Welcome, welcome. I'm not sure expert, I'm DAX Shepard, I'm cutie pie. Oh, no, don't subscribe to Daksha, joined by Mónika Padmini then. This is an episode of Experts on Expert. By the way, not to keep teasing this out, but we're getting so close to having some other shows and I'm so excited about it.

Not naughty stuff. Well, well, it is a little bit not grody. Naughty. Well, we'll see.

OK, today we have on Aaron Geiger's Smith. Aaron is a reporter that writes for publications including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She has a book out, very, very timely called Thank You for Voting. It's a look at the past, present and future of voting, examining the long and continuing fight for voting equality and why so few Americans today vote. And innovative ways to educate and motivate them included our checklist of what to do before Election Day to prepare to vote and encourage others.

This is a nonpartisan book not telling you who to vote for. No, just hey, we live in a democracy and let's party with a vote. So please enjoy Miss Aaron Smith. We are supported by honey we all know and love, honey.

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He's adoption's. Hi. Hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Aaron. How's everything? Everything is good. Where are we talking to you at? I am in New York City. Oh, OK. And you're a Texan by birth?

I am a Texan by birth. Probably. The longer we're chatting, the more the Texan will sound and does it.

The saying go American by birth. Texan by the grace of God. Yes. I mean that is absolutely the bumper sticker.

Your hair's not tall enough to be Texan.

I never had it. I have strayed fine here. And when I was in junior high, I would try to do the work to not once try to wrap those bangs.

Yeah, yeah.

I did my best. The Perm's all the things and just didn't work. I just had mine touched up, got real good. Trying to encourage Monica to shave the side of her head to go punk rock.

But I can't be peer pressured so I will be. It's a commitment I feel like yeah.

It's going to be a year or two before you have hair there again in any substantial length.

No, thank you. OK, that's a pass. So this is a very timely and wonderful topic to be covering with you, Aaron, as we are fastly approaching Election Day. And you've written a book called Thank You for Voting The Maddening, Enlightening, Inspiring Truth About Voting in America. And I think maybe we should go through this chronologically and just start with democracy in general. Yeah, the good old Greeks invented it, as I understand it.

They did. They were the first to have it, you know, limited voting even then. And who could be a citizen to males?

What is it? Hellenistic. Yes. Yes. So just men.

Yeah, we're citizens. So it took women and anyone, not male a long time to get out there, get to vote, have our rights acknowledged as how I like to say it. The rights were always there, SAFTA, if not right.

Sometimes you will or I in the past have tweeted something about democracy. And there's this faction of people that love to tweet back at me. This is not a democracy. It's a republic, which. Yeah, but that's not antithetical to democracy. Right? There's direct democracy where every single word that would get passed through Congress, all three hundred thirty million of us would vote and we would do that. Yeah. I guess around the clock three sixty five.

And then we have a representative democracy which is we elect somebody through voting to carry out our agreed upon agenda. Right. And then within that, that it's broken into fifty states which was one time much fewer. And so and also historically I want to get into because people will bring it up and it's very it's a valid point, which is a lot of the founding fathers did not actually want democracy, as we might think of it. They were not envisioning every single member of the new country to vote.

And in fact, there's safeguards built into the system that would have protected against their fears.

Right. You know, they knew that they didn't want a monarchy and they wanted some sort of representative government. But the founding fathers were, you know, generally for keeping the power where it was, which was with them. So at the time the country got going, it was mostly white males that were property owners that could vote. One thing I learned during this book was in 1776, there were actually situations where women and free black men could vote and really limited circumstances.

What were some of those? Well, in New Jersey is a state that women can vote right at the beginning of the country. Oh, and free black men. But in eighty seven, they cut that off. New Jersey changed their state constitution so that period of glory ended. But I think the reason that that is interesting is because it shows that the idea of women and people of color voting was around from the start. I think so often we think, oh, people have to grow into it or the world is so different and it has to change.

And people accept the idea of it was like, no, people had the idea. Aha. And Abigail Adams pushed John Adams right from the start in 1776 to give women more rights and consider women because they were writing the laws. And John wrote back and was like, oh, he was like, you're so saucy. Let's say he literally was like, here's their stuff.

So in retaliation, she started up a sexy correspondence with his archrival Jefferson. Right.

I mean, she said she would foment a rebellion and maybe that's what she meant.

I guess as I understand it from Alexander Hamilton's point of view, there is this underlying threat in a true democracy, which is that the majority at any point, let's say fifty point zero zero one percent, could vote to take away all of the wealth and property and holdings of the upper class. That could be something that could be done quite easily if we had a direct democracy. Right. And so they feared. That is that what gives rise to the Electoral College, the electoral college is besides noting that it's a weird thing, America is the only democracy that has this.

We're very unique. So there's a lot of debate on why they actually decided to have it. Many think it was a nod to the slaveholding states to make sure that they were fully represented because their free population was lower than states in the north. So it was this nod to southern states can still have sort of equal rights and representative to Electoral College states. One of the main reasons they had it, though, was because they didn't have TV news and radio and there just wasn't a way to get information to everybody or for candidates to introduce themselves to everyone in the constant way we have now.

Well, and even what literacy rates back then? Exactly. Very low. So people could even learn about the candidates in a newspaper. But the kind of word of mouth.

Yeah, and even newspapers weren't national. You know, everything was local. So getting people information and then having a nationwide vote and counting the votes and getting it to one place was just like logistically the main reason for the Electoral College. Yeah. And then and the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton has this quote that was really passed around in twenty sixteen where he's saying, you know, it will protect us from someone who's just popular, you know, will be able to only have serious men if we have the Electoral College.

But even that people think Hamilton was potentially trying to come up with a good reason to have it after the fact of the already created it for the popular vote reason. So even though that federalist paper, quote, looks so dead on of the Electoral College is there to protect the country if something goes really awry. But really, the main reason is the.

Well, yeah, depending on what side of the aisle you're on, you would argue that that, in fact, did not protect us from that. Right. Again, whatever side you're on.

I'm sure each side could point to a moment where the Electoral College I keep saying electorial. Does anyone like that? Should we change it? Let's do it.

Let's just I mean, people want to change it anyway. So let's just change what it's called. I'm all about that.

I also think something really kind of relevant to just lay down historically is that so much of the Constitution was driven by the fact that the South was far more wealthy than the North. Right. So much of the wealth existed in the South, although, as you point out, the population wasn't really there. So there were many things that the North was very reliant on the South because they were so wealthy, hence D.C. being put in the south and all these little provisions along the way that are concessions to who had the money at the time.

Yeah, they were trying hard to figure out a way to make something very complicated work, and it involved a lot of sacrifices and maybe some bad deals, depending on your perspective and voting wise, it obviously took a really long time for it to make things a little more equal in that arena. I mean, the 15th Amendment, which acknowledged black men's right to vote or that you can't be discriminated against based on race, was ratified in 1870. So, you know, we're talking from 1776 to 1870 before this first big voting rights edition.

So voting wise, it took a long time.

So it's one hundred years roughly of just white males voting.

Yeah, more or less. I mean, there's like some exceptions, but yeah, 1870 is the big marker of expansion. I mean, the northern states allowed black men to vote at different stages from 1776, 1870. There was like push and pull and granted and taken away. But by the civil war time, a lot of northern states allow black men to vote. But the largest black population was obviously in the south.

And what's the history of the day that we vote? Why is it that day?

It's a Tuesday in November because of farmers. You know, as so much as this country is, because Wednesday was generally the day, I think that they would bring their stuff to markets to sell. OK, Sunday didn't travel for religious reasons. You know, everybody stayed home. And so having on Tuesday would give people time to get where they need to be, but not mess up their work. And then November, because you're less likely to be in the seven day work week for farmers because.

Right. So you're not you're not planting or harvesting early in November.

So that's why it has stayed that way for decades and decades and decades.

Yeah, I have read that it took some for some people it was a full day's because had Monday to get there. Tuesday. Yeah. So you might be leaving at sunrise on Monday to get there Tuesday with no iPads for the kids. It sounds like a nightmare.

Well only Dad was going thank goodness. Well, you know, voting was like a party day in the earliest part of the country, especially like in the mid eighteen hundreds, elections were held in tavan. So it was like a party.

How did they count and what did they vote on? Like what was the dragon like assets as it was sometimes by voice. So like Kentucky voter by voice, I think until it's like eighteen eighty seven. Fact check that Monaca for you for the great divide. Yeah. So by voice or you know by Pebble or at a certain point it turned over to actual papers. But at first you brought your own paper so the government didn't provide a ballot. You brought your own paper.

Oh OK. And that's where we get the term party ticket because parties figured out if I give you the paper tax and then you just turn it in and it'll make things easier. So it looked like a train ticket and it had everything checked off for the particular party.

So that's where we get that party ticket term was all the local and statewide and federal voting linked at that point still and in the early days, were you voting for just the president and the vice president or were you what were you voting for?

