Latest / The Orange Report with Kira Davis / Ep.63 The creeping threat of Ranked Choice Voting with Jason Snead
Transcript
- speaker-0: Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Today, as you can see, I've got a guest with me. I am so excited. We I mean, I'm not excited for this topic, but it is a topic that has to be spoken about, especially as we lead up to election season. Please welcome to the show, Jason Sneed. He is the executive director of the Honest Elections Project. And prior to heading to the Honest Election Project Project, Jason spent 10 years at the Heritage Foundation. He had the honor of working for former Attorney General Ed. Mies and he rose to become a senior policy analyst and and ⁓ expert on a wide range of subjects. And today Jason is here to talk to us about the scourge of ranked choice voting. And a little we'll talk a little bit about California elections too. Jason, welcome to the show. speaker-1: Thanks for having me with you. speaker-0: Tell us just a fill in a little bit more about about yourself, where you're from and why you chose this project, the Honest Elections Project is sort of your next life's project. speaker-1: Well, I spent a long time at the Heritage Foundation working with some really phenomenal people there and one of the issues that I studied really closely was election integrity. And, you know, even before the twenty twenty election, well before the twenty twenty election, it struck me that, you know, first of all, when we were talking about, you know, quote unquote conservative election integrity reforms, we were really talking about things that were pretty common sense, things that almost everybody seemed to agree with, unless you're a a liberal who gets elected to political office. Things like voter ID, clean voter rolls, only citizens should be voting in our elections. And it also struck me that the left was spending an enormous amount of money and resources trying to fight all of those things. They were using the courts to try to level down our nation's election integrity and really create a system where All of the rules, all of the procedures were designed to fit hand in glove with the political machine that they wanted to use to win elections. So they didn't care about the integrity of the process. They didn't care about the security of your ballot. They really only cared about winning. And that didn't sit right with me. So I actually left in late twenty nineteen to start this organization in order to bring some additional firepower to the fight for election integrity because we thought twenty twenty was gonna be the most litigious election and one of the most consequential elections in history. And of course that turned out to be right, but we couldn't have predicted the COVID pandemic and everything that was going to flow from that and all the rules changes that were going to happen. So we started the project and it's been really just like an off to ⁓ the races ever since as we've been working to make it, as we like to say, easy to vote but hard to cheat. speaker-0: Sounds like a fantasy to me from here in California. Easy to vote, hard to cheat. Because in a state like California, Jason, and you've written about this in the past, y in a state like California, the the cheating, I don't even know what to call it anymore, it's baked in. And i it's still cheating, but it's baked into the law, which makes it really hard to prosecute, to dig out. I mean, sure you were Looking closely at the Spencer Pratt race in LA and you know, we've got this governor's race coming up in November. And one of the things when we were getting those returns back and we were watching the machine just smash him, a lot of the naysayers were, you know, or the people who were accusatory were saying, Well, you guys are you're just so sensitive. This is the law, you know, this is just the way elections work. This is the law. And technically that's right, but the law is not only wrong, it it's it seems to be purposefully unconstitutional. So all of this stuff here in California and now across other states, it's baked in. speaker-1: Yeah, as we like to say, it's making the cheating legal, right? And if you can do that then it's not cheating anymore, but it it it sure doesn't look or smell like the s the type of an election that the average American expects to have. When you have things like laws that ban voter ID, which California has, when you have things like laws that make completely unrestricted vote harvesting entirely legal. So political operatives can run around and collect ballots as many as they please and they can bring them in and they can turn them in. When you have inadequate safeguards to make sure that non-citizens aren't getting on your voter rolls, when you're not cleaning those rolls, and when you are allowing ballots to come in after election day is done. All of those things are things that in another context could fairly be called cheating. But they've made them legal, they've made them part of the process in California, and they try to make them part of the process everywhere. California is really a poster child for what the left wants elections to look like. They're not what you or I or heck a lot of people who register as Democrats want elections to look like. But they are want