Tweak the Vote

Summary

Radiolab Episode Summary: "Tweak the Vote"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Radiolab
• Host/Author: WNYC Studios
• Description: Radiolab dives deep into curious questions using investigative journalism, blending science, history, and personal stories with innovative sound design. Hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser.
• Episode: Tweak the Vote

---

Introduction

In the episode "Tweak the Vote," Latif Nasser introduces the concept of altering voting systems to rejuvenate American democracy. He reflects on the episode's original release six years prior, emphasizing how the landscape of voting and elections has dramatically shifted since then. (01:03)

---

The Rising Tide of Populism and Democratic Erosion

Concerns Over Democratic Stability

John Favreau discusses his academic focus on the resurgence of far-right, ultra-nationalist parties in Europe and the United States. He shares a personal connection, noting his family's history of suffering under authoritarian regimes, which fuels his concern about democratic institutions being undermined. (03:00 - 06:36)

World Values Survey Insights

Yasha Mounk and John Favreau delve into findings from the World Values Survey, revealing a troubling decline in the importance placed on democracy, especially among younger generations. They examine key survey questions that reflect increasing support for strongman leaders who bypass traditional democratic processes.

• Notable Quote:

  "Every six years you elect the senator over again... the system has built in it. But the whole thing admits that there's always change and always the ability to change." – Yasha Mounk (11:05)

---

Exploring Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) and PR-STV

Introduction to Alternative Voting Systems

Robert Krulwich introduces multi-seat proportional representation by single transferable vote (PR-STV), explaining how it allows voters to rank candidates by preference, ensuring more representative outcomes and reducing wasted votes. (16:47 - 33:30)

Case Study: 2016 Dublin Central Election

The episode narrates the 2016 election in Dublin Central, focusing on candidates Maureen O'Sullivan and Gary Gannon. Through multiple counts, votes are redistributed based on voter preferences, illustrating the mechanics and impact of PR-STV.

• Notable Quote:

  "Everybody got their say, and everybody got their vote. Don't get me wrong when I say, like, it did hurt, but... single transferable vote... worked out perfectly." – Gary Gannon (41:44)

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Implications for U.S. Elections

Potential Impact on Historical U.S. Elections

Latif Nasser speculates how RCV could have altered significant U.S. elections, such as:

• 2000 Presidential Election: Could have mitigated the spoiler effect of Ralph Nader, potentially changing the outcome between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

• 2016 Presidential Election: Might have influenced dynamics between Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein.

• Notable Quote:

  "If you have a candidate on there you really, really don't like... you're ranking your preferences." – Latif Nasser (24:34)

• Yasha Mounk:

  "Change the system of how we vote, you might get a very different world." – Yasha Mounk (67:04)

---

Ranked-Choice Voting in U.S. Cities

San Francisco Mayoral Race

The San Francisco 2018 mayoral race is examined, where London Breed, Mark Leno, and Jane Kim competed under RCV. A strategic alliance between Leno and Kim aimed to maximize vote transfers, illustrating both the strengths and complexities of the system.

• Notable Quote:

  "We are trying to fix democracy in this hour in little bits and pieces." – Robert Krulwich (47:43)

Minneapolis Mayoral Race

The Minneapolis mayoral race with 35 candidates showcased RCV's capacity to handle crowded fields while fostering a more civil and consensus-driven election atmosphere.

• Notable Observation:

  "Advocates of RCV look at it as a positive, voters aren't turned off by negative campaigns..." – Robert Krulwich (62:49)

Maine's Adoption of Ranked-Choice Voting

Maine's implementation of RCV for congressional races is discussed, highlighting legal challenges and the system's potential to enhance representation by incorporating third-party and independent candidates.

• Notable Quote:

  "The world we've got is the function of how we vote. Now change the system of how we vote, you might get a very different world." – Yasha Mounk (67:04)

---

Pros and Cons of Ranked-Choice Voting

Advantages

• Elimination of Spoiler Effect: Prevents vote splitting among similar candidates.
• Enhanced Representation: Ensures that elected officials have broader support.
• Promotion of Civility: Encourages candidates to seek second and third-choice votes, reducing negative campaigning.

Challenges

• Voter Complexity: Some voters may find ranking candidates cumbersome.

• Delayed Results: The vote-counting process can be slower compared to traditional methods.

• Potential for Strategic Voting: Voters might game the system to influence outcomes beyond their top preferences.

• Notable Quote:

  "Nothing's gonna be perfect. I think what's really interesting is what seems sort of mechanical and technical. It does affect the tone of your country and of history." – Yasha Mounk (65:41)

---

Conclusion

"Tweak the Vote" explores the transformative potential of ranked-choice voting in enhancing democratic processes. By examining real-world implementations and their outcomes, Radiolab highlights both the promise and the complexities of adopting alternative voting systems. The episode invites listeners to reflect on how voting mechanisms shape political landscapes and to consider whether RCV could address contemporary democratic challenges.

• Final Thought:

  "We are trying to fix democracy in this hour in little bits and pieces." – Robert Krulwich (47:43)

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Yasha Mounk (11:05):

  "The adventure of democracy is that it admits that nothing is ever right. We always have to fix it."

• Gary Gannon (41:44):

  "Everybody got their say, and everybody got their vote... single transferable vote... worked out perfectly."

• Yasha Mounk (67:04):

  "Change the system of how we vote, you might get a very different world."

• Latif Nasser (24:34):

  "They're ranking your preferences. It's very simple."

• Robert Krulwich (47:43):

  "We are trying to fix democracy in this hour in little bits and pieces."

---

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the "Tweak the Vote" episode, outlining the key discussions on ranked-choice voting, its implications, and real-world applications, enriched with notable quotes and clear sectioning for enhanced readability.

Transcript

[Latif Nasser]

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[Robert Krulwich]

Listeners supported WNYC Studios.

[Latif Nasser]

Hey, it's Latif. Given the approaching American presidential election, we are on week two of our election run. So last week, if you'll remember, we had the story about the dramatic changes in how we covered presidential candidates in this country. Next week we have a brand new episode about why and how we count our votes for president. But this week we have the evolving story of how we cast those votes. The episode I'm about to play for you, it's six years old, which I mean, if you think about the long sweep of American political history, that does not feel like a long time. And yet so much has changed. So when we released this episode, the process we're about to outline for you, like, it was pretty obscure, it was used, I don't know, in a few places, few cities, few states in the U.S. now, this is big time what we are describing to you. It's on the upswing. This is literally going to help decide who the next president is going to be, which I don't know about you that I find that kind of inspiring. It feels like things can actually change in this country. So anyway, we will play the episode now and then we will do a quick update on the flip side. Yeah. So without further ado, here is tweak the vote.

[Simon Adler]

Wait, you're.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Yasha Mounk]

All right.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

You're listening to Radio Lab Radio from WNY.

[Latif Nasser]

Rewind. Not just this part of it, but.

[Robert Krulwich]

I can do that. Yeah.

[Yasha Mounk]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Latif Nasser]

And I'm Latif Nasser.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Thank you.

[Latif Nasser]

And today on Radiolab, I Robert, I am going to make you wrestle with your most cherished ideal American democracy.

[John Favreau]

Oh, I see. Ok, great. Wait, hang on a second. I'm just struggling with the earphones now. I have him on.

[Yasha Mounk]

Ok. Ok, great.

[Latif Nasser]

And I'm Going to start things off by introducing you to Yasha.

[John Favreau]

Yasha Munk. I'm a lecturer on government at Harvard.

[Latif Nasser]

He studies politics.

[John Favreau]

Da da da da da da. What I was going to say, maybe.

[Latif Nasser]

We could just start with where you grew up.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. So I was. So I was born in 1982. I grew up in Germany, moved around a bunch of different places within Germany as a kid, and then went to college in England, Cambridge in 2000. And I was kind of studying politics. I was a history major.

[Latif Nasser]

So Yasha was studying politics, but he was studying it in the past. So he was looking at going all the way back to the cradle of democracy in ancient Greece and then how democracy came to thrive around the world. But as he was studying that, he was noticing, you know, in the news, he would see in certain countries like France or Austria, you know, there would be these parties, these far right, ultra nationalist, anti immigrant parties that were starting to gain some traction.

[John Favreau]

And for Yasha, I saw some of this.

[Latif Nasser]

This was a little bit scary because.

[John Favreau]

My family's been in the wrong place at the wrong time for about four generations.

[Latif Nasser]

His great grandparents perished during the Holocaust.

[John Favreau]

My grandparents sort of barely survived in the Soviet Union. My parents grew up in Poland and were thrown out of the country in a huge sort of antisemitic wave in 1968. And so the idea that political systems that seem relatively stable and seem relatively peaceful might suddenly turn fractious and even violent is something that I suppose I always had a sort of dim awareness of even as a kid. So I remember being quite worried by this and having friends who were quite worried about it, but we were worried about it as sort of this weird bad thing that's going on. But I don't think we actually thought that these people might win. Jump to the early 2010s.

[Latif Nasser]

They start winning for the first time. Malin Le Pen will have a seat.