No, I mean, definitely we would vote for senator and Congress, although how each state did it really evolved over time and some states were more sophisticated and some of it was different. But definitely those things were all on the ballot early, which when they started having the popular vote for that, it still has to be pretty early because, you know, for the Electoral College is for president only, obviously. So the people had to vote on those other things.

Some states could have different mechanisms for how they chose them, though. Right. All of this even talking about voting today. Every state does things so differently because that's the way that our republic is set up.

Yeah, I have a lot of questions about that, like what freedoms they have. And I guess I'm just now because it's in the news, learning of many states have already in place different systems that would not exist in other states. And I guess I was expecting some kind of federal guideline for state voting. But it appears not because, for instance, I know Oregon. Right. Has already long installed these ballot boxes, right? Yeah. In Utah, I think has ballot boxes.

Who who all has ballot boxes and when when do they start this round?

A ton of states do, but Oregon has voted by mail for a really long time. Colorado has votes nearly completely by mail. You can still register and vote in person on Election Day and Colorado and some other states. But Colorado has had them. California has had them for multiple years.

That's why this sort of madness that surrounded vote by mail for this election season since coronavirus is so interesting to people who are sitting in states like Utah and Oregon are like what? We just of course, we vote by mail. It's easily done. Yeah, but what I think it's done is really open everyone's eyes to how crazy different these systems are. So I'm from Texas and I knew in Texas we've been able to early vote for a long time. But in New York, this is the first presidential election we can vote early at all.

We had no early voting, period. So. Yeah, so which is pretty crazy, right?

Well, really quick, what did that mean in practice? So if you if you had an is it the same in New York as California, which is I have had an absentee ballot for the last two or three elections because often we've been out of town or out of the country. And so that's how we voted Christiani I for the last couple few elections. Is that how it works in New York as well?

You could have applied for absentee you apply for absentee ballot, but in New York, you had to have an excuse. So you had to say, I will be out of town. It couldn't be because like, oh, I'm worried I have a big meeting that day or whatever. Yeah, you had to say I'm going to be out of town so any state you can vote absentee if you need to before and forever, like it started with soldiers in the civil war being able to vote absentee.

So what it meant in New York was if you weren't going to be out of town, you show up on Election Day, you know, I could mail in that ballot any time I wanted once it arrived.

In fact, mine already arrived right before I left to visit Michigan so I could mail that in at any time. Are you saying in New York you could have mailed it in at any time, but they wouldn't have started to count those until Election Day? Is that the difference between early voting and what is the distinction?

Oh, early voting is early voting in person so you can all go and just vote in-person as you would on Election Day. That's in Texas. You can do that in Georgia. We've been seeing all these lines. A lot of states have early voting where you just can go to your polling place might be different than it is on Election Day, but it's effectively the exact same thing, whereas an absentee, absentee or mail in which is the same thing, you actually mail it in.

And yeah, once you get your ballot, you can mail it and whatever. If you haven't the PSA to fill it out and send it in as early as possible or drop it off to a lot of people who are.

I want to be standing in a horrendous line or they have covered concerns and maybe they don't want to use Maylin for whatever reason. How do people find out if their state is an early election and if they could just be going now or get out of the way?

Yeah, a great site is Vote for One One Dog, which is the League of Women Voters site. So it's nonpartisan. Just all the info you need.

Well, female agenda clearly to take down the white male Patro and now they've wrapped in even males needs a full, full service organization, the League of Women Voters.

One hundred years old this year. Oh, wow. It was tied to women's suffrage, the 19th women's suffrage amendment. Also one hundred this year, so. That's right.

Oh, no kidding. I think that would shock some people who aren't historically inclined is that the women didn't get a right to vote for another 50 years after black Americans got a right to vote.

But what is sort of crazy about that fact to the women's movement to get suffrage was more than 70 years. So it was happening before that 1870 amendment for black men. And it actually the women's movement kind of started because women fought for the abolition of slavery and sort of found their voices as they made that argument. And so the movements were tied somewhat together. But then some of the leaders of the women's movement were pretty unhappy when that 1870 amendment didn't include don't discriminate on the basis of sex.

And so that caused friction between the women of the movement who were OK with black men getting the right to vote first. And it was an extremely interesting time in history. But yeah, even then, it took women from 1870 to 1920 to achieve the right to vote. And it was just like a generational knocked down.

And then another six years to outlaw booze. Right, that the movements were tied. You're absolutely right that those movements were tied together.

It was.

Yeah, part of it was. And not all suffragists refer prohibition, etcetera, etcetera, but part of it because women had so few rights. And if they had a husband who was drinking too much or couldn't hold a job or all of the things that might come with drinking too much, they couldn't protect themselves at all and they couldn't have custody of their kids.

All go further. They were most certainly the main victim of a drunken physical outburst. So their safety was greatly diminished by these drunken men with all the political power.

Right.

Who couldn't be arrested for beating them if they did. So many needed the right to vote for that reason. And then if they were in the workforce, you know, they needed a fight for their protections, too. And child labor laws were a big reason that women wanted the right to vote because men didn't give a shit that were working.

Well, it was it was at least an argument that in states that did allow women to vote before 1920 because states could let women vote before the nation did so, a lot of Western states did. But one of the arguments for nationwide women's suffrage was those states that let women vote supposedly had better child labor laws. So that was at least in the women's argument to have it. So all of that movement of women working and prohibition, and it's all tied together in really interesting ways.

Yeah.

OK, so now back to going to vote for one one for one big you can search by state and then you can actually look up everything that's on your ballot there, too, which is really important because ballots can be extremely long and you don't know those people down at the bottom.

I think of myself as like at least in the upper 50 percent of being informed because I talked to a lot of smart people. I look at the ballot that just came in. You know, I know the top three rungs of it.

Yeah, that's especially you guys in California have an exceptionally long one. So they'll tell you what's on your ballot.

They have candidates answer the same questions. So that could be helpful. If you have ballot initiatives, do you want a new road X or a high speed train or whatever? They'll help you break down what the language actually means, because sometimes those ballot initiatives are written in a way that you're like, I don't know if I want.

Oh, yes.

Well, I think it was Prop eight, the California law. It was like the way that was worded is like some people didn't even know if they were voting to ban gay marriage permanently or.

Yeah, it was it was very nuts. Yeah. Why don't you whatever Prop eight was if you wanted. No. You needed to vote yes or yes. You know, like yes. I was insane.

Yeah. It was like a no on Prop eight is a yes to gay marriage to hold on. I hope I don't get this wrong. Yeah. No, it's terrifying or they'll just be two paragraphs. But the question is, do we need to stop at Main and 2nd streets. Right. So the League of Women Voters will help you out there.

Also just add is these, quote, foundations or the people, the organizations paying for the thing are also crazy misleading. Right, because it could. Do you like the Gay Marriage Equality Foundation vote yes on Prop eight? You know, it's so so I did this hour long BBC show, which was exciting and terrifying at the same time. And the woman on with me, this is a made up name, but it was like the American Constitution Society.

But then when I Googled because I was surprised by the views of someone from the American constitutional society, their mission was to fight any change or I mean, like whatever the mission was, was so the opposite of the Constitution. I was like that. I hope you guys see the subtitle guys that it did. It did not work, but vote for on one dog will also tell you early voting. You can find your polling place. It will tell you if you need an ID.

So some states need an ID and it has to be a specific ID. So all that you need to vote can be there. And I mean, this is a plug for the book. But true, because I wanted to be practical. There's a checklist in the back of thank you for voting that tells you what to do 40, 30, 10 days ahead and then on Election Day. So you can, like, check those boxes.

How many of the 50 states allow early voting?

It's a significant about it. I think it's more than 30.

Oh, OK, great. So the odds are you live in a state that has early voting and I'm seeing this new thing being promoted, which is like voting plan. I don't know that I've ever heard that being promoted as much is is creating a voting plan. Is that a new concept?

It's not a new concept, but obnoxious voting. People like me have really made it a focus this year because this year, more than ever, you have to figure out more things than you thought. Even the most educated and regular voter is this year. Like, why should I vote by mail or. Yeah, so the idea is if you really plan something out and put it on your calendar, you're just more likely to do it right. And that, you know, we know that by human nature and they know it by data.

So the idea is to take the time to look up whether you should vote by mail, whether you should vote early, write it down, make your plan, put it on a calendar as friends to join you.

And it'll just yeah, the analogy I would make is like, you can't have the goal of I want to lose weight and then there's there's no plan. It just won't happen. Exactly.

I know that. I'm noticing that here covid scenario.

What are the reasons states don't have it? Like what is their excuse for not offering early voting? I mean, even like New York, if this is the first year New York's a fairly progressive place, I'm surprised.

Yeah. I'm going to give you the same answer I gave. I did a kids podcast and they asked me why there hasn't been a girl president. And the answer to both of these questions is there's a lot of reasons, but no good reason. It's just that people in power often like to stay in power. And if you expand voting and make voting more convenient, then people who didn't vote for you might show up and you have a chance to lose your power.