a certain professional political class and their operatives and the machine want because it's how they win elections. And so like I said, they have an agenda and they really want election laws to just fit hand in glove with the ballot widget factory that they produce with their army of activists and everything else. And if those rules that they're getting rid of are put in place to safeguard elections because we've seen fraud and we've adapted those ⁓ safeguards to prevent it, well then that's just sort of for for them, water under the bridge because the objective is to win and that's the only thing that really matters. speaker-0: And we see the results of that here too. I mean, we are now at we went from the home of Ronald Reagan to everyone just assumes we're just this deep blue state and it's never gonna be any other way. It's ⁓ people have forgotten that we used to be red and now people are like, Well, this is the only thing California is. No, that's the only thing that it's rigged to be because As you say, Jason, the way that these laws have been set up and forced on us, they are all we have j the jungle primaries here and they are all just really set up to favor every law here is set up to favor not only the Democrat candidate, but also any cheating that a Democrat candidate could do. And so if you're a law abiding candidate, if you're a law abiding voter, you're at a disadvantage for seeking to follow the rules. Because even though the rules are corrupt, there's still so many ways around the corrupt rules. It's just it feels really frustrating. What are your thoughts on our jungle primary system? speaker-1: Well, I definitely think that the jungle primary system was established in order to preference the left and to make it extremely difficult for a candidate on the right to ever make it to a a general election in in November. And I think that there's definitely an intent there behind that. And I think that the the quiet part was said out loud earlier this year when Gavin Newsom was very concerned That California wasn't going to send any Democrats to the November election in that ⁓ gubernatorial race. And he said there's a break glass in case of emergency moment, right? Which really says the quiet part out loud. Those rules are not there for the the benefit of voters. They are not there to ensure fairness in the process, and they are not there to promote better or honest debate. They are there to favor one party over the other. And that fits within a long, long line. of efforts by folks in California and really progressives in every state and in Congress to just constantly be pushing the rules to favor their side structurally and systematically. You know, let's let's remember that back in 21 and 22, what Democrats in Congress were trying to do was get rid of the filibuster so that you could pass something called HR1, which was an 800 page rewrite of every state's election laws And what they wanted to do was make every state look like California because regrettably, California, you all there, are living with a system that is the poster child for what the left wants elections to look like. And they have basically twisted every single rule possible to favor themselves. speaker-0: Yeah, I have been asking for a long time, Jason, and I'll ask you, I don't know if you'll want to answer this, but I'll ask you, which is at what point do can we no longer consider ourselves a free American state? You know, I know people use the cliche a lot and they even use it jokingly, which is you you can vote in communism or socialism, but you can't vote it out. Ha ha. Okay, but here we are. What happens if you can't vote it out? You know, what do I again, the solution should be going to the ballot box and voting out the people that gave this to you. But if you can't vote them out, what are our options in a state like California? speaker-1: Well, I think one option is to get engaged on the voter ID measure that you all have in November. I mean voter identification is an eighty twenty issue or better. It is something that if you just ask anybody on the street randomly, and I've actually done this on an election day no less down in Georgia, if you have an ID, do you think you should have to show it when you vote? The answer overwhelmingly, if not universally, is going to be yes. And so this initiative that has been put on the ballot over the fierce objections of the left in California is a great opportunity for the people to show exactly how frustrated they are with the folks in Sacramento who at every ⁓ single opportunity will say, We want to fix our elections and then they will make the wrong decisions. They will they will go to the left when they should go to the right or heck even the middle would be fine. But they will always, always, always make the wrong decisions when it comes to how elections should function. So that initiative is a really, really exciting opportunity to bring true voter identification requirements to the state of California incidentally after the lawmakers in power tried to ban that statewide. speaker-0: Yeah, and ⁓ I mean they're still at it, they're still at their tricks. You actually wrote an article about this, ⁓ Scott, I don't know if you wanna pull that up. ⁓ about the rank or excuse me, not about the ranked choice