[Sara Kari]

In Parliament along with seven others from.

[Latif Nasser]

Her far right party. These far right parties in Austria and France, they start to gain power and it's not just there, but huge swaths of Europe.

[John Favreau]

What's happening in Italy is also happening elsewhere in Europe.

[Latif Nasser]

Similar right win parties start rising up in Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary.

[Robert Krulwich]

An identity crisis for the entire European continent.

[Latif Nasser]

And it's not just Europe. You have India, Turkey.

[Robert Krulwich]

And what started off as, of course.

[Latif Nasser]

The United States, unlikely, impossible, is now reality. Basically, there's this wave of politicians whose.

[John Favreau]

Message was, people aren't really listening to you.

[Latif Nasser]

Your government has failed you.

[John Favreau]

Trust me, I really speak for the people. I'M going to fix everything.

[Latif Nasser]

And to Yasha, this was, you know, this was like a wake up call. And not just because of immigration policy or right and left leanings of certain politicians, but even more deeply than that.

[John Favreau]

I was quite worried about the way in which these political movements perhaps pretended to have some allegiance to democratic mechanisms, but actually we were enemies of it.

[Latif Nasser]

Like, there was this one guy, the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, who.

[John Favreau]

Glorified the Third Reich in various ways and really harkened back to the country's fascist past in a positive way. That wasn't a far fetched fear, I don't think. I mean, a huge number of the world's dictators have been elected democratically at some point, and then they move against democratic institutions in such a way that you can't displace them democratically anymore.

[Latif Nasser]

So for Yasha, who by this point was a lecturer at Harvard, he, you know, kept seeing this in country after country after country. He saw these citizens willingly elect these wannabe dictators into power. And so he started wondering, what is making these citizens do this? Do they, do they feel like their current leaders don't get them? Do they, Are they, are they riled up about, you know, some issue of the day like refugees or income inequality? Or is this a sign that they're upset about something even more foundational, the political system itself? Like, are they actually angry with democracy itself?

[John Favreau]

And so I sat down with a friend and colleague to figure it out.

[Latif Nasser]

And his friend, it turns out, worked on something called the World Values Survey.

[John Favreau]

It was just a really ambitious attempt to try and get a public opinion around the world.

[Latif Nasser]

It's basically just a bunch of social scientists who ask a whole bunch of very standard questions to a whole bunch of people all over the world. And they're like, okay, let's, let's actually, like, scrutinize what, what's being said in here about democracy.

[John Favreau]

And when we actually looked at the numbers, we were, you know, honestly flabbergasted by what we saw.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, so there's actually three questions in particular that he got interested in.

[Yasha Mounk]

Okay, here.

[Latif Nasser]

So let's start with this one.

[John Favreau]

How do you feel about a strong ruler who doesn't have to bother with parliament or elections?

[Yasha Mounk]

Who doesn't have to bother with parliaments or elections?

[Latif Nasser]

Correct? Yeah.

[Yasha Mounk]

Okay.

[Latif Nasser]

They also asked this of Americans, just instead of doesn't have to bother with parliament, it was doesn't have to bother with Congress. Anyway, so in 1995, 24% of all Americans endorsed that kind of strongman leader, 24.

[Yasha Mounk]

So you know, one out of every four.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, but in the last several years, that number has jumped from 24 to 32%.

[Yasha Mounk]

So now it's a third. Almost. That's. Yeah, yeah.

[Latif Nasser]

Say a strong leader who doesn't have to deal with Congress or elections is either a very good or fairly good thing.

[Yasha Mounk]

Wow. Well, that surprises me.

[Latif Nasser]

It's kind of even more striking in Europe.

[John Favreau]

So in Germany, one in six people used to like that idea, but now.

[Yasha Mounk]

One in three in Germany, where they should know better.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[John Favreau]

In France and the United Kingdom, it was one in four 20 years ago, and now it's one in two.

[Yasha Mounk]

Half.

[Latif Nasser]

Half, yeah.

[John Favreau]

So every second Brit and Frenchman says, yeah, the idea of a strong ruler who doesn't have to bother with parliament intellections, that's pretty appealing to me.

[Yasha Mounk]

It's not appealing to me. That is not appealing to me.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Yasha Mounk]

Who would say that they like to not be involved in a democracy, which is about being involved.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, well, if you think that's crazy, here comes question number two, flat out. Simple, straightforward.

[John Favreau]

How important is it to you to live in a democracy on a scale of 1 to 10? And when you look at Americans born in the 1930s and 1940s, 2/3 of them give the highest importance to living in a democracy. I say that's really essential.

[Yasha Mounk]

I mean, I agree with. Well, two thirds seems a little soft to me.

[Latif Nasser]

Sure.

[John Favreau]

But among Americans born since 1980, it's less than one third.

[Latif Nasser]

Less than one third. Consider it essential to live in a democracy.

[Yasha Mounk]

What, less than a third?

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Yasha Mounk]

So of 100 people, 100 young people, 32.

[Robert Krulwich]

30.

[Yasha Mounk]

30, 25 would say, I love democracy. That's very important. And the rest, what would the rest say?

[Latif Nasser]

It's not, it's not the most important thing for them deciding where to live.

[Yasha Mounk]

Okay, well then if you are, if this is good, where would you like to, like, what would you prefer? Would you like to be living.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, well, that's a good segue to the next question. All right, final question, which was about army rule.

[John Favreau]

So do you think that army rule is a good system of government?

[Yasha Mounk]

Army rule? So we're not. This is no civilians anymore. Soldiers running the government, soldiers following orders, soldiers giving orders.

[John Favreau]

So 20 years ago, about 1 in 16Americans fought. There was a good system of government. In the most recent poll a couple of years ago, it was one in six. And among young and affluent Americans, it's actually gone up from 6% to 35%. So it's a nearly six fold increase.

[Yasha Mounk]

In America, you have one in three young, affluent Americans. A military rule is a wonderful thing, that's what you're saying.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

[Yasha Mounk]

Misguided or tragic, I don't know which.

[Latif Nasser]

So Yasha said something, he was like.

[John Favreau]

Look, I don't think the kernels took over tomorrow. One third of Americans would say, this is wonderful. I don't think that's actually true. But it does show a deep lack of attachment to the current political system and this sense of, you know what I mean, let's try something new. How bad could things get? I didn't think it could be much worse than what we have today.

[Yasha Mounk]

Here's the thing that gets to me. Let's imagine a well intentioned but totally authoritarian dictator who takes over, gets used to power, and then, as dictators do, chooses to remain in place forever. The adventure of democracy is that it admits that nothing is ever right. We always have to fix it. And the system has built in it. Impermanence. Every six years you elect the senator over again. Every two years you elect the congressman over again. Every four years you can have the option to switch presidents. Presidents can't serve beyond a particular point. There will be checks, there will be balances, there will be protection. But the whole thing admits that there's always change and always the ability to change. And this survey you just read me says, nah, we don't believe in it anymore. Well, that's dangerous to me, scary to me. And I think my response is, if that's the case, and I don't argue that people have these opinions, if that's the case, then let's fix it. Let's not throw it out, let's repair it in some way. But that's what it seems like a moment like this calls for. That's the speech.

[Latif Nasser]

Basically you're saying, let's fix it.

[Yasha Mounk]

Yeah.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah. Well, I mean, and there's, there's a lot to fix, right? Obviously there's corporate money and special interest lobbyists and gerrymandering and minority groups who don't get a voice and active voter suppression in a lot of places. The weirdness of the electoral college, the two party system in general, where it seems like they have nothing to do except for hate on each other. But I figured let's like, let's just focus on one thing, voting. Like, is there a way to just tweak this fundamental part of democracy? Like can we change the way we vote so that people don't feel as many people now do, that they're throwing their vote away, that their vote doesn't count that their vote is wasted.

[Yasha Mounk]

Okay, so what would you suggest?

[Latif Nasser]

So what I got is a It's kind of an alternate universe. It's a different way of doing elections that could have a profound effect on the way our democracy works. And we'll get to that right after a quick break. Radiolab is supported by Made In Cookware. As a Radiolab listener, you know we like to nerd out and explore things like how seagulls from the 1970s shook up our understanding of what's natural in all of us animals and how far the moon actually is. The usual Made In Cookware is into exploration too, creating products that help us answer questions like have you wanted to cook lobster but balked because the process seemed too intimidating? When it comes to picking the right ones and what tools you need to dig in, it can seem like a lot. Armed with Made In's Stainless Clad stock pot and their how to Cook Lobster blog post, there's no need to be afraid. With their professional grade stainless clad carbon steel, nonstick and enameled cast iron cookware collections, Made in lets you focus on memorable meals. Cook like a pro with Made In. For full details, visit madeincookware.com that's M A D E I N cookware.com WNYC.

[Simon Adler]

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[Latif Nasser]

Hey, John Favreau here. There's no shortage of political takes in 2024, but quantity doesn't cut it. We need a better conversation about the latest, biggest election of lives on Pod Save America. Me and my co host cut through the noise to help you figure out what matters and how you can help. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, Pod Save America is breaking down the political news that makes us laugh, cry and snap our laptops in half. Expensive year for laptops. Make sure to check out new episodes of Pod Save America on your favorite podcast platform or our YouTube channel now, Latif Radio Lab. We are back. A.B.

