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How Ranked Choice Voting Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Good day, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles w. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry. The
0:17
Speaker 1: trio was reunited like Peaches and Herb and Cream. Peaches
0:23
Speaker 1: and Herb and Cream. Yeah, didn't Peaches and Herb sing
0:27
Speaker 1: reunited and it feels so good. Yeah, but I don't
0:30
Speaker 1: know how you're Clapton figures in. Well, there's three of
0:32
Speaker 1: us here. Oh, gotcha. And Clapton was an all cream.
0:36
Speaker 1: I mean, Ginger Baker was a force to be reckoned
0:38
Speaker 1: with two good point? He still is? Is he still alive?
0:43
Speaker 1: And unless he died recently. I saw a great documentary
0:46
Speaker 1: about him. Yeah. I haven't actually watched it. Is it good? Yeah?
0:50
Speaker 1: He just looks like it is. He's quite a dude. Yeah.
0:55
Speaker 1: I'm excited already to watch it and you should check
0:58
Speaker 1: it out, Okay, I will. Um. Oh have you seen Hereditary? Oh? Yeah,
1:03
Speaker 1: I saw that in the theater. That's pretty cool. Huh.
1:06
Speaker 1: I liked it. I did too. I like just about
1:08
Speaker 1: anything puts out. Yeah. Yeah, shout out to eight to four. Yeah.
1:14
Speaker 1: Um so, speaking of a twenty four and horror movies, Chuck.
1:17
Speaker 1: We were down in Australia recently. We just got back. Yeah,
1:21
Speaker 1: I'm sick. I know I am not. I can't believe it,
1:25
Speaker 1: but I'm not. Yeah, I got sicken. Where was it Sydney?
1:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you were starting to kind of feel under
1:31
Speaker 1: the weather, Hugh, it just got full blown. You seemed
1:34
Speaker 1: okay on the flight back though that those were the beginnings.
1:37
Speaker 1: I think my body was in combat mode. And then
1:41
Speaker 1: when I got back here, it just it lowered its defenses.
1:44
Speaker 1: It said I'm home, and I got some weird Australian
1:47
Speaker 1: Australian rhino virus man walking around the airport. It was like,
1:52
Speaker 1: what what you just sneezed on me? What is that?
1:54
Speaker 1: What was that? Yeah? And we should point out to
1:57
Speaker 1: people that we took ten plane flights in eleven days.
2:00
Speaker 1: Is yes, we did, so that that's a pretty good
2:02
Speaker 1: way to get sick. Yeah, and let's see there it
2:06
Speaker 1: was Atlanta to l A five hours, LA to Sydney
2:09
Speaker 1: fourteen hours, Sydney to Perth another four or five hours.
2:14
Speaker 1: This was all in like one stretch. There was like
2:17
Speaker 1: two hour layovers in between those three flights, and it
2:19
Speaker 1: was it was about a thirty three hour experience getting there. Yeah,
2:25
Speaker 1: and it's not the same on the way home. Yeah,
2:27
Speaker 1: it was, and it was totally worth it too, I
2:30
Speaker 1: would agree, although when we come back, we're gonna route
2:34
Speaker 1: things a bit differently. Yeah. Yeah, Like when when we
2:38
Speaker 1: landed in Sydney, I remember my first thought was, why
2:41
Speaker 1: can't we just start here? Yeah? Uh, but there there's
2:46
Speaker 1: no magic route, but there's probably a better one. Well,
2:49
Speaker 1: we did the black Magic route if there, if there
2:52
Speaker 1: is such a thing. Yeah, but boy, uh it was
2:55
Speaker 1: a grind, but we had a great time. Um had
2:58
Speaker 1: a couple of days off in between, which was I
3:01
Speaker 1: don't know if I would have made it had it
3:03
Speaker 1: not been for those days. Yeah. I think you're right.