I mean, it's just New York is like a machine state, sort of still. It's such a blue state, especially in New York City, that there just hasn't been a lot of reason to expand or change the voting laws. So early voting, there isn't any true good reason not to have it. There hasn't been the motivation to have it.

That's a great point. And that'll allow me to make a semi nonpartisan argument. And again, I'm of this opinion because I'm on the left. So it makes sense that I have this opinion. But I am very, very pro. If you live in a democracy, consensus should rule the day. Yeah, everyone should vote. That's what a democracy is. Now, that serves my cause because we know if we pull that the left has a big advantage in the popular vote, young people who don't vote, they generally would vote laughs.

So our side of the aisle is very incentivized to get as many people to vote as possible. And then quite clearly, if you're on the right, there is no incentive to get all the people to vote in states that are entirely blue like New York, they, too, aren't incentivized to extend voting because it's going the way they want sovereignty and they just want to say no one has a monopoly on and when it's convenient for them to get everyone to vote.

Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. And that's exactly what happened in New York. And New York is obviously considered a very progressive state, but our voting laws have long been out of touch. And because of that, we have really low voter turnout rate in New York. I mean, what's really interesting about all these different voting laws is states that do pride themselves on voting, try to have more access to the polls, do things like same day registration.

A lot of states have same day registration where you can register the day you vote, which makes sense, especially if you're a new voter and haven't voted before.

You kind of think it's election day. Let's go. Yeah, but places like Texas that have a 30 day cutoff for voting, you know, their turnout rate is only it was fifty a little more than.

Fifty percent in 2016 and nationwide, turnout was about 60 percent, and Minnesota, which has this big voting culture, there's with seventy two percent, Michigan has sixty five percent turnout in twenty sixteen and had gone red for the first time that I could remember being from Michigan, you know, but because it's a swing state, people really wanted to show up and vote.

So these the laws aren't going to tell you exactly what turnout is going to be. There's going to be a lot of factor. But you know, if you have convenient voting laws, you more people are likely to vote.

So let's go through really quickly, I think, to the history of like, OK, so black Americans get the right to vote, but then immediately thereafter, we see all kinds of different things. So a poll tax was one of them, right? To register to vote, you had to be able to guess how many jellybeans were in a jar.

The creativity that people put into keeping black people from voting is really astonishing. I mean, there was one in Florida where they had a ballot box for each of the races. So you had to fill out eight different ballots, put it in the right box. But of course, the boxes were labeled. So if you couldn't read, you can do it. And then sometimes they would switch the order of the boxes like midday just for fun. So, like, if you went in and voted and then came and said, Aaron, I know you can't read.

So these are the boxes. You know, it was just like the creativity was insane. So, yeah, eighteen sixty five to eighteen seventy five. We had a real renaissance of many black people being registered and voting. And like two thousand black men were elected to office at the state, national and local level. I mean, it was really something that we kind of don't even have today. But then all of those Jim Crow laws that you're talking about really started chipping away.

And that lasted until the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Stay tuned for more our expert, if you dare.

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And there was a massacre at one point, if memory serves me during reconstruction, right? Right. They shot a bunch of people on Election Day, black voters.

That period is just devastating because you see both how things could have looked. There was a black senator from Mississippi in 1870, 1871. Wow. Yeah. And Mississippi hasn't had a black senator since then. Oh, man. Reconstruction was such an interesting period and then came to a close and the Jim Crow laws just took over for a very, very long time. And yet poll taxes, literacy taxes, ways to elect local officials that really blocked out the black vote even if they got to vote.

And so they didn't go away. They've gotten more innocuous and ways are harder to interpret. Right. What are some of the current strategies to prevent black voters to vote?

Yeah, this woman that runs the Civil Rights Project in Texas described current voter suppression to me as voter suppression in the past was just a lot to door. And there was no key, you know, either laws kept you completely or poll taxes did or literacy tests that you couldn't pass, you couldn't vote. And what we need to think about voter suppression today is there's a locked door and you've got a thousand keys. You just have to find the right one to open it so you can beat the system.

But it's stacked against you still in a lot of ways. So current ways are the closing of polling places which lead to really long lines, those sorts of things. If you can't wait in an eight hour line, you know, you've got to go to work. That's voter suppression. The thing that a lot of people highlighted to me is voter roll purges. What's that? So all states have a responsibility to keep their voter rolls clean. You know, if you if people die or move out of the city or whatever you're supposed to come off the voter on a voter roll is all eligible and everybody who's eligible to vote in that state or county.

But what people can do now because of a recent Supreme Court decision is if you haven't voted in the last two federal elections, they can take you off the rolls. So you can think you're registered to vote, but you're not. They do have to send you like a postcard. But if you miss that postcard, they can take you off the voter rolls. So that's a big way that voter rolls can be purged and they don't have a perfect system of doing it.

Sometimes it's weird name matches. So there's probably not another DAX Shepard, although maybe there is. But fingers crossed, I mean, but say there were two dark shepherds and one of them moved or they think one of them moved, they might take you off and you're not supposed to be off. So another part of the voting plan that is so important is to even if you think you're registered, always go and check before your registration deadline to make sure your it's up to date.

So these voter roll purges is something that is subject to a lot of litigation all the time that people how many states are doing that? All states have to do it to some extent. But, you know, Georgia is a state that's been aggressive about it. I believe Ohio. What's sad and interesting both, I guess, is that states that have a history of voter discrimination are the states that kind of like to do it the most. Yeah.

So especially if you live in one of those states, you have to really keep an eye on things.

And then also district thing is a very famous, well-worn attempt. Right. Gerrymandering. Yeah. So even within a state right. There is regions. This is how Lyndon B. Johnson stole elections down in Texas. Right. They would get counted per county or per district. And he knew the people may would magically give him the exact number he needed to defeat the person. But in general, how does it work?

And this is like super, super important this year because all the lines will be redrawn after the census. So it's why, like, it's super important to fill out the census, which is the deadline is like now. So do that, too. But all the US congressional district lines are drawn according to population. Every district within a state has to have roughly the same population. So that's why, like geographically, if you look at a place like Texas, the districts around Houston or Dallas are going to look geographically small, have small borders.

But if you go to West Texas, where there's, you know, eight people every 10 miles or whatever, this will be really big. But because they all have to be the same population, you have to get kind of creative with the lines. It's never going to look like just squares. Yeah.

So what happens when districts are gerrymandered is because it's pretty easy to tell how people that live in a certain area are going to vote. You can draw lines in all sorts of crazy ways that include the number of people you want to include. Voters.

Yeah, yeah. So. What's interesting is that racial gerrymandering, where you do it to try to make sure a black candidate doesn't win, that is illegal and states aren't supposed to do it. And when they get called on it, it's bad. But what the Supreme Court just decided in twenty nineteen is that partisan gerrymandering where you draw to either help a Republican win or help a Democrat win whichever side you want to do it, that federal courts can't do anything about that.

I went to the Supreme Court arguments and sat in on this. So now that's OK in the eyes of the federal law. Some states are tamping down on it, but it's now up to state court. So that was a really big decision that happened in twenty nineteen. And that is why there will be such a huge focus in in twenty, twenty one and twenty two as the lines are drawn. But it doesn't gerrymandering doesn't happen in every state.

Some states are split in half, Republican and Democrat, that it's just drawn a little more fairly or are so red or so blue that it doesn't really matter.

Yeah.

So I'll go back to the original question, which is what gerrymandering can do. If you look at a place like North Carolina, the way that they drew their maps after 2010 and it's the case that was at the Supreme Court was Republicans and Democrats are roughly split in state population. But the seats split was 12 Republicans and three Democrats when it went to Congress. So you have a 50/50 population and a 12 three split in the seats. That seems like a red flag, right?

So that's out.

But that's what the Supreme Court and they were like, well, we can't do anything about that.

Go check out your state court in general. The Electoral College is going to represent a certain number of voters. Right. So let's just say that California has 30 million people. And so they're just for the sake of this argument. Thirty million people is going to get you 30 Electoral College votes and then you add up for other states that will give you 30 Electoral College votes. And this is how you end up with the popular vote not being the same as that in California.

If, let's say, one hundred percent of people voted for a Democrat, there'd be 30 million people. Now, if you take those other four states in each of those states voted fifty point zero one percent to vote for a Republican. In essence, what you'd have is the same number of Electoral College voters. It would be a stalemate, despite the fact that it would really be about 90 million to 30 million or eighty nine point nine million voters to thirty one million voters would somehow result in a tie.

So we just that's really quickly how the popular vote can be so different from the Electoral College vote and then that same principle can apply within the districts. Right. So some districts could be voting 100 percent for a candidate, other ones just fifty point zero, one percent. And yet they're picking up the same amount of votes. Yeah.