voting, but about ⁓ the ridiculousness of the Prop 39 ballot the language change in the ballot. So it really is very simple and straightforward, as you said, Jason. It's voter ID. That's all it is. It's voter ID. Do you need to present your your ID to vote? ⁓ at the last second, our attorney general Rabanta, the attorney general approves all of the language for the ballot measures. At the last second, Attorney General Rabbanta changed the language so that it reads prohibits. That's the first thing you see, prohibits voting. And then, you know, if you don't read any further or even have your thinking cap on. That's what it looks like. ⁓ it's just shady, shady stuff from top to bottom. speaker-1: That's right. The what they're doing is they're trying to use every tool in their toolbox. To make the public afraid to vote for something that they know is just common sense election integrity reform. It's just voter ID. And all you're asking is for the same ID that you use to be able to drive your car every day, to board an airplane, to buy a beer, to rent an apartment, to buy a house, to start a job, and on and on and on. Everybody has ID, everybody uses ID, often on a daily basis. The only aspect of society where the left says that it is Is wrong to use ID for some reason is in the voting context. And that has always stood out to me because you know we use ID when we want to protect things that we care about, right? So we ask for ID when we get on an airplane. But the left says that they love democracy, that they care about democracy, and then they don't want to protect it with something as simple as voter ID. So they're they're doing this, they're trying to change the ballot language. So that people are too afraid to vote for something that they actually know if they step back and think about it, this is just common sense. I showed my ID five minutes ago and I should show it when I go to the polls to vote too. speaker-0: Yeah, and like you said, it's a bipartisan issue because if you ask, I mean, even if you want to be ideological about it, if you ask faithful Democrats, they'll say, Well, I'm a I don't like Trump and I think Republicans are cheating. I think they're gonna cheat. So I and and then if you ask Republicans, they're gonna say, Yeah, I I think Democrats are gonna cheat. So it seems like we're all wanting to keep each other honest, even if the even if the sentiment is I think the other side are cheaters, I feel like we can work with that. That's fine, you know, it like let's be equal opportunity offenders, equal opportunity ideas. Everybody agrees that their political opponents don't seem on the up and up and they don't want to leave any any, you know, cracks for the for that to fall through. It's just it it it is shocking and not shocking, I guess, Jason. I mean, you live down the hill, you're from the hill, you know that area. ⁓ you know, ⁓ shocking but not shocking. speaker-1: Well it's it's it's even more basic than that because yes, we want to make sure that both sides are are not cheating and that elections are on the up and up, but we also want to have a common set of rules, right? This is no different than going to a baseball game. We all know the rules of baseball and what we see the left trying to do so often is changing the rules in the middle of an election, which is no different than you know, the umpire deciding suddenly we're gonna change the rules of baseball in the seventh inning. And I guarantee you that if the team that's up in the seventh suddenly loses after they change the rules, somebody's gonna cry foul, somebody's gonna say they cheated and they stole it from them, right? And that's a pretty common sense thing to say as well. But what happens if you, you know, lose confidence in major league baseball is vastly different than if you lose confidence in the democratic process itself, the the thing that our nation uses to decide who is going to represent us, who is going to lead us, what is the direction of our country going to be. Once you lose confidence in elections, it is very, very difficult to get that back, if not impossible. And that is the danger, the real danger of this strategy of putting a thumb on the scale in favor of one side over the other, right? Because legitimacy doesn't just come from having power. Legitimacy doesn't just come from winning the election. It comes from winning a fair election. And it is so critical that we remember that while yes, a democracy depends on the consent of the governed, it also depends on the consent of the losers. You have to win fair and square, according to the rules, and those rules should be set up to do something very basic prevent fraud and make sure that only lawful ballots are being counted. speaker-0: do wanna get I do wanna talk about ranked choice voting because I think this is a new term for a lot of people out there but particularly people on the right, the people who watch this kind of show. And I they hear me talk a lot about jungle primaries, sort of in that same family, but it's a little more convoluted and ⁓ it's coming to a state near you. There is a huge push for ranked choice voting across the United States. And a lot of people, when it's described to them, they don't see it as nefarious as it really is. It seems negligible, but it's why