3:06
Speaker 1: I think has been too grueling to do like five
3:08
Speaker 1: cities in five days. Yeah yeah, and those yeah, they
3:12
Speaker 1: were cool down days too. You spent most of the
3:14
Speaker 1: time in Melbourne. Actually south of Melbourne, I went to
3:17
Speaker 1: the Mornington Peninsula. Well yeah, so you, me and I
3:21
Speaker 1: were down there too. That's where we saw the penguins
3:22
Speaker 1: marching from the ocean and gorgeous down there. That's like
3:26
Speaker 1: their wine country, right, it's one of them. There's another
3:29
Speaker 1: wine country the year of valley north of Melbourne, but
3:31
Speaker 1: this is the one by the ocean. Yeah, so wine
3:34
Speaker 1: country Slash the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, and
3:40
Speaker 1: you pretty much get happy chuck. Yeah, that's cool, man.
3:43
Speaker 1: And we spent another day in Sydney to which is
3:45
Speaker 1: a pretty cool town. Um, just walking around the Opera
3:48
Speaker 1: house alone is worth it. But there's a lot of
3:50
Speaker 1: cool stuff to do there too. Yeah. I went zip lining,
3:55
Speaker 1: I went nice, I went to the beach, I went
3:59
Speaker 1: to drink a lot of wine, went to a lot
4:01
Speaker 1: of wineries. And it was that time of the year
4:03
Speaker 1: in midweek. It was just sort of shut down. So
4:06
Speaker 1: you know, my buddy Scotty came over. As you know,
4:08
Speaker 1: I'm telling everyone else, but my buddy Scotty came over
4:11
Speaker 1: and met me in Melbourne. So we felt like we
4:13
Speaker 1: kept joking that we had rented the Mornington Peninsula because
4:16
Speaker 1: there were never more than two people anywhere we went.
4:19
Speaker 1: That's really And I'll bet the wine tastings they had
4:21
Speaker 1: a heavy hand. Yeah. They basically was just like, let's
4:25
Speaker 1: go sit on the porch, Fellas. They brought the bottle
4:28
Speaker 1: out and we just sat around and drink with the
4:30
Speaker 1: loveliest people on the face of the earth. Yeah, they
4:33
Speaker 1: are some really lovely people. And not just in I'll
4:35
Speaker 1: tell you. We did New Zealand too, which sure he knew.
4:38
Speaker 1: You mean, I've been to New Zealand before, so I
4:40
Speaker 1: already had a pretty good idea of just how awesome
4:42
Speaker 1: New Zealanders are. And we says they call themselves sometimes, um,
4:46
Speaker 1: but I mean you got to experience the firsthand too. Yeah.
4:50
Speaker 1: I mean everyone is just so nice and accommodating. Like
4:53
Speaker 1: the whole no worries thing is it's not just something
4:56
Speaker 1: they throw around like you feel it. It's four real. Yeah. Yeah,
5:01
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool man to to just experience it is
5:04
Speaker 1: is a very cool trip. Yeah, And even flying ten
5:07
Speaker 1: times in eleven days, their airports in the t s A.
5:11
Speaker 1: And just the way people are it really made it
5:14
Speaker 1: pretty pretty great. Like I would have it would have
5:17
Speaker 1: been a different experience flying ten times around the United
5:20
Speaker 1: States and lemon days, I think like it would have
5:24
Speaker 1: been awful, But it was great. We had a wonderful time.
5:28
Speaker 1: We're definitely coming back. Uh. We both loved on koalas
5:33
Speaker 1: and kangaroos. Yeah, It's like it doesn't get any better
5:36
Speaker 1: than that. Oh man. So yeah, you guys will see
5:38
Speaker 1: us again sometime in the new future. Will do another
5:41
Speaker 1: tour for sure. And I'm now getting up at six
5:44
Speaker 1: am tomorrow to watch another AUSI rules football final match.
5:49
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you got into that, like for real? Huh
5:51
Speaker 1: big time. That's cool man, it's great. Why not add
5:54
Speaker 1: another sport to the pile. Well, I've lost a bunch
5:57
Speaker 1: of sports. Oh yeah, I'm kind of down to NFL
6:02
Speaker 1: and college football. No more NBA huh, very little, I see.
6:07
Speaker 1: It's very It's tough with the Hawks and I'll watch
6:10
Speaker 1: a little bit of the finals maybe, but and then baseball.
6:13
Speaker 1: You know, I follow the Braves a little bit, but
6:15
Speaker 1: since they moved to the suburbs, I'm not as pumped.