So then gerrymandering, that's how it works. The party in charge will purposefully put a lot of the party that's out of power all in one district. So they're guaranteed to win that district. And then you spread out the other party within the three districts around it.

So you have you prevent a tipping point within each surrounding this party.

A wins one district and then party B wins the three surrounding, like you're saying, just by barely winning. So, yeah, a fifty point one percent win is just as good as a 90 percent win. Right.

OK, now another way, and you could argue this is intentional or coincidental. I'm not even going to get into that. But there are, what, six point one million felons in the US that are prevented. They are not allowed to vote, but that that is state to state. Correct.

Also state to state, you know, in almost every state you can earn it back. But people committing a felony do generally have to earn that back. There's a period of time where they can't vote and when it turns over is different from state to state. You know, you have to as soon as you get out of jail, you can vote or as soon as you complete your probation, you know, so there are grades or some guidelines.

Yeah, it is an area where we're moving toward inclusion of former felons being able to vote. That's an area we're moving for it. But in Florida right now, it's a yes mess.

So, yes, there was a 60 Minutes on it that I watched recently that was so fascinating and got me so pissed off. So just let's start with some facts. The facts are black folks are incarcerated at five, six times the rate of white people. And you could say, oh, they're committing war crimes. Well, white people committing the exact same crime as black people are incarcerated, you know, at a fraction of the rate. And then the sentences is fraction as long.

So what is an absolute fact is there's a dis. Proportion amount of black folks incarcerated for longer periods of time for identical crimes, so of course, this six point one million felons is going to be very lopsided to get rid of black voters. It's going to once again favor kind of the white hegemonic voting class. And in Florida, this recently got challenged and they agreed that they were going to allow felons to vote. But one of the provisions is that they had to pay back all of the fines they owed that they had accumulated through their crime and what they owed, which on the surface seems fine.

Sure, you should have to pay back your debt to society, but in practice, it is not possible for most of them to even find out what they owe. There's no record system of who owes what it's on. Quite often on microfiche, it's unlike handwritten tablets in these enormous warehouses full of manila envelopes, and no one can even find out what they owe. So in practice, it's bullshit.

There's no way that the people can even meet this requirement. It's like the jelly bean thing all over again.

Or if you want to be sympathetic to the election workers and the state officials, they have no way of telling either. I mean, there's records for some, there's not for others. But how that all came about was Florida voters voted at over 60 percent. They had to meet that 60 percent threshold and I think it was sixty four percent. They voted to restore rights to felons once they had completed their sentence. So it was celebrated by voting rights activists as this big win for all of those hundreds of thousands of felons in Florida who writes, we're going to be reinstated.

And some even went and registered because all was well. And then the Florida legislature defined completion of sentence to mean the fines and fees. So it was actually that they kicked off the massive confusion. And, yeah, it's some people can't tell. Sometimes it's thousands of thousands of dollars. And then there was all this litigation saying you can't do that. That's a poll tax. That is we're not supposed to be able to keep from voting because of our wealth or lack thereof.

And that took a long time to go through the courts eventually. Really recently, within the last few weeks or month or so that the court said, no, you can do that. They have to pay their fines and fees, but people are just stuck not knowing those who are registered. Some are worried about voting because they're really not sure if they can vote or not. And if you vote, you're not supposed to you're back where you started with the felony problem.

So if you vote in, you aren't supposed to. That is a crime as well. Correct. So and now how they're going to check it or if they will. But that in all of our concerns of what could happen on election and post-election, that's something to keep in mind as a possibility in Florida is trying to figure out if people voted when they shouldn't. But truthfully, the numbers are much lower than they expected because so many fewer convicted felons registered to vote because all this went crazy.

So that's where you had an initial when that became should I register? And now, even if I did register, should I vote? And there are people, you know, help these people pay off the fines. And then that's another issue.

Yeah, there's a side issue right where Bloomburg there's well, a there's some charities that are helping folks pay off their debt. And then I think Bloomberg offered to pay off a bunch of people's debt and then they accused them of paying for vote, though I don't think they specified who they have to vote for. They just said, we want you to be able to vote, which doesn't seem like paying for a vote. To me, it just seems like allowing them to vote.

Right. But, yeah, that is another issue. So it's just what seemed like a big victory became a big mess. And it's just going to continue to play out.

And that's what I'll just point out. When people are talking about systemic issues in our system, this is a perfect example of it, because you have the will of the people and then you have the structure in place. And the will of the people was very clear. 65 percent, as you say, said we want these felons to vote. But now you have a state court, an appellate court, a Supreme Court. You have ultimately a very few amount of people deciding to not honor what the majority clearly stated.

And they're hard to get out of those positions. And that that is what is meant by systemic, that the will of the people actually can't happen because you have power consolidated in a very few amount of people that are incentivized to not allow that power to escape them.

That's an excellent example of how things can kind of go awry when the people say one thing and then different definitions get made of it by a very handful of people.

I mean, we're talking about some judges. I don't know. A couple dozen judges are deciding.

Also, some judges said that absolutely is a poll tax. I mean, it was has been in state court, federal pork. A million appeals, but another thing that's important about the felony voting laws is, as you say, not only now do you have black people convicted and given longer sentences, but these laws were created in the eighteen hundreds or nice hundreds know whatever it was, state to state, but they were created to keep black people from voting.

Yeah, all you got to do is arrest them, put them in jail, and then you don't have to worry about their vote.

So they chose specific crimes that would be felonies, either that black people were expected to violate more, get arrested more for or they just, as you say, arrested them. And that's not I mean, I should point out about the book. The book is nonpartisan. That was very important to me. I mean, I'm like you said earlier, I really think that democracy will work best if absolutely everybody shows up. And that's what we're set to do.

And I think everything would be a lot better if our voter turnout rate was much higher. So the book is nonpartisan. My goal was to find ways that would make voting more convenient, encourage people to vote. Really look at what people who are already on the ground working we're doing to increase voter turnout. But these things that you're talking about are discussed as partisan, but they're really facts and data. And I think that's important for people to know.

Yes, you have to kind of transcend that. Like I said, it is inherently political in that we know if most people vote, it's going to push left so that voting is it cannot be disconnected from being a political position in ways. But I think you have to transcend it a little bit and just say either you believe that we should have a country where majority rule, there is majority rule or there's not. And I guess it's fine with me if you think we shouldn't have majority rule, that's certainly an opinion you could have.

But I don't think you can have both. You can't have the opinion that you believe in democracy and majority rule and then also believe that we should go out of our way to make sure certain people can't vote those two things. You can't really have both of a way to think about it is like our red and blue.

And you're absolutely right that if more younger people voted, more Democratic candidates are likely to be elected. If more minority groups voted at higher rates, more Democrats are likely to be elected. But that's really on the national level and on states where those groups live more. But it's really important to think about all of your state and local elections, too. I mean, you can be a person who lives in an all red state or a very red state, and your voice needs to count equally in those local and state elections, too.

And so that's that's what I mean, sorry. It's so frustrating how politicized everything is. And we think so red or blue when where you are and what's happening in your city and county and state affects you so much more usually than the presidential race does. And it's so true. Politicizing everything and making everything so national lets you forget that your school board is going to decide whether your kids are in school or, you know, in first grade and the and.

And the next room.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so many things. Yeah. And everyone's identity is just completely cemented into that national figure of. Right. And it's. Yeah.

It's not really what affects your day to day life. And you know, transportation is something that's not usually red or blue, but you want to get to work in the least amount of time and that's your local and state officials who deal with that.

There's a few silly things that as a self-proclaimed democracy, why the fuck isn't Tuesday a national holiday? We have some bozo national holidays. The notion that the most important day of every four years is not a national holiday to me is insane. You know, is there a justification for that? Is there a movement to make it a national holiday? No one should work on that.

Yeah, there's definitely a movement to make it a national holiday. And that's how a lot of businesses are becoming involved in reporting this book was. One of my biggest takeaway was how much power businesses could have. And some, like Patagonia, closes all of their stores and gives all their employees a day off and started this massive initiative which in twenty eighteen four hundred companies had joined. And for twenty twenty they're up to I think they're up to over a thousand now.

They were like on the edge of a thousand. So we'll say around a thousand of companies who are committed to giving people the day off and helping their employees to register. And it sort of this idea of changing the culture around voting of where we really make it a priority for businesses and schools and communities trying to get a little more fun is also it. But yeah, there's definitely a movement to have it as a national holiday. I think one of the things is, OK, do we only do it for president or would it be a midterm election, blah, blah, blah.

But or heaven forbid, there were two days off, two days, four years that. One possible negative thought, like one A. is if you you know, some kids still go to school on Election Day, if you're taking away everybody's child care, that can be a no go against people or we'll just fuck over teachers the way we always have to work in the world.

But again, a pretty easy solution. You set up a polling station within the school and all the teachers a lunch. They vote in five seconds.