don't you explain it? And then I want everyone I want everyone to to to ask yourself as Jason explains it, if you went to the voting booth and the person told you this is how your vote's gonna count, if you could understand that in that moment. Go ahead, tell us what rank choice voting is. speaker-1: Well, at bottom, ranked choice voting is a fundamentally different kind of an election. So as ⁓ as most of us understand, in an ordinary election, you go to the polls, you pick one candidate in each race that you support, you mark your ballot or you hit your touch screen for that person, and then you move on to the next race. Very simple, very straightforward. What ranked choice voting says is you're no longer choosing one candidate. We're gonna ask you to rank many candidates in every single race that is on your ballot. So we'll give you four, five, sometimes even ten candidates to choose from, and you rank them one, two, three, four, five, on and on, until you either exhaust your options or you are so exhausted that you say, I'm done voting, and you know, you turn in your ballot. And you calculate winners, and it's important to note you calculate winners by looking to see first, does anybody get Over fifty percent of the first place vote. And if nobody does, which often is not the case with ranked choice voting, then you proceed to a series of elimination rounds where you find the candidate that got the fewest first place votes, you eliminate that person, and then you redistribute every ballot that is cast for that person to each voter's next highest pick. And you do this until you can manufacture that fifty percent plus one majority. Now along the way, think about what's happening. First, you're shifting votes down to second, third, fourth place. And at some point, I think it's fair to say, you know, a vote for somebody becomes a vote that I don't really care about either of these or any of these, to I actually oppose this person, so I ranked them dead last, right? So a vote doesn't mean the same thing as you're going down that that order of preference. The other thing that happens is if you, as many people do, only rank one person because you don't want to vote for anybody else, you don't support anybody else. And think about this, this isn't just something that Republicans would do. I doubt that many Democrats would rank Donald Trump on a ballot for president, for instance. You would rank one person. If that person gets eliminated, your ballot is eliminated as well. And it's not just deleted from the votes cast for a candidate, it's deleted From the total votes cast in the election. So it's as if you didn't vote at all. So this system is nothing more than an attempt to manufacture artificial majorities that inflate the way that candidates win, ⁓ inflate their apparent margins. It's really about promoting fringe candidates. It turns them and their supporters into kingmakers because if you think about it, the first candidates that are going to get eliminated are the ones that get one or two percent of the vote. And those are likely to be the extremist candidates that otherwise wouldn't have a shot in the election. But when their votes get aggregated to another candidate, they become the ones that can put them over the top. And ultimately it just makes a mockery out of the entire system. It is completely opaque and it asks voters to essentially ask themselves, okay, do I have the stomach to go back and try to audit a black box algorithm that just determined who my next senator, my next governor is going to be? speaker-0: Yeah, I mean it's ⁓ it's absolutely terrifying. It's it I don't even understand how it can be legal in the United States of America. Are there any cases or are there any challenges to it right now anywhere? speaker-1: Well, there have been a few court challenges over the years and so far the courts have not come to our rescue. And so as I've gone all over the country pushing back against ranked choice voting, fighting to get laws that ban ranked choice voting, I've reminded people in our state legislatures and I've reminded ⁓ everyday everyday voters that we have to save ourselves from this sort of a scheme. Now you're right that the left is pushing this all over the country and they are spending millions of dollars to do it, but so far Our side has actually been ahead of the curve for once. So we have been working very diligently in our states, and so far we've actually got nineteen states just in the last couple of years to ban ranked choice voting. And we also defeated a hundred million dollar blitz in twenty twenty four where the left was trying to bring ballot measures that would expand ranked choice voting. So this is one of those things where You can go into a state as blue as Colorado or as red as Montana and it gets rejected almost by the same margins. Nobody wants this outside of progressives and really progressive donor elites that think that they can buy a new election system that pushes politics to the left, weakens political parties, and ultimately elevates their own influence in our political process. speaker-0: And this is not ranked choice voting is not, I mean, it's not a blue state phenomenon. It's not a blue state problem. I know a lot of people will say who are watching this from outside California