6:19
Speaker 1: It's a little different, isn't it. Yeah, it's just not
6:21
Speaker 1: as cool. I'm like you, Okay, well shoot, might as
6:24
Speaker 1: well just add another one, Australian rules football. Yeah, well
6:28
Speaker 1: cool man. Well, thank you for having us Australia and
6:30
Speaker 1: New Zealand. We'll see you guys against you right, yes,
6:34
Speaker 1: And what a great segue, because Australia happens to be
6:39
Speaker 1: one of the countries in the world as far as
6:42
Speaker 1: I know the only country in the world that utilizes
6:46
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting. No, there's there's two others. But yeah,
6:49
Speaker 1: as far as I know, there's just the three in
6:51
Speaker 1: Australia has used at the long What are the other two?
6:53
Speaker 1: The other two are Malta in Ireland. Yeah, yeah, I
6:56
Speaker 1: mean big countries. Okay, no disrespect to Ireland. Australia is
7:00
Speaker 1: the only country that's also a continent that uses ranked
7:03
Speaker 1: choice correcting. So um and yeah, like I said, they've
7:06
Speaker 1: been using it from what I saw at least a century.
7:09
Speaker 1: I couldn't find exactly when they started using it, but
7:12
Speaker 1: I believe it's tied to Robert's Rules of Order, which
7:15
Speaker 1: is a you know, a book of rules for order
7:18
Speaker 1: that you can use if you're you know, voting on stuff,
7:21
Speaker 1: or you have some sort of parliament or whatever you're
7:23
Speaker 1: trying to do. It's the preferred way of voting, this
7:26
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting. Right. Oh, they've been doing it for
7:29
Speaker 1: that long yeah. Century. Oh I thought it would just
7:32
Speaker 1: for the past five years. No, No, that's it's actually
7:36
Speaker 1: it's coming around in the US again, even though it
7:40
Speaker 1: was around before about a century ago. But in Australia
7:44
Speaker 1: it's stuck for the last hundred or so years. Interesting,
7:48
Speaker 1: I wonder I read a big article that felt like
7:50
Speaker 1: they they felt a need to explain to people how
7:54
Speaker 1: to do it five years ago. So maybe they forgot.
7:56
Speaker 1: Oh really, you're freaking me out now. But here in
8:02
Speaker 1: America we are not quite on board. So no, let
8:06
Speaker 1: me give you a Let's let me give you a
8:08
Speaker 1: little intro here, Charles. You're ready, yes, okay. So um,
8:14
Speaker 1: back in the two thousand election, it was the presidential election.
8:18
Speaker 1: It was a squeaker, you might say, between George W.
8:23
Speaker 1: Bush and Al Gore. Yeah, apparently the the state of Florida.
8:31
Speaker 1: So everyone knows about the electoral college. And if you
8:33
Speaker 1: don't go listen to our episode about the electoral college.
8:36
Speaker 1: But you can win in the United States the popular vote,
8:39
Speaker 1: meaning you got you got more people voted for you
8:43
Speaker 1: than your opponent. But if your opponent wins some very
8:47
Speaker 1: strategic states, states that have more electoral college votes, they
8:51
Speaker 1: can actually win the presidency without winning the popular vote.
8:55
Speaker 1: It happened in two thousand and sixteen, happened in the
8:58
Speaker 1: two thousand election, and every time time it does happen,
9:01
Speaker 1: everybody just gets up in arms. And in my opinion,
9:03
Speaker 1: rightfully so, because the will of the people has not
9:07
Speaker 1: been served right like clearly the majority of people voted
9:11
Speaker 1: for somebody else who is not the winner, and it
9:15
Speaker 1: just really ticks everybody off in this country when that happens.