And then, you know, I mean, this is these are not insurmountable, but not insurmountable and just a much bigger focus from everyone. I do think businesses, large and small, can sort of do this on their own, and that could push it as often happens when companies take big stances that can sort of work its way into the national thing. But it's really interesting what some companies are doing now.

I think I know the answer to this, but maybe not which demographic groups vote the most in which the least.

So it's to start with age. Every age group votes at a higher rate than the age group below them. So our 18 to 29 year olds are our lowest turnout voters, shittiest voters in his.

Exactly. And it's really low. So in 2016 they voted at forty six percent.

So I'm going to be honest, that's a little higher than I thought. Higher than you thought. But the oldest voters, the sixty five and above, it was a little over 70 percent. Oh wow. So it's a huge difference. So young people really are letting the oldest people make a lot of decisions for them. Yeah. The other thing is once you start voting, you're more likely to keep voting. So that's why there's so much work trying to get that youngest age group to vote and for people to vote as soon as they turn 18.

Yeah, I can only be so judgmental. I'll just say I missed a few elections in my 20s. I was also a raging addict.

But I mean, the other thing is, though, I feel like we shame people for not voting when we really need to say start anytime you can. I have really come to believe that it's those of us who are outside of that 18 to 29 year old group that should feel responsible for that group not voting because we just don't teach people to vote. And all of our the word privilege being used everywhere all the time these days. But I really did realize that the fact that my mom took me with her to vote in our tiny town, I could listen to the poll workers gossip, which was great, you know, I mean, it's like a town of six thousand.

So it was good, good info to be had took 10 minutes and that was it. And so when I turned 18, voting was just something that I did.

But now if you are black and mom took you and you're in line for six fucking hours like these videos I see of people and what you're going to do.

Yeah, I mean, that's what I mean by privilege. I would be like taking me back to church. I was at Borya to pass on that.

So you have all of those issues at play. But I just think that we all have to do a lot better of teaching people about helping high schoolers know how to register when they register.

If you need an ID, all of those things, that's my young young people spiel.

In general, white Americans and black Americans vote close to the same rate in presidential elections. In twenty sixteen, there was lower black turnout than white. A few, a few percentage points. But Latino Americans vote disproportionately low and Asian-Americans vote really disproportionately. Really? Yeah. So Asian-American turnout was 50 percent ish in twenty sixteen, whereas white voters was sixty five percent. So that's, you know, 15 percentage points. Difference is a big difference.

Oh yeah. Well you again, you could be a populist minority by 10 percent and still win if you're going to turn out in those numbers. Yeah.

Again, like historically there are many reasons for that. Asian immigrants were denied citizenship for a really long time in this country. And even, you know, it could have been as late as nineteen fifty two that Asian-Americans were allowed to vote. Different groups had the right to different times and geographically.

But in nineteen fifty two well just eight years before that Japanese folks were in in term. Exactly.

So, you know, it's another systemic thing. Is there an education correlation. Yeah. Oh yeah. A huge, the lowest level of education votes just sometimes in some elections like twenty percent I mean really bad, whereas the most educated graduate degree types, it's like eighty percent. So it's really, really huge disparity. Don't let those elites choose your future.

Like you should have a class warfare motivation to get out there and vote.

Yeah. So all of those things really matter. Kind of makes the Asian thing anomalous, doesn't it? A little bit, because I'm assuming they're. Education rates are high, and part of it is that being taught to vote, though, and if you're a first generation American and your parents don't vote because they aren't citizens or if they're new citizens, that's a huge difference. So you're not taught to vote and then it just becomes generational. That Asian-American group is getting a lot more focused by get out the vote groups.

And so they're getting fervent.

They saw a big leap between twenty fourteen and twenty eighteen because you compare midterm to midterm and they had higher than 10 percentage point leap in turnout from twenty fourteen to twenty eighteen. So like they're, they're getting on it. So it's exciting.

OK, I have to questions. One is, do we have a a nonpartisan data source for voter fraud that both sides could trust and agree on how many votes were there and what percentage were those deemed to be fraudulent?

I mean, the the number I saw the other day and it wasn't just ballots cast in the last election was like ballots cast in the last decade was like point oh four. I'll count the zeroes for you, Monica. Four over the fact, but it's just it is simply very low. And it's just a huge bummer that it's become such a part of the conversation and such a concern for people, because I fully get people being concerned because it's out there so much.

But the numbers just aren't there. The the Brennan Center out of NYU, that which has a ton of this type of data.

Well, that's a liberal academy.

So I don't know if I do, but they do have numbers. And it's like you're more likely to be struck by lightning type of thing. I mean, it's just voter fraud is very, very low.

Can I ask what site or what study are people on the right referencing? Is there a study or do they have anything that that's peer reviewed that they're citing?

They don't. There are things that are cited, but the numbers are just faulty or weird. And what we're beginning to see in a lot of these, a lot of the lawsuits that are happening right now over vote by mail and should it be limited because of concerns of fraud, a lot of judges are noting in their opinions, you are saying there's fraud, but you have no data for fraud.

I mean, it just is continuous. And there was a trial involving voter fraud in the last couple of years that was just got a lot of focus. It was like, all right, this is the chance for those. This guy named Kris Kobach, who is big in the movement of saying there's voter fraud. And he argued the case. He was secretary of state for Kansas and he argued this case and we're going to talk voter fraud. And in the end, it was like out of the thousands and thousands of ballots cast in this county, there were ten people on the rolls out of years and years.

And all of these ballots counted and then only like five of those had actually cast a ballot. I mean, it was just in this trial that was going to be the big shot. The numbers just weren't there. Yeah, it is a very effective tool of fear, but it is not it really is not a partisan position. That is just a numerical position. Yeah, it's just yeah. There's no the numbers just simply aren't there. We have plenty of things to worry about with vote by mail, but most of it is concerns over user error.

And so people's votes not counting because they forget to sign or their signature doesn't match. What's on the roll like that is what's keeping me up at night. Fraud is absolutely.

Yeah, sure thing. Our friend Jess, his mom, I guess, is very scared because she didn't sign her middle name. But like, how do you know? Like, I never signed with my middle name. But what if on the roll it does have my middle name? How do you know?

Sometimes they do look at your license so you can see what you did on your driver's copy, your license. But the other thing to do to help you alleviate that worry is to track your ballot. So especially in California, you can track like a UPS package when your ballot has been accepted, you know, when it's in the mail, when they receive it, when everything's OK with it. And in a lot of states, if something's wrong with it, if they question your signature or you forget to sign a ton of people, forget to sign so you can fix your ballot often if there's enough time.

So it's super important to track your ballot so you can make sure everything's taken.

Yeah, there was a segment on John Oliver a couple of weeks ago. And the thing I related to the most is my signature doesn't resemble itself from Monday. My mind, mine is a mess. I'm left handed and dyslexic. There's no way.

Yeah, well, and like that's another thing. Young people's ballots get thrown out more and it's because they have historically signed such like fewer things in their life.

So like they're not used to having a consistent signature. One of the reasons that I am voting early in person instead of by May. Is it because I know that my signature on the voter roll is like chicken scratch? I don't know what I was doing that day. When I go and I look at it every time, like who? It's a mess. Like you can't discern a single letter. So I'm going to vote in person. So I don't have that particular worry.

And you can see it if you go if you go in person, you usually sign under your name on the voter roll. And so, yeah, that's how I know that mine's a mess. So I'm for my own peace of mind. That's what I'm doing.

But it's a form of voter suppression in itself. Right, because most people, many people don't have the time to, like, go in and track whether your ballot you know, it's hard enough to even get there on the day and do it, let alone be like checking in and tracking and all this stuff.

So it's just, you know, it's it's another that one is tricky when you think about it, voter suppression wise, because they do have to have some way to confirm that to you. But there have been studies that show that young people, as I said, are thrown out more and black people's ballots are thrown out more. So the reasons for that are odd and confusing, but it is a fact. So all of these things just have so many layers to them.

I mean, I sort of hope from everybody having to think a little harder about it this year that will keep paying attention to these things and what we're it more people to vote. What keeps people from voting? There's more focus than ever before, I think, on people being concerned about the long lines. And we're just we're more aware of what's going on, which I think is a really good thing. Yes.

Again, if you believe in democracy, in that the majority should make that. That's true.

I am starting yeah. I am starting from the position of we do want everybody to vote.

And looking at what makes if you're Alexander Hamilton again, that's fine. Just on that. That's all right. I can accept that. But you can just you can't claim both. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you, Aaron, and I hope people check out your book. Thank you for voting the maddening, enlightening, inspiring truth about voting in America. And I look forward to whatever you work on next. And we'd love to talk to you again.

Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I enjoyed being here and enjoying the show all the time, every week. Thank you.

Go out and vote yourself. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

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I've to suck your blood. There it is. It's back. Did we have some Folie for Halloween?

Someone I was so happy to see someone put on Instagram that they missed the beard walking through the forest. But it's not long enough. Now, listen. You can hear it. It's not like it was that it was someone's trampling in the distance. My friend Kevin Zieger sent me a picture of myself with a beard. Yeah. And he said, you should only have this look. Uh, and then I feel self-conscious.