[Robert Krulwich]

Can you hear me?

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

There we are.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Oh, good. Okay, cool.

[Latif Nasser]

And we're going to start off with producer Simon Adler.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah. So in search of democratic inspiration, I called across the ocean to the Emerald Isle to talk to this guy.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So My name is Ab Philbin Bowman. I currently work for Orgy Radio 1 on the drive time program.

[Robert Krulwich]

Ab is a radio producer reporter for Ireland's equivalent to the BBC known as rte. And he's a self described election nerd.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Okay, so to sort of start from the start, please. The way I would look at this is American democracy is one of the oldest democracies in the world. It's kind of like a laptop from 1985. And at the time everybody was like, oh, my God, this is incredible. It's so fast, it's so responsive. You're gonna get so much stuff done with this. And to be fair, you did. But you've gotta keep updating your operating system, otherwise pretty soon your democracy is struggling to deal with things like Facebook newsfeeds and Twitter and leaves itself open to being hacked by Russia. Now in Ireland, we got our democracy a little bit later, the 1920s.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

And at that point, democracy had moved on from the 1770s, 1780s, when you guys sort of brought in your democracy and we adopted this, what was then quite modern voting system called prstv.

[Robert Krulwich]

Prstv, exactly. It sounds a bit like an std.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

It does sound quite like a sexually transmitted infection. It does, yes.

[Yasha Mounk]

Oh, this seems like dead in the water for him. Hello.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

The extended version is multi seize pr. That really sounds like an sti. It's not.

[Yasha Mounk]

One more time, say it again.

[Robert Krulwich]

Multi Seat prstv, which stands for Multi.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Seat Proportional representation by Single Transferable Vote.

[Latif Nasser]

I have no idea what that means.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, weird as it might sound, this is a system of voting that, unlike ours, can make every voter feel heard. Gets you candidates who best reflect the collective interest of the people and make sure no one ever feels like they're throwing their vote away.

[Yasha Mounk]

I don't believe you.

[Robert Krulwich]

You don't have to believe me.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, okay, I'm following. Tell us, tell us how this impossible feat, how does this even work?

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm walking through the lower Part of Dublin Central. Well, let's just put this in concrete terms.

[Latif Nasser]

Great.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay. So 2016, there's an election for the National Parliament in the Dublin Central district. It's blocks of brick row houses punctuated by these brightly colored pink or purple or yellow doors. You can think of it like an election district in Ireland. It's what's known as a constituency. A couple adult stores, low rise white public housing units.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

It's a predominantly working class constituency with a lot of difficulties.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is Maureen O'Sullivan, a longtime resident of the constituency with a shock of white hair.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

And I've always been involved with youth clubs, et cetera, doing voluntary work and then teaching in communities in the area.

[Robert Krulwich]

And so back In February of 2016, this area of Dublin, along with the rest of the country, was holding their parliamentary elections. Elections for what they called TDs.

[Latif Nasser]

Wait, what are TDs?

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Right, okay, well, TD is the Irish, the Gaelic for choctadole, which translates into Member of Parliament.

[Robert Krulwich]

At that time, Dublin Central had three of these TD seats. Three people representing them in Parliament.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

One of whom I was elected in 2009 was Maureen. And I would be, I am independent, not allied with any party.

[Robert Krulwich]

And going into that 2016 election, things were looking pretty uncertain for Maureen. First of all, there was a field of 15 candidates running for those three seats and worse. Seats one and two were expected to be snagged quite easily by these two high profile major party candidates. Yeah, this again is A.B. bowman, who actually covered this 2016 election.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

They're not locked down, but these are people who look like they are going to get elected.

[Robert Krulwich]

And what that means is you've got this wide open field of folks all fighting against Maureen for that third and final seat.

[Yasha Mounk]

Who is our contenders?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, right, so we're going to focus in on two of them. Can I just get you to introduce yourself?

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Of course, yeah.

[Sara Kari]

So I'm Mary Fitzpatrick.

[Robert Krulwich]

First, we've got Mary Fitzpatrick.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

On the spectrum of American politics, do you know where you fall?

[Latif Nasser]

But you just have two parties.

[Robert Krulwich]

She's pretty liberal. Been around Irish politics for a while.

[Gary Gannon]

You interview me already. Okay, we're on.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

And second, Gary Gannon, who's a young.

[Robert Krulwich]

Community worker, this brash guy with red stubble on his face.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Quite interesting, quite authentic. And he's sort of an interesting one.

[Robert Krulwich]

To watch because he's representing this brand new political party.

[Gary Gannon]

A plucky upstart, I think that's what they call it in the West Wing. I remember, yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And did you have a slogan or anything like.

[Gary Gannon]

Yes, no. What an amazing slogan. It was very simple. And it was just the one word, if. I stole it completely from an old fable about when the Macedonian army was marching on Sparta and they sent Sparta a message saying that if we win, we will born Sparta to the ground. We will enslave your women and kill your children. And Sparta sent back a one word message, just saying if.

[Robert Krulwich]

If, like I said, brash.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

And then you've got other voices who are left wing or environmentalist or others.

[Robert Krulwich]

So that's our field.

[Latif Nasser]

All right?

[Robert Krulwich]

And now here's how things actually work over in Ireland.

[Simon Adler]

Voting is underway in the Republic of Ireland as the country elects 157 new members of its parliament.

[Robert Krulwich]

So day of the election comes. As an Irish citizen, you walk into the voting booth, and it's a very, very long ballot because it has all of the candidates, all 15 of them. Their photo, their name, and then a line next to them, okay? And this ballot is a key component of that updated Irish Laptop of democracy, because instead of just filling in the circle next to one of those 15.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

You say, my number one choice is this guy. My number two choice is this lady. My number three choice is this person. And you can go all the way down the ballot giving preferences to as many different people as you like.

[Robert Krulwich]

You write in a number next to each candidate.

[Yasha Mounk]

How about one man, one vote? Got it.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, it's still one man, one vote.

[Latif Nasser]

No, it can't be.

[Robert Krulwich]

No, it is. It is. It is. It is. At the end of the day, your vote will only have counted for one person. However, in the voting process, you're not.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Just measuring what everyone's first choice is like. You might have a favorite choice, but you're not totally equal about the other three choices. And what this system allows us to do is to reflect that.

[Robert Krulwich]

It allows you to say how you feel about the rest of the candidates. And if your first choice doesn't make it, if he or she is way down the list and out of the running, then your vote lives on in the form of your second choice.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So for as long as there's a viable candidate with your number on it, your vote will stay alive in the system.

[Yasha Mounk]

Is this too early for me to raise a warning flag or should I wait?

[Robert Krulwich]

You can wave. I may ignore it, but let's see it or hear it.

[Yasha Mounk]

The commitment that people make to voting is slight. Most of us are into lunch, sports, work, and then maybe on the day of a vote, they have their best friend. So you gotta vote for Sally like they know one.

[Latif Nasser]

They're not even gonna know. Seven.

[Yasha Mounk]

Yeah. So the first smell of this is it would take us more time than we want and we might walk away from this exercise because we don't feel prepared.

[Robert Krulwich]

You can engage with this on whatever level you'd like, Robert. If you only know one candidate's name, you can just put your one next to that person and hand in your ballot and you're done. Or let's say there's a candidate on there you really, really don't like.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

You can leave them off the ballot entirely.

[Robert Krulwich]

You're ranking your preferences. It's very simple.

[Yasha Mounk]

Fairly good answer.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, so let me walk you through how this plays out. So Polls close at 10pm on Friday, February 26.

[Gary Gannon]

And then, then all hell broke loose.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

General Election 2016 on RTE Radio One.

[Latif Nasser]

With Rachel English and Sean Orwell.

[Robert Krulwich]

The real action begins.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

It's going to be a day of.

[Latif Nasser]

Drama, shocks and surprises.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So what happens is we vote on the Friday and on Saturday morning, the.

[Robert Krulwich]

Votes actually get counted. So for Dublin Central, Dublin Central gets.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Counted in one central location, which is the rds.

[Latif Nasser]

Let's go first to Ireland's largest count.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Center, the rds, the Royal Dublin Society.

[Latif Nasser]

Sean, thank you very much.

[Simon Adler]

Welcome indeed to the RDS Square.

[Robert Krulwich]

This barn like building with big vaulted.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Ceilings, big, big hall, huge amount of noise.

[Latif Nasser]

Firstly, welcome to the Cal center here in.

[Gary Gannon]

Okay, well, I didn't realize we were gonna go through the post traumatic trauma of the whole thing. I've kind of blacked it out. No, I'm joking. Actually, was lovely.

[Robert Krulwich]

The doors open at 9 o'clock and I arrived Elizabeth throng arriving. This is Mel, Mel Mucky Boone. He's a campaign worker for our endangered incumbent, Maureen Maureen O'Sullivan. And on the morning of the count, as he pushed his way through these heavy wooden doors, what he would have seen was this cavernous hall filled with people milling about.