9:18
Speaker 1: And in two thousand, it was so close that the
9:20
Speaker 1: Supreme Court had to decide who was president and it
9:24
Speaker 1: all came down to Florida. Florida had a lot of
9:27
Speaker 1: electoral College votes and Bush and Gore were neck and neck,
9:31
Speaker 1: although Gore ended up winning the presidency as far as
9:34
Speaker 1: popular voting went, Bush one because in Florida it came
9:39
Speaker 1: down to he won forty eight point eight four seven
9:43
Speaker 1: percent of the vote and al Gore won forty eight
9:46
Speaker 1: point eight three eight percent of the vote. Okay, so
9:51
Speaker 1: point zero zero nine percent of the vote made the
9:55
Speaker 1: difference in the state of Florida, and with the electoral college,
9:58
Speaker 1: if you win that state, you get all the electoral votes,
10:02
Speaker 1: which pushed Bush over the edge and made him president. Right,
10:06
Speaker 1: And a lot of people pointed to Ralph Nader, who,
10:09
Speaker 1: as we all know and love from the Pinto's episode,
10:13
Speaker 1: is a like a crusader for people, just a great guy.
10:18
Speaker 1: But for since two thousand, a lot of people have
10:20
Speaker 1: hated Ralph Nader because they said that he handed the
10:23
Speaker 1: presidency to George W. Bush by acting as a spoiler.
10:28
Speaker 1: That's something like ninety thousand people voted for Ralph Nader
10:33
Speaker 1: in the two thousand election, sorry, almost nine thousand, and
10:37
Speaker 1: since it was that close in Florida, those thousand votes
10:41
Speaker 1: in Florida for Nader pushed Bush into the lead. Well,
10:45
Speaker 1: that's just totally unfair because it turns out actually like
10:48
Speaker 1: three and eight thousand registered Democrats actually voted for Bush.
10:53
Speaker 1: So you could say that actually the Democratic Party didn't
10:56
Speaker 1: run a very good campaign in Florida if that was
10:58
Speaker 1: the case. But for ever, Ralph Naders born the brun
11:02
Speaker 1: of everyone's hire because of this and the same we
11:05
Speaker 1: see this in election after election after election, people calling
11:08
Speaker 1: out people of similar views for voting for a third
11:11
Speaker 1: party candidate, saying that they split the vote and and
11:15
Speaker 1: handed them the office over to the their shared enemy. Right.
11:21
Speaker 1: And one way to solve this problem, the spoiler um,
11:26
Speaker 1: is by fixing what we call this plurality voting system
11:30
Speaker 1: which we have, which is if you get more votes
11:32
Speaker 1: than your opponent, even if it's not the majority of votes,
11:36
Speaker 1: you still win. It's called winners winner takes all elections,
11:40
Speaker 1: and that's what we have right now, and it's actually
11:42
Speaker 1: creating a lot of polarity and polarization in the United States.
11:48
Speaker 1: That was impressive. Well thanks, Uh yeah, man, I mean
11:53
Speaker 1: it's basically what you have is, at least in the
11:57
Speaker 1: United States, is a situation where if you vote for
12:01
Speaker 1: your favorite candidate, you can actually hand the election to
12:05
Speaker 1: your least favorite candidate. And that's you know, like with
12:09
Speaker 1: the Bernie your Busters in the last election, that's kind
12:12
Speaker 1: of what happened that people that voted with their heart
12:14
Speaker 1: that were like, I can't vote for Hillary Clinton, or
12:16
Speaker 1: I don't want to vote for Hillary Clinton on gott
12:18
Speaker 1: to vote for Bernie. Uh. Very clearly that's that you know,
12:22
Speaker 1: that does swing an election. People should vote who they
12:25
Speaker 1: want to vote for. Uh, but there is potentially a
12:29
Speaker 1: better way. Uh. And we're talking about what Australia does
12:33
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting, what some cities in the United States
12:36
Speaker 1: do UM on small local elections. It's sort of seeing
12:41
Speaker 1: a test run UM all around the country and little
12:44
Speaker 1: markets to see what people think. UM. Sometimes people are
12:47
Speaker 1: voting on whether or not they should try. Uh. This
12:51
Speaker 1: style of voting. Sometimes that passes and then they actually
12:54
Speaker 1: vote on candidates. But what ranked choice voting is is
12:58
Speaker 1: when you fill out a you don't just say I
13:01
Speaker 1: want to vote for this person. You say I want
13:03
Speaker 1: to vote for this person, and then you know my
13:06
Speaker 1: second choice would be this person, and my third choice
13:08
Speaker 1: would be this person. Sometimes it stops there at three.