Well, then I thought I should have that look. And then I thought about my sides are shaved now. And would it look crazy to have a beard with shaved sides? Then I was watching the Lakers playoff game and I saw that King James. Oh, yeah. He's got a shaved head and a beard and no mustache. It's kind of like. Really? Yeah, it's almost like the Amish beard.

Oh, my. But he can pull it off. I don't think he's Amish. He's not OK that I know of. You know what the what I hope the Amish do vote.

Are they allowed? Well, sure, they're citizens of the country, but I don't know if they do within their society, are they allowed? Yeah, I don't know if they I want to say vote in the white man's elections, but like how Native Americans would say, like we don't vote in the white man's this or we don't partake in the white man's black.

Also ironic because there's always a white man while the Amish are white. No, I mean for our elections. Oh, yeah, it is.

Yeah, well, no, Barack Obama was a half. You're mean half glass by saying that. No glass, half glass. Sorry, sorry, I blew it. I love them anyway to meet her, so I voted already. Me too. And it felt so good here in Los Angeles. Los Angeles.

Yeah, well, there are boxes throughout the city.

Oh, yes. So explain this to me because I'm in Termina and I just filled it out. OK, yeah. So. So if you do a Maylin then we'll send to you and you fill it out, you double check your triple check and sign your signature with great anxiety, which is what I did.

Me too. And I really feel like I fucked it up. It's not going to I don't think it's going to be as big of a thing as people think. Not here. Maybe in states where they're really suppressing the vote. Yeah, that's true.

Not in Los Angeles. I hope not. So they have placed boxes around the city and on your ballot, it says, where you can drop yours off. And one of ours is like a three minute walk from my apartment, which is a box sitting on the grass. This one is by the library. OK, it's looks like a post office box and it's metal and it's cemented to the ground or bolted to the crack.

OK, and you just pull the little lever and put your thing in.

Did you try to reach your hand in and pull out any other. Oh, you can't. You can barely get yours in. Oh, OK. That's good. Yeah, that was good.

But I thought this is so easy they could make it this easy every time. I mean for everyone.

But man was it easy and it felt good. I like voting. I like feel really productive after I've done it and that I've added to society. All right.

So I'm going to admit something. This will probably lose me some respect. Oh, no, you didn't.

I sold my vote. To the Koch brothers. Oh, no, I. OK, so traditionally what happens is Christine and I will do ours together and then we'll kind of divvy up the research, right. And you've been a part of that, I think maybe on the last round where, like, we're all talking about, well, the only time says this and this League of Voters Women says is blah, blah, blah.

We're kind of compiling and decide making our decision. So I was out of town in Detroit when she did that with. Did you do it with her? Yes. Yeah. And I trust you guys a lot. Yeah. The only thing that Chris and I have ever differed on in the past is some of the measures. I don't we don't have the same props. Like one time they tried to make condoms required in pornography.

And I was like, this is so stupid. This is a religious driven thing. If people want to fuck on camera without condoms, get real. They they're adults. They can make that decision. There are safeguards. They can you know, it's just it was just a measure to fuck with pornography. And what would be the absolute outcome of that would be all the production of pornography. We'd just moved to Nevada. They're not going to have people wear condoms and pornography.

That is unrealistic.

But I guess it's like if the girl wants one, she she should be able to request it. If the girl wants a condom, then either she can request it or she can find some production that uses condoms or she can not be in a porno. Those or they can just get tested. They both get tested. Whatever. The bottom line is, people aren't going to watch fucking porn's with condoms. They're not going to do that. That's just a reality.

And Kristen was for condoms and I and then they pose a lot of these things is like they try to scare you. Right. So it's like raising taxes to fight gang violence. So it's like so your knee jerk is like, yeah, I don't want gang violence. Exactly, but but if you really look at statistically, it's not the number one thing that we need to raise. I'd rather pay more for better schools. So there aren't gangs. You know, it's like either downriver, but occasionally we have disagreed about the measures.

Sure.

We have a lot of measures here in LOSSING, which I have my own grievance with.

I think the fact that you can that citizens in California, this is unique to California. There's some other states that do it. But in general, citizens can't get measures put on the ballot. That's a unique thing that happens in California. And some of them are good and some of them are terrible, like Prop eight. That was a very misleading, poorly worded proposition that banned gay marriage. Yeah. And it was only because a small group of knuckleheads got it on the ballot and they were well funded by the LDS church and some other things.

But we successfully voted that it went no, it went into the law and that's it. Yes, yes. Prop eight passed. And that's what that's what the Supreme Court overturned when Chris and I got married. That was one of the things that got negated by it. But we had had gay marriage for a couple of years here. Right. Then Prop eight came, got passed, made it ban gay marriage. And it was banned up until Chris and I got married.

You guys did.

Well, it's just sounds like you're saying it was banned until you guys got me. No, no, no, no. I'm only using that as the marker of when it happened because we were not getting married intentionally until gay folks could get married in California.

Right. So that was an example of when these measures that get on the ballot from a very few group of citizens is a bad idea.

But Prop eight, I think, just ended up being confusing. That's actually why it passed. Yeah, no. Or worded very.

We talked about it with Aaron. Yeah. As many of them are, they're not easy to figure out what it's really saying and and most importantly, who's behind it, like the Charter for Safe Families. You're like, well, I must be a good organization. We all want safe families.

Well, we do have to do your research. That's just part of it. Right. So I when I got home long story short, I said you did all the down measure research on the candidates so you can just fill that out for me. OK, I want to fill out the measures. And and she recommended that I should have the pleasure of filling in the bubble for the president, which was great fun.

Yeah, I was glad I filled in that bubble.

It felt good. Yeah. And then and I did my own opinion on the measures and then she did all the down ballot candidates.

So you think that's embarrassing that I didn't fill it out. I trusted you to you guys did all. I don't think it's embarrassing. I wish you would just let her fill out the measures now, because I disagree with her. Something you did on this one? Well, the condom when we disagree on this one. Well, just historically, we there have been many measures we disagreed on. So I wanted to make sure I read the measures and voted what I believe in.

Oh, wow. So I guess what we just learned is you trust Christian far more than me to vote on the question.

And I made the same decisions on the measures. So I.

I do trust because. Because it's you. It's basically you. Yeah, I bet.

I bet we did have the same actually. OK, this is not one of them. I think I, I said no to Obama.

What was the Uber one. This was interesting. Jess was also over but he is a he had already voted and he was the only one that's really important is the Uber one. It's Oh I need to get I need to get this right to require them to hire them as actual employees and not independent contractors.

Yes. And I said yes to that.

I would say no to that now. Yeah. Yeah, I would. Once they hire them, as in ploys, they're going to have to provide insurance to them and they're going to have to provide workman's comp to them. And the fee to take an Uber is going to double or triple and then everyone will go buy a car and then it'll just ratchet up all the environmental issues and all the wonderful things that Uber drivers do. They lower the traffic rates, they all these things.

That is not a sustainable model for them. And the people driving Uber, they like it or they would get another job.

Yeah, I think the workers need protection, but can I tell you why I agree with them? So they're not an employer. They are a platform to connect sellers to buyers just like eBay, eBay and Amazon shouldn't be treating the sellers of on their platform as employees. They're just sellers. So an Uber driver joins a platform so he can or she can sell her service as a driver to you, the buyer. It's a marketplace. It's not an employer.

It's not a brick and mortar location where all the Uber employees show up in the morning and get their instructions. It's a marketplace. It's just an interface for someone who wants to sell their services to someone who wants to buy that person services just like TaskRabbit or post mates.

But they don't get paid by me. No, they don't.

They get they do know your payment goes to their payment. So and then a fee gets taken off by Uber for providing the marketplace for them. So your payment goes. That's how the person gets paid. You pay seventy thousand percent, you pay seventy dollars for your ride, and then you tip 15 dollars, let's say Uber has a 20 percent administration fee that they charge for. They're going to take 14 dollars off of that. And then so fifty six plus you're twenty.

They're going to get seventy six dollars to them. That's exactly how it works. They don't pay, they don't pull taxes out, they don't do well. Exactly. That's because they're independent contractors. So as an employee, I think it's always preferred to be W-2 to nineteen ninety nine.

But you work for. Well, no. So in the case of this podcast, you're an independent contractor. I am. But your job working for Kristen is you're employed by Kristen. You're not in charge of that situation at all, right? She's the employer and you're the employee. You can't decide on Tuesday. Oh, I think I want to work 20 minutes for Kristen.

If you had that relationship with Kristen, which is I want to work 20 minutes for Kristen today because I have 20 minutes downtime, then you would be an independent contractor and she would just pay you for that 20 minute service. And that's what Uber drivers are. They're not full time employees. They don't work 40 hours a week. Some of them work one hundred hours a week, some work five hours a week. They might have time between classes. That's not an employee employer relationship.