[Gary Gannon]

Everybody's got clipboards, there's people with tons of sandwiches made and tea and coffee in abundance, and everybody's really excited.

[Robert Krulwich]

And so shortly after 9:00, all the boxes come in, these giant metal boxes of ballots.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So the boxes are opened, literally they're.

[Robert Krulwich]

Lifted up and there is a cascade and a spilling of all this paper.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Because it's all done by paper voting.

[Latif Nasser]

Wait, what?

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Yeah, we tried electronic voting in this country and we didn't like it because it was very fast. And I think we realized that the drama of an election and also the ritual of democracy gets everybody engaged and gets people watching. It's like watching a big sports game. You don't want it to be over in five minutes thereafter.

[Robert Krulwich]

And so, time now for our live update.

[Latif Nasser]

I have to, as we always do at this time on this day, we're talking tallies, first of all, which obviously.

[Robert Krulwich]

Can skew the results not just at the RDS and not just for Dublin Central, but all across the country.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Vote counters are dumping boxes of votes and going through them and putting them into stacks. First in Kilkenny is Justin McCarthy.

[Robert Krulwich]

Rough bundles, in no particular order, 75%.

[Latif Nasser]

Of the boxes have been tallied here.

[Robert Krulwich]

And they include so early on here. The counters are just trying to get a handle on how many first choice votes each candidate is getting from cavan.

[Gary Gannon]

Audrey Carville.

[Simon Adler]

100% of the boxes are open.

[Sara Kari]

And.

[Robert Krulwich]

And, well, the ballot counters are doing this official count. There's another group of people standing next.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

To them up the Atlantic way in.

[Robert Krulwich]

Donegal doing their own unofficial calculations.

[Gary Gannon]

Yes, definitely. The tally men.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

88% of boxes opened untallied.

[Latif Nasser]

Cork, North Central.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

All boxes opened, all sheets tallied.

[Robert Krulwich]

These tallymen, there are several of them put forward by each candidate.

[Gary Gannon]

And they're just looking over the railings waiting for you to turn that ballot brash up.

[Robert Krulwich]

Star Gary Gannon again.

[Gary Gannon]

So they can shout out the name of the person that got the number one preference.

[Latif Nasser]

Higgins.

[Gary Gannon]

They're like Gannon, number one. Gannon, Burke, Gallagher. And they're just counting them up.

[Latif Nasser]

And what they're counting is number one.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes, they're shouting out and tallying the first choice labeled on each ballot.

[Gary Gannon]

So you have an understanding whether you're.

[Robert Krulwich]

At the races or not, which it seemed like Gary was.

[Latif Nasser]

We have a 98% tally and there is a growing belief here that the third seat will be between Gary Gannon and.

[Robert Krulwich]

He was getting a lot of first preferences.

[Gary Gannon]

So I walked in. I got pulled over by one of our national newspapers to do an interview.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Let's bring Gary Gannon in.

[Latif Nasser]

Hiya, Gary.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

It's too early to be saying you're.

[Simon Adler]

Over the line, but you're going well in Dublin Central.

[Gary Gannon]

Oh, God, it's far too early. All the radio researchers are coming over, grabbing me, bringing me over to speak on the radio.

[Simon Adler]

There's a bunch of you done 9% as well.

[Latif Nasser]

So we could be in for another dog.

[Gary Gannon]

Absolutely, yeah. I've canceled my weekend plans. I think I'll be. I think I'll be here for a while. It was genuine, like a real nice sense of excitement, but not for everyone.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

So that morning I was at home.

[Robert Krulwich]

Doing different things again. This is incumbent Moreno Sullivan. What did you do, did you make breakfast? Did you go for a walk?

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

I did. I had my breakfast above. I walked the dog. What type of dog? A white fluffy dog.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, what's his name?

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

His name is Bailey. So I brought him for a walk.

[Robert Krulwich]

Are you listening to the radio? You're totally disconnected.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Yeah, pretty much. I let my campaigners go over to be part of the tally.

[Robert Krulwich]

Campaigners? It's starting to kind of including Mel. So within the first hour from some of the tallies that we were seeing, you know, like Maureen isn't picking up enough votes. I would say, oh, I hope this is not going to be an early day where there's no need for you to hang around because nobody's in the race any longer.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

And then I think I was driving when I got the first call from my campaigners over in the count saying it's not looking good.

[Simon Adler]

Let's go back now to the busiest.

[Latif Nasser]

Count center of them all, to Mary.

[Simon Adler]

Wilson in the rts.

[Latif Nasser]

Rachel, thank you very much.

[Simon Adler]

A first count imminent, we believe, here in Dublin Central.

[Robert Krulwich]

Meanwhile, the counters take all those ballots now officially sorted by first preference, and they pick up the stack for each candidate on the table and walk that.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Stack back to this wooden shelving unit.

[Robert Krulwich]

Again, Mary Fitzpatrick behind the tables at.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

A little bit of a distance in.

[Robert Krulwich]

The center, this giant sort of cubby.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Pigeonholes, just like light flimsy wooden boxes.

[Robert Krulwich]

And this is the sacred shrine of Irish democracy on this day.

[Latif Nasser]

The Kabi.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Absolutely. Because. Because when they've counted all of the.

[Robert Krulwich]

First preference votes, they placed them all in their respective cubbies. There's a hush in that part of the arena.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

And the returning officer stands up on a stage with a microphone and goes.

[Gary Gannon]

Following is the result of count one.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Here is the first count for the constituency of Dublin Central.

[Yasha Mounk]

68, 66.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

And they read out every candidate. How many number one votes did they get? And first off the bat, at the.

[Robert Krulwich]

End of the first count, first and second are pretty much locked down with the two people everybody expected to win. But, but, but, but then in third place unexpectedly is Mary Fitzpatrick.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Yeah, I mean I was very pleased to be in third position on the first count.

[Robert Krulwich]

Now with our system of voting at this point, you're done, the election's over. The two front runner candidates would have each won a seat and then Mary Fitzpatrick would have won a seat. Gary and Maureen, they'd be out done.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

But in Ireland, not.

[Robert Krulwich]

So in Ireland, they're just getting started. So back to the race and remember, at this moment, Mary Fitzpatrick is in third Gary is in fifth and in seventh.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

At that stage, I was listening to the radio, and I knew what they were saying about Dublin Central is incumbent Maureen O'Sullivan. And what were they saying?

[Latif Nasser]

It appears almost certain that Joe Costume and Maureen O'Sullivan are set to lose out.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Myself and Joe Costalo. You're out. I had some.

[Robert Krulwich]

Why?

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Because of the numbers. I think the feeling was I was too far down that first preference to come back up.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

But I've been looking at the early results coming in from around the country.

[Robert Krulwich]

But like I said, it's not over yet.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So the way the vote progresses is the sheriff or the presiding officer starts to eliminate candidates. The first elimination is the bottom three candidates. Those candidacies are gone and in the bin.

[Robert Krulwich]

Since Gary's in fifth and Maureen's in seventh, they're safe for now. But the bottom three candidates, they're gone.

[Latif Nasser]

Why three?

[Robert Krulwich]

Because they are so far out that mathematically they could never come back. Between the three of them, they've only got, like, 150 votes.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So we get rid of all three.

[Robert Krulwich]

Of them and redistribute those ballots.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So if you voted for those people.

[Robert Krulwich]

They'D just go, okay, who did you vote for as your second choice?

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

And the point is, your vote is still alive and is still part of this election.

[Robert Krulwich]

And so those 150 votes, those 150 ballots, they begin to do this sort of ballet.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

The ballots are all in these pigeonholes. Everything is visible.

[Robert Krulwich]

The vote counters walk back to that shrine, to that cubby.

[Sara Kari]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And pull the ballots from the cubbyholes for those three candidates. Then march these ballots back to the front table and sort them then into.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Bundles of second preference on the ballot.

[Robert Krulwich]

So now you've got stacks for every candidate that was listed as a second.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Choice, and we distribute them, they take.

[Robert Krulwich]

Them back to the cubby where they are then added to the remaining candidate's.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

First preferences, and that becomes the second count.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Yasha Mounk]

Okay. So what they want is everybody who voted to the degree that it is possible should maybe be participating in electing somebody to the legislature.

[Robert Krulwich]

Exactly. All right, so.

[Yasha Mounk]

Excuse me, what time is it now?

[Robert Krulwich]

We're probably middle of the afternoon at this point.

[Yasha Mounk]

And when do we start?

[Robert Krulwich]

We started at 9 in the morning.

[Yasha Mounk]

Okay, point taken.

[Robert Krulwich]

People are having a good time.

[Latif Nasser]

No, no, no.

[Yasha Mounk]

What do you mean? I am now watching this program for five hours. That's a long time.

[Robert Krulwich]

I will challenge your. That just because a competition unfolds slowly that it is without drama or suspense.