13:11
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's capped, but sometimes you just rank all the
13:14
Speaker 1: candidates in order of how much you want them in office. Right, so, um,
13:21
Speaker 1: the whole point of ranking them is not just for
13:23
Speaker 1: the satisfaction of putting the person you like the least
13:26
Speaker 1: dead last right, maybe filling in the name or the
13:30
Speaker 1: little bubble next to their name with a skull and crossbones.
13:33
Speaker 1: The point is it comes after the ballots are tallied.
13:38
Speaker 1: If Chuck, everybody um voted for one single person, a
13:42
Speaker 1: majority of people voted for one single person in the
13:45
Speaker 1: first count, that person won if they had a majority
13:48
Speaker 1: of the vote, say plus one single vote. Right, yes,
13:53
Speaker 1: it's done. It's just like a normal election under that,
13:56
Speaker 1: under that um that circumstance. But let's say one of
14:01
Speaker 1: the candidates didn't get a majority of the vote. This
14:05
Speaker 1: is when ranked choice voting really kicks in. And this
14:09
Speaker 1: is another reason why it's also called an instant runoff vote,
14:12
Speaker 1: because what happens is an instant runoff election from those ballots.
14:17
Speaker 1: And I think we should take a break. Oh you
14:20
Speaker 1: tail this, that's a cliffhanger. Yeah, right after this. Well,
14:38
Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
14:42
Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh damp chuck
14:46
Speaker 1: it stuff you should know? All right, all right, everybody,
14:54
Speaker 1: If you remember we were talking about don't ranked choice voting,
14:58
Speaker 1: You list out your candidates in order preference, and then
15:01
Speaker 1: after you hand your ballot in, they just kind of
15:04
Speaker 1: work from the bottom up almost and start striking people
15:07
Speaker 1: out until they get to someone that has a majority. Yeah,
15:11
Speaker 1: And it's really that simple. It really is like if
15:14
Speaker 1: you if you think too hard on it, you can overcomplicated.
15:17
Speaker 1: It's actually pretty easy. And if like what we're going
15:20
Speaker 1: to explain doesn't quite make sense, go onto the web
15:23
Speaker 1: and watch there's a couple of minute and a half
15:26
Speaker 1: long videos that do a really good job of explaining
15:29
Speaker 1: and using visuals. I think once by k q E
15:32
Speaker 1: d out in San Francisco and others by Minnesota Public
15:35
Speaker 1: Radio and both Minneapolis and San Francisco use ranked choice voting. Um,
15:40
Speaker 1: so go watch those videos and you will totally get it.
15:43
Speaker 1: But again, if you have a let's say you have
15:46
Speaker 1: candidate A, B, C, and D, and you cast your
15:49
Speaker 1: ballot and you like you like them in that order,
15:52
Speaker 1: Canada as your top choice candidate beats your second choice
15:55
Speaker 1: candidate SEES three and D is fourth. Right, Okay, easy enough,
15:59
Speaker 1: so far right, Chuck, Yes, okay. So um, let's say
16:04
Speaker 1: that after all the tallies are are are all the
16:07
Speaker 1: ballots are tallied, your guy Canada Day just didn't make
16:12
Speaker 1: the cut. He he came in dead last. Your your
16:16
Speaker 1: ballot doesn't get thrown away, It gets set to the
16:19
Speaker 1: side because whatever all the people who voted for Canada
16:22
Speaker 1: A chose for a second, those votes get distributed to
16:25
Speaker 1: those candidates in this next round. Yeah, exactly, And that
16:29
Speaker 1: is how you end up with a majority. So you
16:32
Speaker 1: you what you won't wind up is a situation like
16:35
Speaker 1: you had with the current governor of Maine where he
16:37
Speaker 1: won the election with thirty eight percent of the vote,
16:41
Speaker 1: And like, there's something wrong with your voting system if
16:44
Speaker 1: only thirty eight percent of the people in a in
16:47
Speaker 1: a in a voting pool like this candidate enough and
16:51
Speaker 1: they end up winning. Yeah, I mean, that's that's that's
16:54
Speaker 1: the big problem that everybody points to with our current
16:57
Speaker 1: plurality system is you could if there's three candidates, you
17:01
Speaker 1: can win with thirty percent of the vote, which means
17:05
Speaker 1: sixty six percent of the people who voted didn't vote
17:08
Speaker 1: for you. They voted for somebody other than you. And
17:11
Speaker 1: the other part of the thing that I've seen from
17:13
Speaker 1: research in this, Chuck is that when when it's a
17:16
