that when they're in office, they're actually trying to represent a true majority of us, not just pandered to the five percent of the base of their party that they need to stay in the
good graces with to stay in office. So it's good for voters and it's good for governance. And that's why we think this is a pro democracy, nonpartisan reform. You can tell a lot by an idea, a boy who opposes it, and both major parties oppose it, Ndor Bennett Lauren Bobert. What do they have in common? Not much. They want to protect their own power. This is a pro voter, pro people reform.
Why shouldn't the two parties continue to decide how we do our primaries.
Well, we have to disentangle the role that parties play from the role that our elections should play. Right now, to use a sort of sports analogy, we have two teams that are also deciding the rules of the league and are trying to be the umpires and enforcing those rules. We have to separate this out so that the parties are participating in our democracy, but they don't control our
our elections. Our elections belong to voters, and under this system, a government run, taxpayer funded process, this will give voters a lot more choice and power in their elections. Parties, by the way, can still continue their core function. They can recruit, support and endorse candidates as they do today.
The last question I have, and then we'll talk about tonight's event real quick, how could rank choice voting be manipulated by someone? And this is a common theory that I hear from listeners that they're worried somebody is going to run as a conservative and then take away a bunch of votes from an actual conservative. How do you see or how could this be manipulated? Have you guys thought about any of that?
Well, there's no perfect system, but ranked choice voting in general elections will reduce a lot of the gamesmanship that we see today. Republicans sometimes run and support Green Party candidates, and Democrats do the same with libertarians to peel off some votes and manage themselves in the general election. That won't be possible or much less likely under this current system,
because voters can still rank a second preference. Likewise, there's been plenty of stories about how Democrats have spent millions of dollars within Republican primaries to support the most extreme Republican to advantage themselves in general elections. That too, is greatly mitigated under this new system because four candidates will get to the general election. So, again, no perfect system, but this proposal actually reduces a lot of the gamesmanship that we see today.
All right, Nick.
Freyano with United America on the show. Right now, I lied, I have one work because this text just came in. Another common thing not true. Once your candidate is eliminated, if you haven't ranked either candidates on your ballot, your ballot is exhausted and your vote is not counted towards the final vote tabulation?
Is that accurate?
That is and That's what I did say earlier, which is why I think we encourage people to fill out their full ballot. But you have to compare it again to the current system. If you vote for saying independent our third party candidate, you don't have the ability to put a second choice if that candidate doesn't win and your current vote is exhausted. So relative to the current system, this allows people to have a much fuller and much more powerful say and who represents them.
Let me make sure that I am clear on this.
So your first initial vote doesn't count towards the tabulation if you don't rank the other candidates.
No, No, your first choice absolutely does.
So your vote count, you just don't. You don't weigh in on anything else. If you choose not to correct.
If that race goes to a runoff, and if you choose not to rank any of the candidates that are in that runoff, then of course your other preferences don't count. It's almost like you're voting here in Denver and the mayor's race, and the race goes to a runoff. If you don't show up the second time, your vote doesn't count. So we would encourage you to do that under this system.
The only difference is instead of asking you to come back to the polls again, we allow you to to rank your backup preferences at that time.
Nick Treyona is my guest. Nick, we're almost out a time. Let's talk about what's happening tonight at you.
Yeah, so we're squaring off against some opponents of Prop. Thirty one. We're looking forward to a good conversation and debate about this topic. And I think the biggest difference between proponents and opponents of the system is how much we trust voters. Do we trust them with more power in our system? Do we trust them that they are capable of ranking candidates one, two, three on their ballot? Proponents say yes, and that this is going to be
good for voters and good for the state of Colorado. Uh.
Nick TREONO, I appreciate what you guys are doing. I am a solid yes on Prop one thirty one, and I'm trying to encourage others to do the same. What we've got now For the person who said we'll have one party rule in five years, yeah.
Look around. That's what we have now in Colorado.
And the incompetence of the Republican Party is not going to change that anytime soon.
Nick, I hope the debate goes well tonight.
And hopefully we'll talk after this passes about what it's look like. Since the Democratic and Republican legislature decided to ban this before the voters even had a chance to vote on it, we'll talk about that later.
Thanks, Mandy.
That's Nick Torewna with Unite America.