will say, well, this is something that people like California have to worry about. I don't have to worry about it. No. This has been there is a march across this country. I know that there was an initiative in Oklahoma. I think there was one in Ohio at some point. So it's not just in the crazy You know, far left states like California. speaker-1: Yeah, that's right. The left, as I said before, is always looking for a way to actually change the way that we conduct elections to favor themselves. And up until now it's been things like, you know, preventing us from actually requiring proof of citizenship or fighting voter ID. Now they've advanced to more fundamental things like jungle primaries and rank choice voting. It's it's all about changing the structure of the democratic process in order to favor the left over the right. And You're a hundred percent correct that we have seen the push for this at the local level and at the state level all across the country. So Georgia is perennially a target for the ranked choice voting activists because they want another quote unquote red state to adopt or allow ranked choice voting so they can normalize it and then they can spread it all over the country. So that's why it's been so essential for us to get those laws passed to ban ranked choice voting because that puts a clear marker down. But there is not one state that I have gone to in support of those bills where there has not been an army of left wing activists demanding that they have the right to use ranked choice voting at local levels like you all do in California. And I retort that actually California is the poster child for why you should not do this, because not only did it cause problems in an Oakland election a couple of years ago where The wrong winner was declared because the machines were programmed incorrectly and the whole system was so convoluted it didn't get caught until the election had been certified. But when they tried to expand rank choice voting, it was too convoluted for Gavin Newsome. And if something is too convoluted for Gavin Newsom to sign off on, I think it's a major red flag for every state in the Union. speaker-0: Yeah, there I and it has such an innocuous title, right? Ranked choice voting, which makes it sound like, ⁓ I'm I'm just getting a list of choices here. But when I just had Jason give you the definition, I don't know if your brain started to twist into pretzels, but it's just voting couldn't and voting should not be complicated and it couldn't be easier the way our founding fathers set it up. You go to the ballot box. You cast your vote, boom, done. You know, ⁓ this this it's so convoluted. But also, Jason, isn't it true that the way a lot of this gets pitched, and I know that this is how it got pitched to us here in California that for when the jungle primaries is that, well, this is gonna help especially Republican candidates in blue states because it's it's nonpartisan, right? It's gonna be nonpartisan. We're gonna get rid. of the titles, Republican, Democrat, some of our local offices are quote, nonpartisan. and that's gonna help everybody 'cause no one's gonna see what their what their party affiliation is when they vote. So it's gonna make things more even. speaker-1: Yeah, that's one of the pitches that we see for ranked choice voting, but I think that the proof is in the pudding, as they say. And if you look at high profile examples of states using ranked choice voting, Alaska comes to mind. When they rolled that system out in twenty twenty two, sixty percent of Alaska voters voted for a Republican for United States Congress. It was the special election up there. And a Democrat, Mary Peltola, wound up winning because of ranked choice voting. And now Mary Paltola is running for the United States Senate from Alaska against the incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan. And despite the fact that ranked choice voting is also pitched as making elections fairer, more representative and and harder to game the way that we see people do sometimes, there is, if you can believe it, another guy named Dan Sullivan, who was recruited to run against Dan Sullivan, the United States Senator. And we call him Decoy Dan because he became a Republican the day that he filed to run for United States Senate. He tried to get listed on the ballot as, you know, as Dan Sullivan, the Senator, using the Senator's own middle initial, which is not his own. ⁓ the New York Times did a an expose about him, noted that he actually says that he wants Mary Peltola, the Democrat, to win the election, and ⁓ and on and on. So all indications are he's not a serious candidate, but he's on the ballot. Because the hope is that he can can he can persuade or, you know, more accurately mislead just enough voters to vote for the wrong Dan Sullivan in first place. And maybe those people only vote for Dan Sullivan because they think he's the United States Senator, but he's actually decoy Dan. And if Decoy Dan gets eliminated, which he almost certainly will, he only got about two percent of the vote in the ⁓ in the in the primary ⁓ up in Alaska. then those ballots get c get eliminated and that actually helps boost Mary Peltola's chances of of getting into the United States Senate. Or there could be a number of folks that