[Yasha Mounk]

All right, I'm sorry that we're making this so hard for you, that's fine, but you are not making it easy for us. Anyway, back to the scene.

[Latif Nasser]

Dublin Central is reduced to three seats.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So I'm looking at this going okay.

[Robert Krulwich]

Mary Fitzpatrick, our candidate in third after.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

The first count, has 2,500 votes. Gary Gannon currently in fifth. He's only 200 votes behind her. And my instinct is he's gonna be more transfer friendly.

[Robert Krulwich]

He's gonna get more second choice votes than her.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

I think he could overtake her. And I start watching where the transfers are going, and I start to be proven right.

[Latif Nasser]

Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats did.

[John Favreau]

Very well on transfers.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So count two. Gary Gannon is getting 20 votes and Mary Fitzpatrick's only getting two.

[Robert Krulwich]

Count three, the whole process repeats. Knock somebody out, do the ballot ballet, redistribute those transfers.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Gary gannon picks up 60 votes and Mary Fitzpatrick only picks up seven. So he's gaining honor already.

[Gary Gannon]

They're talking about me. They're asking, who is this guy? Where is he coming from, all of these things. And then I was getting phone calls.

[Robert Krulwich]

Mary's stock is falling while Gary's stock is staying.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Mary's stock is staying static. You know, we were struggling for transfers. That was the issue. She's not going up much and the others are gaining on her. So, yeah, it's painful, it's not pleasant. And bear in mind, you've still got other people picking up boats there.

[Robert Krulwich]

We're seeing little pickups for Maureen.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Maureen picked up 49, but not a lot.

[Robert Krulwich]

We're moving ahead slowly.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, we have a Dublin Central count coming in.

[Robert Krulwich]

Count four again. Eliminate the bottom candidate. Redistribute those votes. This time around, really not much changes. Then count five.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

The next person going out has got 800 votes. 31 of them go to Mary Fitzpatrick, but also 190 of them go to Gary Gannon.

[Latif Nasser]

Gary Gannon has surprised a lot of people in his ability to pick up transfers from.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

And Gary Gannon has just jumped into fourth place. We've got quite a fight now on our hands.

[Latif Nasser]

The standings as they are.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So at the places are Mary Fitzpatrick in third place.

[Robert Krulwich]

She's just barely holding on. In fourth, hot on her heels, is Gary Gannon. And then way at the back of the pack, still in seventh is incumbent Maureen O'Sullivan.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

That's the state of play at count five. Count number six.

[Simon Adler]

Oh, here we go. Continuing coverage. Michael Gallagher is here.

[Robert Krulwich]

Guys, hello.

[Simon Adler]

We're back.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

This is where two big things happen.

[Latif Nasser]

Everybody's having their own conversations.

[Simon Adler]

Obviously one Mary Lou MacDonald of Sinn Fein and Dublin.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Mary Lou MacDonald of Sinn Fein, one.

[Robert Krulwich]

Of the frontrunners, expected to take a.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Seat, gets over the line and also.

[Gary Gannon]

I'm walking around just hugging people.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Gary Gannon now jumps into third place.

[Robert Krulwich]

It was invigorating pushing Mary Fitzpatrick out of a winning spot like that.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

It was on the transfers. I got caught and that's it.

[Robert Krulwich]

She never recaptured it. So the woman who, under our system would have won off the bat, she lost out.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

That is it. You know.

[Robert Krulwich]

Still hanging on in second to last, but also disheartened, is our incumbent, Maureen O'Sullivan, who's expecting to lose.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

And I suppose maybe 7 o'clock people started to arrive.

[Robert Krulwich]

She actually invited her campaign staff and volunteers back to her place for a concession party.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

And I said, when people came in, I don't want to know anything about the elections. I'll catch up tomorrow. Unknown to me, because I was busy with the tea and the drinks and the food. Some of them in the House were still in contact with those over in.

[Simon Adler]

The RDS to the Dublin Central Constituency and to Our reporter, Damien O'Mara. Damian, you have a development report.

[Robert Krulwich]

One of those guys still over in the RDS was Mel. I did have a sense looking at the numbers and saying, well, okay, but if. And then maybe there's a chance there's a chance in this. Well, was that a crazy thought to have or a very smart thought to have? It was just a thought to have because despite the fact that all day the media had been saying that Maureen was out.

[Latif Nasser]

Maureen O'Sullivan set to lose, outgoing TD Maureen O'Sullivan. Maureen O'Sullivan might be illegal.

[Robert Krulwich]

At count seven, something starts to happen.

[Latif Nasser]

Three furlongs to go.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Coming around the bend, Gary Gannon looks like he's in pole position.

[Gary Gannon]

But all of a sudden we weren't reallocating people's second preferences or their third preferences. We'd got to the stage where we were reallocating people's fourth, fifth and sixth preferences.

[Robert Krulwich]

Cause keep in mind, most people's votes are still sloshing around the system. And at this point, not only has their top choice been knocked out, but they're second and third as well. So their vote is now being cast for their fourth, fifth or a sixth place choice. And a lot of those, they start going to Maureen.

[Gary Gannon]

She's known people for years, been elected twice previous to that. So even people who weren't voting for number one, number two, number three, their votes were still carrying past the fours and the FOIA's and just mauled me on those transfers.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

So we go to count eight, beginning.

[John Favreau]

To make a bit of ground into the straight.

[Robert Krulwich]

Maureen makes this massive jump, vaulting her ahead of two opponents into fourth place. Now just a couple hundred votes behind Gary. Did you have any sense this week?

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

No, no, no, because I didn't have the television on and they decided not to tell me, not to raise my hopes.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

We're on the ninth count at the moment.

[Robert Krulwich]

So the ninth count, the situation is that another candidate is axed. They redistribute her votes.

[Latif Nasser]

It's.

[Robert Krulwich]

It's coming down, it's coming down to it. When they count up those transfer, does.

[Simon Adler]

That mean then that Gary Gannon is.

[Latif Nasser]

Likely to be elected?

[Simon Adler]

Or what's the situation there? Michael Gallagher.

[Robert Krulwich]

Maureen gets some 300 more transfers than Gary, meaning suddenly Gary gannon is precisely.

[London Breed]

Eight votes ahead of Maureen O'Sullivan.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Oh my God, I did not see that coming.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

She's within eight votes of him around quarter to ten.

[Robert Krulwich]

But Maureen meanwhile is still convinced she's gonna lose. She's actually heading down to the count center to concede the race.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

I said to myself, I should go over and concede. So came out into the car and as I'm driving over to concede, I was just at the traffic lights, I can picture. And at that stage the phone call comes.

[Robert Krulwich]

She looks at her phone and it's one of her campaign staff calling.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

I thought, why are they ringing me? Just to hurry me up to get over or whatever.

[Robert Krulwich]

But in fact they were calling because in Dublin Central.

[Simon Adler]

But Brian Dowling, you've been just as I mention your name, Brian, we're going to Dublin Central.

[Robert Krulwich]

My last time up.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

This is the result of the 11th count for Dublin Central.

[Gary Gannon]

And I deem.

[Latif Nasser]

The following candidate to be elected and.

[Robert Krulwich]

They are Maureen O'Sullivan in her car. Maureen did eventually pick up and then.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

It was, where are you? You're about to be Alexis, you're going to be elected.

[Robert Krulwich]

She put down the phone, drove to the count center and when she arrived.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Great applause, great hugs, great kisses. So it was just a lovely explosion of feeling, warm feelings towards me from everybody.

[Latif Nasser]

Maureen O'Sullivan.

[Simon Adler]

Congratulations.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Thank you very much.

[Latif Nasser]

You're a very relieved woman.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

I'm a stunned woman. I was at home, reconciled to a new life. I of politics. And then suddenly I'm back in the frame. We had thought that we were too far behind to. So I just said, look, I know what Lazarus felt like. It was, it was that kind of moment.

[Robert Krulwich]

So is this a story of multi seat proportional representation by single Transferable vote working out exactly as it's meant to. Or is this sort of a perversion of the system?

[Gary Gannon]

No, it absolutely is. It worked that day. Worked out exactly as single transferable votes was meant to do.

[Robert Krulwich]

One last time, the gracious Gary Gannon.

[Gary Gannon]

Everybody got their. Everybody got their say, and everybody got their vote. Don't get me wrong when I say, like, it did hurt, but, I mean, I was 28, 29 then. Like, there was a huge sense of, like, we'll show you and we'll be back. So single transferable vote on that day worked against me, but, you know, I think it worked out perfectly.

[Yasha Mounk]

Perfectly. I mean, let me just see if I get this right. There's this woman, Maureen, who hardly anybody loves. She scores almost no votes as the favorite. She's just everybody's, you know, fourth, fifth, sixth. I'll choose Maureen. And yet, because the votes are keeping getting shuffled and shuffled and shuffled, It's Ms. Meh who becomes the winner. Like, she's. She's chosen because a lot of people don't hate her.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, well, so. So here's what it makes me think of, right? And I had this moment where I was just imagining if we had been using this at various crucial moments in our very recent history, things could have gone an entirely different way. Take the American presidential election of 2016, okay, between Don, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, but also Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

[Yasha Mounk]

Yeah, but nobody voted for them.