Speaker 1: winner takes takes all kind of election, like a plurality
17:19
Speaker 1: election like we have, that seems to um incentivize incentivized
17:25
Speaker 1: candidates to be more polarizing because what they're trying to
17:28
Speaker 1: do is energize their base and get their base out,
17:31
Speaker 1: but they have no incentive whatsoever to reach out across
17:35
Speaker 1: the aisle to other voters. Um, all they're doing is
17:38
Speaker 1: getting their base charged up to get out and vote
17:41
Speaker 1: frequently about issues that don't really mean anything. They're just
17:44
Speaker 1: kind of like, um, I'm not quite sure what the
17:49
Speaker 1: term is for him, but nonsensical issues that don't really
17:53
Speaker 1: mean anything. They just tick everybody off. That kind of
17:56
Speaker 1: polarization comes from this plurality thing and one of the
18:00
Speaker 1: ways that UM or one of the reasons so many
18:04
Speaker 1: people are pointing to rank choice voting as a as
18:06
Speaker 1: a UM as a kind of a way to solve
18:09
Speaker 1: this is because it does the opposite. It incentivizes people
18:12
Speaker 1: to reach out to as many voters as possible because
18:16
Speaker 1: you want to end up as their number two choice. Yeah.
18:20
Speaker 1: I mean it's an interesting argument. Um In theory, it
18:23
Speaker 1: would push politicians towards the center. Uh. However, a lot
18:28
Speaker 1: of people don't want centrist politicians, and you know, as
18:31
Speaker 1: we've seen in recent years, people there are a lot
18:33
Speaker 1: of people that are very hard right and very hard
18:36
Speaker 1: left that I imagine would reject this kind of voting
18:40
Speaker 1: because they don't want to go towards the center. Um.
18:43
Speaker 1: Although right now, you know, independence are largely ignored, third
18:46
Speaker 1: party candidates are largely ignored, so they would probably embrace
18:49
Speaker 1: something like this. Uh. But again, I mean, we had
18:54
Speaker 1: a situation in Kansas where the gubernatorial primary was decided
18:58
Speaker 1: by less than two hundred votes, So that meant that
19:01
Speaker 1: fifty votes basically didn't count. I mean, they counted, and
19:07
Speaker 1: that people got to to speak their mind and vote
19:09
Speaker 1: their conscience, But fifty two those fifty people, if you
19:13
Speaker 1: pulled them, they would probably say, well, you know what,
19:15
Speaker 1: I might like a second chance to vote then on
19:18
Speaker 1: these two jerks. That was decided by lesson two votes,
19:21
Speaker 1: right right. And that's where ranked choice voting comes in,
19:24
Speaker 1: because if you, if you you know, vote your conscience,
19:27
Speaker 1: which I think it sounds like both of us agree,
19:29
Speaker 1: you totally should. And I think even further, you should
19:33
Speaker 1: not deride people who vote their conscience. It's a pretty
19:36
Speaker 1: terrible thing to do. Um. But if if you share
19:41
Speaker 1: similar views um with another candidate, they might be your
19:45
Speaker 1: second choice. You might not like them, maybe they're the
19:47
Speaker 1: establishment candidate and you're more like the uh, the more
19:51
Speaker 1: progressive or more far right candidate. You like that person first,
19:56
Speaker 1: but you're also saying, you know, this person might have
19:59
Speaker 1: a better shot, so I'm gonn to make sure that
20:00
Speaker 1: they're my number two rather than the other person. And
20:03
Speaker 1: so what you're doing then is, rather than the vote
20:06
Speaker 1: being split like in a winner takes all, if if
20:09
Speaker 1: your person, your third party candidate doesn't win that first round, um,
20:14
Speaker 1: the your votes are going to go to that other
20:17
Speaker 1: more like minded person. So rather than splitting the vote,
20:19
Speaker 1: you're actually going and helping UH to bowl straight if
20:23
Speaker 1: your candidate of choice doesn't make it to the second round. Right, Obviously,
20:28
Speaker 1: you need at least three candidates for something like this
20:31
Speaker 1: to happen, which doesn't always happen, so you can't always
20:34
Speaker 1: use this this kind of voting. UH. And Maine, the
20:37
Speaker 1: state of Maine is an interesting well, it's interesting in
20:40
Speaker 1: a lot of ways because manners are weird and they
20:43
Speaker 1: know that. Um, they're very independent and just sort of
20:48
Speaker 1: a state into themselves in a lot of ways. So
20:51
Speaker 1: what you've had here, nine of the past eleven governors
20:54
Speaker 1: have been elected with less than fifty of the vote.