That's someone that's going on to a site to get connected with the buyer. Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and I also think and I hear that you want everyone to have medical insurance, so I get that.

Yeah, huge, enormous company like Uber, I think can pay for their workers insurance. They can minimum wage and Social Security, they can do that. But then it's going to be two or three times as expensive. And so then do you want the consumer is like someone's going to suffer. It's not like Uber has got all this money and they're just going to they were hoarding it.

Now they're going to give it to the drivers. It's now the consumer's going to pay. So now you want all the people who are already making minimum wage, who rely on Uber to get places. It's all tied together. You can't move one component of it, not the other. Yeah, yeah. So if you're like a minimum wage worker in L.A. and you can't afford to own a car and you need to get places and you need to use Uber now that goes up three times for them.

Now they make even less money from their other job.

I don't know if someone making minimum wage could afford to use Uber to get everywhere, though not everywhere.

But certainly there's times where they have to get places. They have to get to the airport or they got to get here, there someplace public transportation doesn't. Provide them with and they can afford a car and taxis more expensive because the taxi driver is employed by the cab company.

So that's a great area where you would have voted one way or in a measure and I would have voted like we did.

Yeah. Anyway, everyone should for reasons like this, that if you have an opinion and we all have opinions and so it's important to make your vote count and the majority should have rule.

It also is so funny, though, because this just seems like such a small example of what's going on in the larger space, like I believe very strongly in employers protecting their employees. And that is because I've been an employee always. Right. And you I don't think you don't think employers should take care of their employees at night.

Because all my employees I'm not saying that I give insurance to and all the stuff you would want Uber to do, but you're you employ people and have employed people for a long time.

So you're going to have a different perspective on it. And that's what all of this is personal. Like voting is personal. It's so it's interesting. You can seem like something totally not related to you. And and I think most things are they all connect back to our own emotional investment and yes, lives.

But if I can defend myself a little bit, which is we shouldn't have to defend. I'm not attacking. Oh, right. Right. Just explain my point of view. A, I give the few people that work for us insurance. So I but I have a business that has a profit margin that affords me to do that. Right. And there are a lot of places that don't have that profit margin. So Wal-Mart people want to wage at a Wal-Mart where if you just do the math, they have three million employees and everyone gets a five dollar raise, then they're now operating in the red.

So obviously they'll have to raise prices at Wal-Mart. So now all the employees that are making more money, great, they're making more money, but now their money goes not as far at Wal-Mart. So it's just there's a reality to it that I don't think can be ignored. And so I don't think Uber has the margin to give insurance to everyone and to give workman's comp to everyone and all these things without drastically raising rates. So just do I want a cheap service and that people are independent contractors or do I want an expensive service and they're all covered?

That's why I believe that the government should be offering insurance to all the citizens.

Sure. But also you're you're talking about insurance, which is a huge part of this. But that's only if you're a full time employee, you can be a part time employee for Uber and not get insurance. And you would just have a W-2 and your employer would pay half your Social Security and take out taxes, which is is preferred.

But then obviously they would be incentivized to do what many of these retail chains do and keep people on thirty five hour schedule so they don't have to pay it. So now you've incentivized the employer to not employ people for 40 hours, which they need to live.

So, you know, it's just all I'm pointing out, every thread you pause. Yeah. And I think both sides get idealistic on, you know, there's a lot to think about.

Everyone has their own opinions. They're all based in their own experience. And that's good. And that's why we have a democracy so far.

I think I just decided what my overarching point is. A lot of people think these decisions are black and white, like it's obviously a great idea. No, I mean, I don't think you do, but I think a lot of people think it's like, well, it's such an obvious, great idea. And I just don't I think all these ideas at best, if you could really study them, they'd be like fifty nine percent a good idea.

Totally. Or I agree. Fifty two percent. There's very few like black and white.

One side. So clearly. Right. I definitely agree with that. And it's a matter of I believe that if we just stay at the status quo then we're not going to change towards progression.

And I do want that. I know it will come with some sacrifice. I am aware of that. But yeah.

Yeah, it's just it's all interesting. OK, so Aaron sent me her own fax.

Oh, thank you Aaron, very much.

I love it when the guests do this little ah eye and not big a little arrow and correct.

It's just getting confusing now that best friend Aaron's made some appearances as you well know, because that was best friend Aaron Weekly and this Aaron's episode. That's true. That's OK. We'll always refer to Aaron Weekly, his best friend, Aaron Weekly. Yes, OK. Aaron said this. I'm going to read it. I think I misspoke about the breakdown of U.S. House of Reps seats in the North Carolina case that went to the US Supreme Court. The breakdown was ten Republican seats and three Dem seats.

I fear I said twelve to three and I. What about the rest of the time? I do think she said 12 to three, that's what's in my head. OK, well, it's 10 to 30 still disproportionate to the voter base. Correct.

Which was her point. And she said and just so DAX can know the exact numbers in that voter fraud case I mentioned, it was a Kansas lawsuit. And the best example of voter fraud they could show was in one Kansas county with thirty thousand people. Forty noncitizens attempted to register over a 20 year period, 20 year period.

So to a year if we average it out. And only a handful of those had actually voted over that same time period.

OK, so I can't do that quick math, but, you know, I love to break up. So thirty thousand people was the thing. Yeah. So to divide it by thirty thousand. Is point zero zero zero zero six six. That's that's what happened there. We've had some close elections, but we have never had a point zero or a point zero zero zero point zero zero zero zero six.

That's true. Oh, I got to look something up. OK, what was it?

Did Kentucky vote by voice? Voice Oh, sure. Like yeas and nays. Yeah, that makes sense. The ayes have it. The nays have it. They made those words way too close, if you ask me. Oh, totally. There's some of them definitely got mis heard. Yeah. Mike Lawrence, what's your vote, really? What do you say? Say it again. I was out within an hour. OK. All right. We're going to put that in the yeses.

Why do they make it that close? Oh, someone express a grievance, OK. My new favorite word.

I think I'm using it too much.

Oh, more than suffice to say, you have kind of dropped suffice to say, unfortunately or fortunately, but a grievance was aired that we never did. Kind of a roundup of the vows.

I know I thought about this as well. But you're not caught up right now.

But I will.

OK, this is from the History Channel. Oh, very respected news.

Very how Americans have voted through history. From voices to screens to scripture voice voting for the first 50 years of American elections.

Most voting wasn't done in private and voters didn't even make their choice on a paper ballot. Instead, those with the right to vote, only white men at the time went to the local courthouse and publicly cast their vote out loud.

Known as voters who live in La Vida votes upside down, down live in the feet of votes.

What happened in. I think he is living his best life, you know, he was for a while, he was dating the most beautiful oh, I forgot her name. Now something. Kournikova is a tennis.

Oh, the tennis shoe is Anna Anna Kournikova. And I one time was you'll like this first hand account. OK, I was in a restaurant in South Beach, Miami, while shooting the film.

All Dogs. Oh, building not really big. And they were in the restaurant.

I think it was like Nobu or something was very fancy exclusive and they were there.

Wow. Very attractive. Yeah. Vivos ok.

Sorry. OK, the Vovo. This conspicuous form of public voting was the law in most states through the early 19th century and Kentucky kept it as late as eighteen ninety one. I found it boem.

They'll take that everybody. Hello everybody. Come on everybody say oh I'm in that video. Yes.

Oh everybody say Oh come on everybody.

You probably don't like that video. Right. That kind of falls into the bracket of videos you don't like. Um, my favorite. Yeah, because because someone's being sincere, yeah, and then we're laughing. Those are tricky because, like, they're so fun to laugh at, I would never do it in front of the person. I would tell her she did a great job, but in the privacy of my own home. Is it is it unethical?

I don't think it's unethical.

I really don't. I just personally don't find that funny. OK, seeing someone who like this grandey.

Yeah, it's hard for I doubt that if it came to that. What about the famous video of the actor? I bet you find this one funny because there's an arrogance behind it where he's like Mr. Kubrick.

Yes, I did find that funny. Yeah, I see this not as conceit, but that's a point of fact. I studied at Juilliard. Mr. Kubrick, when are you going to make a sequel to I forget what movie he is like talking directly to Mr. Kubrick.

Yeah, but it was an audition, wasn't it? Yeah, like a black turtleneck. It was horrible.

But you could laugh at that one because he was arrogant, right? Yeah. But you know, what's funny is they're both just delusional people. We're really laughing at delusion.

But one is, is because someone thinks they're better than other people and one is not your one hundred percent.

Right. But this is the thing I fight against. It's like I is a most easily annoyed by the guy in the jacked up truck with the tatoos, ak me acting aggressive in traffic. Yeah, but I should have as much compassion for that guy because he too is thinks that's how you get love and he is was probably abused by somebody, which is why he's being so overtly masculine and aggressive because he's afraid someone's going to hurt them. Like if I get really deep into it and I believe every human is probably was born nice, I should feel bad for them too.