[Latif Nasser]

Well, no, but hardly. Hardly anybody. That number of hardly anybody's. That was. That's a sizable enough number that they could have swung the election one way or the other. If you look at really key states, the deciding states. If you presume Gary Johnson's votes were split, and if you presume all of Jill Stein's votes went to Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton would have won Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and the whole kit and caboodle.

[Yasha Mounk]

Whoa, that's interesting.

[Latif Nasser]

Now, the weird thing is you can just keep playing this game, and it'll drive you crazy, but you can keep playing it. So if you go back to the 2016 Republican primaries where Donald Trump emerged victorious, right? Over 10 people or something like that. Over 10 people, right. But there was a sizable number of people in those primaries who were never Trumpers. If those people had been able to block their votes together, they might have been able to rally behind a candidate who was not Donald Trump. And then rewind even further back the 2000 election, where the number of votes that Ralph Nader got in Florida were more than the difference between Bush got and Gore.

[Yasha Mounk]

Got now elect a Republican, can you?

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, so go back to Ross Perot, right? George H.W. bush was running against Bill Clinton in 1992. Ross Perot. It's very controversial whether he really was a spoiler in that election. But I mean, if you ask the Bush people, they say he definitely was. And so if the Perores went to Bush, then like Bill Clinton would have just been a historical footnote. He wouldn't have been the president. Like, it's like a huge, huge seismic difference in world history. So when we come back, we're not going to be looking at my own imaginative math. We're going to look at what is ranked choice actually look like if it was in the United States. Because it is in the United States.

[Yasha Mounk]

It's about to happen.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[Yasha Mounk]

When we come back.

[Latif Nasser]

Radiolab is supported by Made in Cookware. As a Radiolab listener, you know, we like to nerd out and explore things like how seagulls from the 1970s shook up our understanding of what's natural in all of us animals and how far the moon actually is. The usual Made In Cookware is into exploration too, creating products that help us answer questions like have you wanted to cook lobster but balked because the process seemed too intimidating? When it comes to picking the right ones and what tools you need to dig in, it can seem like a lot. Armed with Made In's Stainless Clad stock pot and their how to Cook Lobster blog post, there's no need to be afraid. With their professional grade stainless clad carbon steel nonstick and enameled cast iron cookware collections, Made in lets you focus on memorable meals. Cook like a pro with Made In. For full details, visit madeincookware.com that's M A D E I N cookware.com WNYC.

[Simon Adler]

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[Latif Nasser]

Hey, Jon Favreau here. There's no shortage of political takes in 2024, but quantity doesn't cut it. We need a better conversation about the latest, biggest election of our lives. On Pod Save America, me and my co host cut through the noise to help you figure out what matters and how you can help. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, Pod Save America is breaking down the political news that makes us laugh, cry, and snap our laptops in half. Expensive year for laptops. Make sure to check out new episodes of Pod Save America on your favorite podcast platform or our YouTube channel now.

[Yasha Mounk]

Welcome back. I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Latif Nasser]

I'm Latif Nasser, and this is Radiolab.

[Yasha Mounk]

And we're trying to fix democracy in this hour in little bits and pieces.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, so let me. Let me just back up for a second because we have been talking about this and thinking about this around the office for a little while, and at some point, as we were. As we were kind of meditating on this dwindling faith in democracy, one of our fellow producers at our sister show More Perfect.

[Sara Kari]

Okay. Sara.

[Latif Nasser]

Sara. Kari. She just took me and Simon. Great, great. And just dragged us into a studio.

[Sara Kari]

Okay. So we've been having this conversation about whether our democracy is broken for, like, a few months now. And like, every meeting that we've had, I've been the one in the room being like, guys, our democracy is fine. Like, have you seen other places? This is crazy. Like, who are these people that think, like, our democracy is broken? Like, they don't know what they are talking about.

[Latif Nasser]

And do you know why? Like, where. Where. Where's that feeling coming from?

[Sara Kari]

Well, okay, can you tell me your name? Uzma. And who are you? Probably because of this woman. I'm usma. I'm Uzma. Who are you in relation to me? Oh, I'm your mom. My mom. And both of my parents actually grew up in Pakistan. That is the beginning 25 years of my life where I spend and I feel. Which is a pretty young country. And it's. It's just struggled so much to keep its democracy alive and healthy. And I saw. And the consequences of not getting the full democracy there in Pakistan. So that then after living 25 years of next 25 years of my life in America, I really found out the value of democracy as an Individual and as a group also. So I can differentiate now very well between those two. So that's kind of how I've always understood our democracy. But then, Simon, I listened to your Ireland story with all of this ranked choice voting stuff and that's the first moment when I was like, oh, like maybe our way of doing things is broken. Like maybe we do need an update.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay. And okay, why, what about it made you switch teams?

[Sara Kari]

Because it made me suddenly aware of the fact that in our system, candidates don't actually need a majority of the votes to win.

[Latif Nasser]

Right.

[Sara Kari]

So you, you have candidates who then make that calculation where they say I only really have to win the votes of people who are in my base. And if that's, if those, if my base is bigger than everybody else's base, then like, screw everyone else.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, it seems like in a democracy most people should vote for the person who wins. Not just that the person who wins is going to have the biggest base to a bigger base than everybody else. It should be that most people are in some way in some preference supporting the person who comes to power.

[Sara Kari]

Yeah, exactly. And it's funny, when I heard about ranked choice voting, I was like, oh, this system is so cool because I feel like it addresses that exact problem. And so I totally got sucked into it. And I started looking around and it turns out there are a bunch of people who think that this could be used here in the US and not only that, it already is. And when I asked around, a number of people pointed to this moment in 2000 with the election when Bush loses the popular election, but he wins because he wins in Florida. And so people look at the results in Florida and see that a bunch of votes that might have gone to Al Gore, they go instead to Ralph Nader, who then becomes sort of notorious as this spoiler that maybe ruined the election for Al gore. And after 2000, at that point, you do see some cities that start to adopt ranked choice voting at the local level. And so what I did is, okay.

[Latif Nasser]

I'm putting my phone on airplane mode.

[Sara Kari]

I grabbed Latif and we kind of did this like cross country ranked choice voting tour. And the first place we're going to start with. Hello, San Francisco. Yes, San Francisco is here is San Francisco. Is this Dominic?

[London Breed]

Yes, this is.

[Sara Kari]

Oh, hey, Dominic, what's up?

[London Breed]

Hi. What's up?

[Sara Kari]

So this is Dominic Fricassa.

[London Breed]

Check, check, check.

[Sara Kari]

Yeah, he used to do radio.

[Latif Nasser]

You got the pipes for it, Dominic.

[London Breed]

Hey, let me know if you need any ad spots so we can get right to it, you know.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay, cool.

[Sara Kari]

But he now he's a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle.

[London Breed]

I'm a City hall reporter. Order for the Chronicle. Yeah, so the very first ranked choice election in San Francisco happened in 2004, but it was actually ranked choice voting became, I guess, the city's method, or the city's system, if you will, back in 2002, where there was a ballot initiative that was passed by voters that said, like, look, this is going to be the system that we're going to implement going forward. So the vast majority of local elected offices are chosen with. With ranked choice contests. So City council, the Board of Supervisors, the school board, our, like, assessor recorder.

[Sara Kari]

And in one very specific election.

[London Breed]

The case in the mayor's race.

[Sara Kari]

The case in the mayor's race.

[London Breed]

Okay, great. I can't believe this was just that a few months ago. It seems like a long time ago at this point.

[Sara Kari]

Okay, so early 2018, the San Francisco mayor's race kicked off.

[London Breed]

And when it really kicked into gear, there were three leading candidates.

[Latif Nasser]

You had, hi, I'm Board of Supervisors President London Breed.

[London Breed]

London Breed. And you had, hello, I'm Mark Leno. Former San Francisco Supervisor, Mark Leno.

[Latif Nasser]

And you had, hi, I'm Jane Kim.

[London Breed]

A current supervisor, Jane Kim. And these are all Democrats.

[Latif Nasser]

The field of candidates is set now. KPI x5. Joe Vasquez is 5.

[Sara Kari]

Okay, so out of the gate, new.

[Latif Nasser]

Front runner in the San Francisco mayor's.

[London Breed]

Race, and it's London Breed.

[Robert Krulwich]

This campaign is a winning campaign.

[Sara Kari]

She was the more moderate, more established candidate.

[London Breed]

She's getting one heck of a bounce in the polls. And she had a fairly strong lead and a lot of wind in her sales.

[Robert Krulwich]

A 2 to 1 leap over her.

[London Breed]

Two closest rivals, Lamar Glenno and Jane Kim.

[Sara Kari]

And as the campaign made its way.

[London Breed]

To election day, things were going pretty well.

[Latif Nasser]

We are winners.

[Sara Kari]

It was almost like, sure, there are three names on the back ballot, but at the end of the day, it was more like London Breed.

[London Breed]

London Breed and London Breed, the favorite.