say, Well, I voted for the Republican, I'll vote for the Democrat in second, and decoy Dan gets eliminated and suddenly all those people that tried to vote for a Republican wind up voting for a Democrat. So ranked choice voting up in Alaska is actually potentially going to enable a dirty tricks campaign To change the partisan control of the entire United States Senate. That could be the decisive race. And this sort of dirty tricks campaign is enabled by ranked choice voting. So don't believe the marketing, don't believe the hype. Ranked choice voting, it just makes elections more convoluted. And you're right, it makes it harder to vote, so much so that there's a lot of data out there that says people just stay home because the system is so convoluted they don't understand it anymore. speaker-0: Are they you know, is there something on the ballot coming up in Alaska to change that? Are they voting to get rid of it? I don't know, are they voting using ranked choice voting to get rid of ranked choice voting? speaker-1: Well, they ⁓ they're just gonna do a simple ⁓ up or down on that one. But yes, there is an initiative up there ⁓ on the November ballot to repeal ranked choice voting. I think that it has a strong chance of passing, and I say that because there was an attempt to repeal it back in twenty twenty four, so just two years ago. And in that case the the the left and the donors that support ranked choice voting, they they spent well over ten million dollars. Defending that system against a campaign that barely raised anything. In fact, all across the board, in all the states with rank choice voting ballot measures, the the the left outspent the right about 30 to 1, which is an extraordinary figure. And yet, despite that massive spending disparity, the attempt to repeal failed by only 700 votes. Think about that. 700 votes. That's an extraordinarily close election. So now there is another attempt on the ballot in November, and there's a lot of money and resources coming in to help get that done. But I think that at bottom, the thing that's going to be most important is Alaska's lived experience. You know, they're basically becoming right now the you know Florida of 2000, right? The butt of every political joke because the idea that you have this system that is so convoluted that not only do you have to rank four people in the general election. But only two of them are serious candidates, and one of those four is only on there to spoil the ⁓ the sitting incumbent senators opportunities to win by misleading voters. That is not exactly ⁓ a banner argument for rank choice voting, and that's why I think there's a good chance that the people of Alaska will vote to repeal that system this November. speaker-0: Oof, I hope so. ⁓ this is a scourge. It's absolutely evil. And I can't even imagine how it stands up in a court of law. But I am not a lawyer scientist. I am just a podcast host. So smarter minds than mine. We'll have to figure that out. But I do feel very moved to alert people to this because where are some other states that it might be creeping up? You want to give us some warnings out here? People should be looking out. speaker-1: Well, any state where they're using ranked choice voting at the local level is a state where they're eventually going to try to bring it statewide. And so even if you're in one of the states that hasn't banned ranked choice voting but you don't have it statewide, I would be on the lookout for any attempt to use RCV in your local or city council races because that's the first step. And we've seen this all across the country. That's the very first step that they'll do Because the idea is that you can then say if you're using it in a local election or a couple of local elections, it works. People, you know, maybe don't hate it, and so then it becomes a a charge, a call, a rallying cry to bring it statewide. So if you're in any state where they're considering bringing rank choice voting at the local level, like where I live in Virginia, for instance, that's a real warning flag that they're gonna be targeting you. But I would also pay really close attention if you live in places like Georgia, ⁓ where they have always wanted to bring rank choice voting into Georgia elections and that legislature has failed to get an RCV ban done. So it would be fantastic to pay attention to those local political issues so that maybe next year lawmakers in Georgia will will actually feel the pressure to ⁓ to get a ban accomplished and across the finish line. speaker-0: Yeah, I d I really do think it's important that people be watching out for this. Watch out for this term if you see it near you. ⁓ and then if you are ever writing to any of your representatives, you know, throw that in there. We we would like you to ban ⁓ rank choice voting. ⁓ it just it's absolutely absurd and anti American and ⁓ it's definitely a part of their the enemy's always working, the other side's always working to try to, you know, use the law to change the law. ⁓ the American spirit, American might is very strong. And so you have to find workarounds for that. And, you know, people get pretty crafty. And this is another one of those crafty things. Jason, I am gonna let you go, but before I let you go, I want to ask you a couple of questions. I like