And I don't think that guy that went to Juilliard actually thought he was great. I think he thought he was terrible. And that was his mechanism to overcome his fear that he was a terrible actor, which, by the way, he was a terrible actor. He was right. Right.

But I think that if the guy in the souped up whatever car, I actually don't have any judgment for him until he starts affecting other people.

So if he's being aggressive, that is a different thing, then his issues are now impacting another person. And that's not OK with me.

But I want your dead honesty here, OK? You're driving in traffic. There's a right lane. It's ending. And someone in an electric car with a vote for Hillary sticker merges into late. Yeah, she should have got in behind you long ago. Right. And I support this local dog kennel sticker. That's not you're not all the right audience, but.

Oh, shit, how do I do this? She got to. I love cheerleading. OK, ok. And I donated money to whatever. All right. And then there's a guy in a big diesel truck you like blows by and he's got like bullhorns on the front of his truck. Yep. And he's got an NRA sticker on the back.

OK. I know you're going to have a different reaction. I probably am. I'm probably going to give the Hillary charity cheerleader a little bit more benefit of the doubt. That is a mistake versus the other person. You're right.

I don't know how he objectively both people cut you off. Yeah, I aspire to give everyone the same benefit of the doubt. And it's very hard for me and it's hard for me to give that guy who's talking to Mr. Kubrick any benefit of the doubt. But he's just a he's a sad, scared human like.

Well, I don't really even I don't care about him either. Like, yeah, I left. I don't feel that about videos. OK, that is not my.

How about this. OK, can I give you two more examples? These are two of my favorite moments ever captured. I hope people search this on YouTube and also then get immediately off YouTube. But no one is in the first generation ion documentary, which is on Netflix. Watch the doc. No.

Well, yeah, no one's going to do that, though, so I think they can find this clip on YouTube. There is a guy who's competing for Mr. Olympia and he's very muscular. He's so muscular and he trains really, really aggressively. And many of his competitors say, we think Mike what's called Mike, we think Mike's probably gonna hurt himself before the fucking show even goes off because he works out so ridiculous. He's too much weight and blah, blah, blah chair.

So they're asking Mike in his driveway. They're letting him know people think he's going to get injured because he doesn't train safely. The in he go. He looks right in the camera and I'm paraphrasing. He's like, there's no fucking way I am getting hurt. I'm bulletproof. I will be Mr. Olympian. He immediately gets on a horse and he rides about sixty feet down the driveway. He falls off the horse, bounces across the pavement because he's so dense with muscle and tears, tendons and God knows what.

And by God, he doesn't go to Mr. Lamar. He gets out immediately after saying he's not going to get hurt. Yeah, it's there's something so pleasurable about it's one of my favorite things. Feels like karma.

I just want to see it.

But again, if it was like a wimpy nerd who somehow was making the same arrogant declaration, but by doing something more measly, I'd probably feel bad, you know, but because the guy's muscular, I think it's hilarious that he fell off the horse. I'll give you one more example.

Like, look, let me on this is nothing to talk about. The gods. If it was a wimpy guy still being arrogant, it's the same.

It's the same arrogance, more pathetic, it's always pathetic of a tire, those skinny guys is pathetic. I'll be there, I'll beat any mother ass on planet Earth and then a big guy comes over and just knocked him out cold. It's not as satisfying is the big guy saying that and a little guy comes over and knocked him out or a little girl in a white dress. OK, go on.

What's your last example? OK, this one's fantastic. I don't know how you'd find it, but I'm sure it can be found. It was an episode of a TV show and it was a guy who got a lot of speeding tickets on his motorcycle, I think, in South Beach, Florida.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. He goes to court and he's wearing a fucking string tank top and he's tries flirting with the judge. The judge is not buying it. And it's very funny. It's in it's real. And then they go outside and he loses. He they she finds him guilty of the speeding ticket infraction and then they go. So do you think this is going to affect how you ride in the future? And he's on his motorcycle and he goes, fuck no.

When I'm behind the fucking bars, it's 180 all the time. He revs it up, he dumps the kids, immediately, crashes in the parking lot. It's so funny.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Would you have enjoyed that one? Probably, yeah.

Yeah. OK, again, there's a through line. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, Aaron ok e little r i m Aaron.

She said how many states allow early voting. She thought it was around thirty from what I counted.

Forty.

Oh I could have miscounted but but signing very I believe. Yeah.

I mean different variations. Some are like seven days or more months, you know.

Welcome back. There was an edit them back, they made one at it. You'll never know. Oh, you're our food deliverer.

Ivan is arriving soon. Was that it or was that all the fat? Yeah, well, that timed out perfectly. Ironically, our rice and sausage will be here in a sec. I love you.

Realize it's a simulation. Oh, my God. Tell me, Eric, our friend Eric.

Our quirky friend Eric. Oh, that's a good description. Does an article saying it's about 50 percent chance that we're living in. That was the stupidest article I've ever read.

I thought about responding with how stupid it was and then I thought it would just hurt his feelings. So now I'm saying it publicly on here.

Oh, there was nothing in that article. It was just some scientist said that. But there was no there was nothing to it. There was no smoking gun.

I well, I didn't read it because I had a lot of jargon.

I'll tell you what I was obsessed with while I was in Michigan. I don't know why I kept thinking about this, but this is what I was thinking about. And again, this is probably a very popular theory. I'm not claiming I'm the first person to think of this, but I got obsessed with the notion that time travel. Absolutely will never happen. OK, because the proof of that is no one has come back. No one has arrived via time travel device to tell us, like, hey, stop burning carbon or something, or, hey, here's a battery technology so you don't destroy the planet.

So either one of two things is true. Either we're not destroying the planet, which I think we probably are. Yeah. Or there's no time travel because they would have come back and given us something to either capture carbon or store energy in a manner that would make solar perfect.

Well, unless there's no one to come back because we destroyed the planet. Yeah, so I guess there's three options. Yeah, then I went like this, oh, my gosh. Maybe all of these alien sightings are people coming back from the future.

Oh, wow. But no thing is why wouldn't they try to land and tell us all they did and then they crash at area fifty one.

They brought technology, but no one knows how to fucking use it.

That's the theory of the area. Fifty one. So I think it's possible that all these alien sightings are time travelers. OK, one of four things is is true.

OK, there's actually a lot of options. That's not a lot though to work through either. There's no time travel or there is time travel and those are the alien sightings or we burnt up the world before time travel could be invented or there's no time travel.

OK, but real quick about the simulation. Yeah, I, I am believing it more and more and more by the day. And I mean, I don't want to believe it because it's a crazy theory and I'm not interested in crazy theories. Yeah.

But like my best friend or I don't think Ivan is here so I got I got to give a run. OK. Did you catch him? Our food delivery, Ivan, did you ask Ivan what his or her thoughts were on independent contracting or they'll be us?

It's funny you say that because I feel like I just witnessed a proof, evidence, evidence of my point of view, which was they had several different packages in there.

Huh. So they were tripling up on their proceeds. Yeah, OK. But if they were just a full time employee, they probably wouldn't do that.

True, but they would. Maybe be getting a. I think they're getting paid more by doing three deliveries at once. Two people in the car, we'd have to see how it evened out money wise.

Look, I'm going to tell you something. Tell me. I believe that a lot of people in the field of Uber do not want that prop to pass. That I said yes to some people probably make less money. Yeah, I know. I'm not saying I'm doing this for them. I just have an ethical.

You want people to have insurance. I think that's really what. Yeah. Protection by employers. Yes. Yeah. OK, real quick. So why we're living in a simulation is what are the chances of this. My best friend came into town last night. OK, more evidence. More evidence. My best friend came into town last night into LAX and she saw guess who at the airport, my brother Neil Padman at LAX Airport.

Neither of them live here. What's the name of Neil's new house?

Neil has a hat line. Yeah. Is he a hat? I know he is a hat line.

Oh my gosh. He is a hat line and away.

He has a website. Oh, great. Let's give out the website. We like Neil. OK, I'm not. Listen, I don't sue me if these hats catch on fire. I'm not responsible. They might be the best hats in the world actually.

Are they the best hats in the world, Peter? Mine, high frequency illusion. Ding, ding, ding. Catching on fire.

They they have like a fire rim. Oh, great. The website is called Love Pascal.

He's going to be so mad at me if I'm saying this wrong, but it's Aluva P scale and it's hats and I'm proud of him. He's doing some he's motivated and I love it. Yeah.

And I love him too. Because you know why? Based solely on the fact that he connected me with your mom in a time of deep need. That's right.

Now I'll forever be in Neil's debt. So go to no of Pascal. Oh, you've Passi.

I have a bone to pick with him about that spelling. As a dyslexic, let's not further complicate these words that are already flawed, although that is more phonetic.

So you know what, Neil? Good job. He's like a Benjamin Franklin. Oh wow.

OK, love Pascal Elvy. That's right. Goodbye.

I love you guys.