[Yasha Mounk]

In the recent polls heading into Tuesday's election.

[Sara Kari]

But then, right before the election, something happened that you basically never see in American politics.

[Latif Nasser]

We are proud to stand together, to say that we are united in our belief that we need fundamental change here in the city and county of San Francisco.

[Sara Kari]

In the very last few weeks before election Day, the two underdogs, Jane Kim and Mark Leno, they held a press conference on the steps of City Hall.

[Latif Nasser]

Mark and I are opponents, as everyone knows.

[London Breed]

They stood outside City hall, literally joined hands, and Said I'm proud to be.

[Latif Nasser]

The first set of candidates to truly take advantage of the rank choice voting system and encourage our supporters to vote for both of us.

[Yasha Mounk]

Wait a second. So what she's saying is vote for me. Definitely vote for me, but also vote for this guy who I'm running against.

[Sara Kari]

Yeah, exactly.

[London Breed]

Vote for me first, but vote for Jane second. Or vote for me first and vote for Mark second.

[Sara Kari]

So like, if one of us were to come in last, like let's say Mark comes in last. If all the people who voted for him ranked Jane as their second choice, then all of those votes would go to her and vice versa. That way they actually have a better chance of beating the front runner, London Breed.

[London Breed]

And that made a lot of sense. They were both, quote, unquote, more progressive candidates and, you know, saw each other, at least the rhetoric goes, as the person that they'd like to see as mayor, if not themselves.

[Latif Nasser]

Was that a surprise move to you as you were covering it? Did you see that coming?

[London Breed]

I didn't see it coming, no. I think that was a surprise to a lot of people.

[Latif Nasser]

I almost had to do a double.

[Sara Kari]

Take when I saw these new campaign.

[Latif Nasser]

Posters supporting both Jane Kim and Mark Leno for mayor.

[London Breed]

After that press conference, Mark Leno and Jane Kim started appearing in campaign ads together.

[Simon Adler]

I'm Jane Kim and I'm Mark Leno.

[Sara Kari]

Campaigning for one another.

[Latif Nasser]

Mark and I are opponents, but Jane.

[Simon Adler]

And I agree you should pick our next mayor, not the billionaires.

[Sara Kari]

And so basically the whole campaign is like, if you don't vote for me first, then at least vote for me second.

[Robert Krulwich]

Let's stand together.

[Latif Nasser]

Vote for me and Mark Leno. Vote for me and Jane Kim. KPIX 5's Joe Vasquez is with the London Breed campaign, where just moments ago, Breed addressed the crowd.

[Yasha Mounk]

Joe.

[Sara Kari]

So on election night, London Breed has a pretty commanding lead as the polls are coming to a close. And basically she's trying to get up to this marker of 50% of the votes plus one vote. That's a majority. And if she can get to that, then she wins. There's no ranked choice runoff, there's no vote swapping. And as the night goes on, she.

[London Breed]

Is not yet declaring victory, but this crowd is celebrating.

[Sara Kari]

She's got like a double digit lead. Like things are looking pretty good.

[London Breed]

They are celebrating the person they believe.

[Latif Nasser]

Could be the next mayor of San Francisco.

[London Breed]

Holy smokes. She's beating mark Leno by 10 percentage points and she's beating Jane Kim by more than that. So we're getting to midnight, I'm completely bleary eyed staring at my laptop, refreshing the Department of Elections website every few seconds when 12:30 at night.

[Sara Kari]

It happens.

[Latif Nasser]

In the early returns. London Breed had a sizable lead, but.

[Simon Adler]

She didn't reach 50%.

[Sara Kari]

She came in just shy of 50%.

[Latif Nasser]

So the rank choice voting system kicked.

[London Breed]

In and all of a sudden this entire race has changed.

[Sara Kari]

Okay, so the rankings had been London Breed number one, Mark Leno, number two.

[Latif Nasser]

Jane Kim, who was in third place.

[Simon Adler]

Was now eliminated in that ranked choice system.

[London Breed]

But when Kim got eliminated, a huge chunk of her voters, about three out.

[Latif Nasser]

Of four went to Leno because Leno was their second. And now by a razor thin margin.

[Yasha Mounk]

Mark Leno is leading the race.

[Sara Kari]

The Kim Leno strategy had come to fruition.

[London Breed]

He's up 0.84%, the slimmest of leads.

[Robert Krulwich]

The mayor's race is still too close to call.

[Sara Kari]

The race would actually drag on for.

[London Breed]

Days as more ballots got counted, tens.

[Robert Krulwich]

Of thousands of outstanding ballots.

[London Breed]

We didn't have a mayor chosen until I think eight days later when.

[Sara Kari]

In a gymnasium packed with screaming supporters, out walked the new mayor of San Francisco, London Breed.

[Simon Adler]

Yes, I'm your mayor.

[Sara Kari]

Mark Leno came up just short.

[London Breed]

He came within 1.1% or a little over 2,500 votes.

[Sara Kari]

Oh man.

[London Breed]

So I mean, okay, it didn't work in that he didn't win, but you can't say that it was completely ineffective.

[Sara Kari]

And so ultimately what did people think of this whole like Mark Leno, Jane Kim coming together?

[London Breed]

People saw the dual endorsement strategy as gaming the system, as saying, look, they are doing this in order to keep London Breed from winning and that they are your paper.

[Sara Kari]

Right? That was the editorial board.

[London Breed]

Yeah, our editorial board said as much. You know, and I think that's not just the Ed board. I mean people do feel that way, that it was this strategy, you know, especially London Breed supporters who saw, who saw a teaming up, a piling on and you know, in this, I mean just to kind of just very quickly just zoom out all the way. I think people just find that weird in a country in which politics ends up being a zero sum game, oftentimes in which you are, you know, relentlessly attacking your opponent, beating them down. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But at the same time that's very much. There might be some people at my own newspaper that disagree with me, but I think that's very much in the spirit of what ranked choice voting invites, coalition building.

[Sara Kari]

Now, Dominic wanted to be clear that in the case of the mayor's race, this coming together of opponents.

[London Breed]

I don't want to make it sound like it was just some kind of Kumbaya thing because that wasn't the case.

[Sara Kari]

But at the very next stop on our tour, we actually found that case, the Kumbaya case. Hey, Curtis, are you there?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, I am.

[Sara Kari]

Which also on the line we have Latif.

[Latif Nasser]

Hi, how you doing?

[Robert Krulwich]

Hey, what's up?

[Sara Kari]

We heard about from this guy, Curtis.

[Robert Krulwich]

Gilbert, and I'm a reporter at American Public Media, but I used to be a reporter at Minnesota Public Radio.

[Sara Kari]

So Curtis told us in Minneapolis they actually started using ranked choice voting in.

[Robert Krulwich]

2009, but it's gotten much more interesting since then. So in 2013 was the first time Minneapolis actually had like a competitive mayors race. Under ranked choice voting, there's a record.

[Simon Adler]

Breaking number of candidates vying to succeed Minneapolis Mayor R.T. ryback, who's stepping down at the end of this year.

[Robert Krulwich]

35 candidates signed up to run to replace him.

[Sara Kari]

Oh, wow.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh yeah.

[Simon Adler]

Curtis Gillberg covers Minneapolis politics.

[Latif Nasser]

He joins me in studio.

[Simon Adler]

Boy, you're going to be busy.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, you betcha. I mean there were so many, I mean, 35 candidates is a lot unlike.

[Sara Kari]

The race in San Francisco, the mayoral race in Minneapolis, people say, aren't you the Republican did have more diverse candidates.

[Latif Nasser]

And I say, sure, I've done some work in the Republican Party. And I also stand fiercely for marriage equality. Always have.

[Sara Kari]

There was a Republican, an independent, a bunch of Democrats.

[Robert Krulwich]

It was a wide open, free for all race. And it was really, it was really interesting that despite all that, they were very, very civil. Thank you very much. It's nice to see you're not utterly infallible. I always thought you were very, very gentle to each other.

[Latif Nasser]

We won't be rude with each other.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

Because it doesn't benefit us to be.

[Sara Kari]

Rude with each other.

[Latif Nasser]

Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

And this is one thing that, you know, the advocates of ranked choice voting sort of look at as a positive. You know, voters don't. Voters are turned off by negative campaign. And there's a theory that goes that if you're hoping to get like second and third choice votes, you'll be much nicer to your opponent so you don't alienate their supporters. So maybe you get a second or third choice vote. And it did seem like there was an element of that playing out in the race. I will talk more about the issues because I think I've run out of time.

[Latif Nasser]

Thank you.

[Sara Kari]

So at worst there was like some light ribbing.

[Robert Krulwich]

They said we could finish our sentences if we run out of time. But I think that was a run on sentence.

[Sara Kari]

There were polite stage logistics.

[Latif Nasser]

Getting out of that chair is a little challenging. So we may want to pass the.

[Sara Kari]

Microphone around and thank you.

[Robert Krulwich]

Thank you, Jackie.

[Sara Kari]

Plenty of thank yous.