to ask a lot of my guests. one question I like to know is is there a book or an article? Something you've read in your life that has really made a difference for you. It changed your mind about something. We try not to use the Bible because that's like gimme. That's no that's easy. ⁓ but ⁓ that's changed your mind about something or offered you clarity or really like was a change moment for you in your life. speaker-1: Well, I would actually say reading through the Federalist Papers was ⁓ was enormously impactful early on in helping to understand what the Constitution is really all about. And ⁓ you know the best place to to to figure that out is to go to the source as it were and see exactly what it is that the framers were were thinking and concerned about when they drafted the the the the articles of our constitution. So I would say that's a a a dense read, but ⁓ but it's definitely worthwhile, especially if you ever want to dive into any of the, you know, granular issues around the ⁓ the constitution or around, you know, what makes the American government work so well the way that it's designed. Not necessarily at this moment, but the way that it was intended, I'd highly recommend. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, I would too, actually. and it's never too late, by the way. I was talking to one of my mom friends. I mean, we're in our fifties and she's just a stay at home mom like me, and but I was talking to her the other day and she was like, ⁓ I just started reading the Federalist papers. I was like, Wow, look at you So it's never too late to pick them up and look and and it will it you it will make things so much clearer for you as well. You know, we sort of just take a lot for granted, a lot about our freedoms and a lot about the constitution for granted. What when you actually drill down on what our founding fathers, what what they were really thinking about, it changes a lot for you. And you'll be a lot angrier about things like ranked choice voting and all of the stuff that you'll be a lot angrier. You'll realize how much further, you know, from that we've come, how far from the original intent. intent we've come. And we always Jason, we always have people who are trying to tell us, like, ⁓ our founding fathers really meant this. They were actually, you know, X, Y, and Z, baby socialist deist or whatever. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Okay, last question. ⁓ I'm gonna wave a magic wand and I'm gonna make you the emperor of America. You can only do one thing. You can only choose one thing to do. One thing about America to change one law, one cultural issue, one social contract that we all have. ⁓ it can be serious or just something that's bothered you for a very long time. I'm waving the wand, Jason. You're emperor of America. You have one thing you can do. What is it? speaker-1: Well, I feel like just given my job, I ought to say something like, you know, proof of citizenship to vote or or voter ID or something like that. But you know, I'm I'm gonna go a little ⁓ further afield here. I think that ⁓ I think that we should get rid of automatic withholdings of taxes. I think that every tax day you should have to write a fifty, seventy, hundred thousand dollar check, whatever it is, to the government and feel that pain of just how expensive it is to to run our federal government. And I think that that's really a a a great way it to make people understand exactly what those costs are. And then we might actually get some pressure to cut spending and reduce the size of the government. So, you know, it's a little out there. ⁓ but if that can't happen, then I'll certainly take voter ID and and proof of citizenship to vote. speaker-0: Like that one, Jason. That's actually a really good one. I I've actually told my my kids that too before. I know you hate when you get those first paychecks and you get 40 or 50 bucks taken out. If you had to pay that once a year, you would really lose your mind. ⁓ my one act, yeah. I recently I decided, Jason, that I would make my one emperor's act ⁓ to ⁓ be to punish with jail time anybody who pulls their wallet out at the counter. After the total has been rung up and the lady tells you how much it is. You are supposed to be ready to go when you're at the counter. You know you're gonna have to pay for your groceries because you have to pay for them every time. That's how it works. ⁓ don't be digging in your purse there, straight to jail in Cures America, straight to jail. All right. This seems like we could we could maybe make this country work, Jason. speaker-1: I like it. speaker-0: Tell everybody where they can find out more about you and what you guys are doing over there at Honor Selection. speaker-1: Yeah, you can check us out at ⁓ honestelections.org or you can follow us on X at honestelections or you can follow me there as well at Jason W. Snead for all of the latest. speaker-0: Jason, thank you so much for the hard work you're doing out there. I'll do my best to make sure everyone is warned about ranked choice voting. Godspeed to you. I'm gonna close the show out for today. ⁓ but as I always say, never forget that sunlight is the best disinfectant. So go out there and shine a light. Bye. Thanks, Jason. We really appreciate it. speaker-1: Thank you.