[Robert Krulwich]

I mean, the most remarkable one of all was the final debate. Don Sam Singers I was there and it was in a church, I think it was in downtown Minneapolis. I can't remember what the church was. And at the end of the debate, the candidates, and I think there were eight of them, all kind of put their arms around each other and one of them suggested that they all sing. But I was created in my high school.

[Sara Kari]

No, after the debate, after the debate.

[John Favreau]

That'S going on Instagram.

[Latif Nasser]

So it's like, I mean, it's almost like a cartoon. Right? Like the Kumbaya. It's really funny. Right. But it's also, it's, it's also, I think for a lot of people right now that feels like a relief. It feels like a relief to hear politicians not biting each other's heads off. And that's, that's something that comes from ranked choice voting. You find consensus, you find coalition, you find commonalities instead of differences. But that also flattens everyone out if everyone ends up running to the middle. And then you just have kind of a bland consensus where no one's saying bold things and everybody is just kind of middle.

[Yasha Mounk]

So in a way, when you make this choice, you're choosing for. Do this carefully.

[Latif Nasser]

Do this carefully.

[Yasha Mounk]

Now I wondered about that because I was thinking maybe don't do this carefully. Maybe have a country that can be dynamic. Although right now I'm not so sure.

[Latif Nasser]

Not too dynamic.

[Yasha Mounk]

Yeah, but that is in a deep way, that's what's being asked here.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, like what do we actually want? Like, do we want a system where, you know, you are lined up behind your alpha dog who's gonna, who's going to argue for all of the things you want and maybe you're going to get them, but maybe you're also going to lose them all? Or do you want to be in a system where we're all begrudgingly bought into our second place person who we can kind of get behind, but it definitely wasn't our, it's not our ideal. And I think that's a question that's like a soul searching kind of a question. Like, what do you want? And what do we want this country to be? And for that reason, like, I don't know how I feel about it.

[Yasha Mounk]

Well, nothing's gonna be perfect. I think what's really interesting is what seems sort of mechanical and technical. It does affect the tone of your country and of history. So the world we've got is the function of how we vote. Now change the system of how we vote, you might get a very different world. How different? What different? Where different? Which kind of different? Scary different? Good different? You don't know?

[Sara Kari]

Well, we might actually know soon because I actually have one more stop on our cross country ranked choice voting tour. Grand state of Maine, the great state of Maine. Super politically diverse, fiercely independent, like a lot of independent voters.

[John Favreau]

Maine, Maine, Maine.

[Sara Kari]

And in fact, in 2016, there was this coalition of independents and Democrats that managed to get this ballot initiative that would change all statewide elections to ranked choice voting.

[Latif Nasser]

Statewide.

[Sara Kari]

Yeah.

[London Breed]

And ranked choice voting was adopted in 2016.

[Sara Kari]

According to Maine Public Radio reporter Steve Missler. It passed.

[London Breed]

It passed, however, with a major flaw.

[Maureen O'Sullivan]

It's a scam.

[Latif Nasser]

It undermines the integrity of our election process.

[London Breed]

The state senate, which was under Republican control at the time, picked up on this constitutional conflict within a conflict within the state constitution.

[Latif Nasser]

Reality is, we're not happy with it.

[Ab Philbin Bowman]

Blatantly opposed to it.

[Sara Kari]

Very unconstitutional. The Maine constitution literally says you have to use a plurality vote.

[London Breed]

The word plurality is actually written in.

[Sara Kari]

The constitution as opposed to a majority.

[London Breed]

Correct. And ultimately the Maine legislature passed a law that delayed implementing ranked choice voting. This is one more example of where.

[Sara Kari]

Politicians are standing against the will of the people. And it set off this whole fight where people rallied against the state legislature and held another vote in June, Literally.

[Robert Krulwich]

This past June, people gathered at the state House.

[Sara Kari]

This to get around the delay through.

[Robert Krulwich]

What was billed as a people's veto.

[London Breed]

That passed by almost the exact same margin, if not slightly more than when it passed originally in 2016.

[Sara Kari]

At some point, the main Supreme Court gets involved. And really the details of this are all kind of a mess. But what it boils down to is this. In the upcoming elections, like the midterms that are happening now, Maine will use ranked choice voting for its congressional races.

[London Breed]

We have three of them this year. We have a first Congressional district race. It'll be used in that contest.

[Sara Kari]

And also in Maine's 2nd congressional district.

[London Breed]

Which is a swing seat, one of, you know, a dozen or so nationally.

[Sara Kari]

AKA one of the districts that everybody's going to be watching in the midterms. And on top of that, they're going to use ranked choice voting for the.

[London Breed]

Senate, the U.S. senate campaign. It'll be used in that contest.

[Latif Nasser]

Do you know, is this the first time it's going to be used for a position in the federal government.

[Sara Kari]

Yeah. No other state has ever done it.

[Latif Nasser]

Oh, wow.

[Sara Kari]

But at the same time, because of their state constitution, it's not being used.

[London Breed]

In the gubernatorial race.

[Sara Kari]

So does the ballot just, like, look insane? Like, part of it is like this ranked choice voting thing and part of it isn't they're just separate.

[London Breed]

So there's separate ballots for the federal races and then there's a separate one for the statewide one. So I haven't actually seen how many ballots that voters are handed.

[Latif Nasser]

So this is really going to happen now, like this week?

[Sara Kari]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[London Breed]

Two main claims of ranked choice voting are being put to the test in the very first. In its very first rollout in Maine.

[Latif Nasser]

Voters in Maine will head to the.

[London Breed]

Polls later this month whether it can work for third party or independent candidates. But it's also a test case about whether or not it does what it promises.

[Robert Krulwich]

He just told another big fib right in front of everybody.

[London Breed]

You're lying about my. Which is reduce scorched earth campaigns.

[Latif Nasser]

This is why we're getting nothing done. When they go low, we kick. Mr. DeSantis lied 21 times.

[London Breed]

You voted. As much as you've gone wacko.

[Simon Adler]

Trump supporters into a mask.

[Latif Nasser]

You may not understand how the House and the Senate work.

[Sara Kari]

But also, I guess I just wonder if the people of Maine are going to come out of this election feeling a little bit more like democracy is working for them.

[Yasha Mounk]

Wouldn't it be interesting if in Maine somebody who was, you know, everybody's eighth choice gets elected to Congress? It could happen. I don't know.

[Latif Nasser]

We'll see. Now, of course, since we first aired this in 2018, that election in Maine did happen. And while, no, everyone's eighth place choice was not elected in the second congressional race, something interesting did happen. Jared Golden, a Democrat, was losing after the first count to the Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin, but ended up winning after the transfers were allocated. So the person who would have lost in the traditional count ended up winning outside of Maine, Ranked choice is now being used in municipal elections all over the country. From Las Cruces, New Mexico, where they elect their mayor, city council and judges with it to now New York City, which uses it in mayoral primaries and city council elections. But here's the biggest news of all since since 2022, Alaska has been using it to elect its governor, its state legislature, its representatives in the House and the Senate, and will even be using it in the presidential election this year. So keep your eyes out. By the time we replay this episode again, if you are not already, it is very possible you too will be ranking your choices. We'll be back next week with a brand new election episode.

[Yasha Mounk]

Until then, this Radio lab was reported by Latif Nasser, Simon Adler, Suzy Lechtenberg, Sarakari, Tracy Hunt produced by Simon Adler, Matt, Kilty Sarkari and Susie Leichtenberg. Our story on PRSTV was produced with support from RTE's Drive Time. Huge thank you to them and to Abe for making that possible.

[Latif Nasser]

Also thanks to Rob Ritchie at FairVote. Don sorry, Diana Lagerman. Thank you to Anna Lerman and the rest of the team at the Varieties of Democracy Institute in Sweden, as well as Carolyn Tolbert, Bobby Agee and Edward Still.

[Yasha Mounk]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Latif Nasser]

And I'm Latif Nasser. And thanks for listening and go vote. What the hell, right? Yes.

[Yasha Mounk]

Yes.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah.

[London Breed]

Hi, I'm David and I'm from Baltimore, Maryland.

[Robert Krulwich]

Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler.

[Latif Nasser]

Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts.

[Robert Krulwich]

Dylan Keefe is our director of Sound design.

[Latif Nasser]

Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz, Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyanam Sambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Rebecca Lacks, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily.

[Robert Krulwich]

Krieger and Natalie Middleton.

[Latif Nasser]

Hi, this is Ellie from Cleveland, Ohio. Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Morgan Foundation Science Sandbox Assignments Foundation Initiative and the John Templeton Foundation.

[Robert Krulwich]

Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by.

[Latif Nasser]

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. On Notes from America, we have conversations.

[Yasha Mounk]

With people across the country about how we can truly become the nation that we claim to be. Each week we talk about race, are.

[Latif Nasser]

Politics, education, relationships, usually all of them, because everything's connected.

[Yasha Mounk]

And you, our listeners, are at the center of those conversations.

[Latif Nasser]

I'm Kai Wright.

[London Breed]

Join me on Notes from America.

[Yasha Mounk]

Wherever you get your podcasts.