20:57
Speaker 1: Nine of the past eleven, which is amazing, five of
20:59
Speaker 1: those with less and as I mentioned earlier, the current governor,
21:03
Speaker 1: Paul Lapage or la Page UH, he won with thirty
21:07
Speaker 1: eight percent, and as of hours ago, as as of
21:12
Speaker 1: this recording, he just vetoed a bill for this kind
21:15
Speaker 1: of voting to continue on his way out the door. Basically,
21:19
Speaker 1: I saw that there was like there's been a real
21:21
Speaker 1: push in Maine against this too, and there's a lot
21:25
Speaker 1: of allegations that it's basically the status quo is worried
21:28
Speaker 1: that they're not going to be able to get enough
21:31
Speaker 1: centrist people to vote for them, and so they're gonna
21:33
Speaker 1: start losing elections rather than these winner polarized winner takes
21:37
Speaker 1: all um contests that they can win by energizing the
21:41
Speaker 1: base into a frenzy. So pushed by politicians, I guess right,
21:45
Speaker 1: pushed by incumbent politicians. No less, Yeah, because the people
21:48
Speaker 1: voted for it. They had a record turnout, apparently, because
21:52
Speaker 1: one of the worries is is that more complicated voting
21:55
Speaker 1: in theory leads to uh, people being less interested in voting,
22:00
Speaker 1: like this sort of sadly American thing where you have
22:03
Speaker 1: to make voting super easy and super dumb uh or
22:07
Speaker 1: dumbed down at least, and if it's just confusing, people
22:10
Speaker 1: want to understand it and they won't know what to do,
22:12
Speaker 1: so they may not even vote. But at least in
22:14
Speaker 1: Maine they had a record turnout, and a lot of
22:16
Speaker 1: people think it was because they moved to rank choice voting.
22:19
Speaker 1: And I saw also a two thousand and fourteen study
22:22
Speaker 1: from the University of Missouri that um they looked at
22:25
Speaker 1: like seventies six elections or seventy nine elections in twenty
22:29
Speaker 1: six cities that used ranked choice voting, and they found
22:33
Speaker 1: that overall there was like a ten percent higher turnout
22:36
Speaker 1: than in elections that hadn't used ranked choice voting UM,
22:40
Speaker 1: and that that definitely flies in the face of one
22:43
Speaker 1: of the great criticisms of ranked choice voting that it's
22:46
Speaker 1: way more difficult than regular voting. Like you were saying, right,
22:51
Speaker 1: The thing is is it's not that much more difficult.
22:54
Speaker 1: It's really pretty easy and the average person can figure
22:58
Speaker 1: it out. What I think it calls for more though
23:01
Speaker 1: Chuck is a more informed voter, you know what I mean. Like,
23:06
Speaker 1: you can't just scantron it. You can't just make a
23:08
Speaker 1: Christmas tree out of it and expect any kind of
23:10
Speaker 1: good result, rather than just knowing about your one candidate
23:14
Speaker 1: and that, yes, I like this person. They most aligned
23:17
Speaker 1: with my view, so I'm going to vote for them,
23:19
Speaker 1: and I don't need to know anything about the other
23:21
Speaker 1: people except I don't want to vote for him. It
23:24
Speaker 1: means that you need to know something about all of
23:27
Speaker 1: the candidates because you've got to figure out who's second
23:30
Speaker 1: and who's third, and who's fourth and who's fifth, um.
23:33
Speaker 1: And to do that you have to be an informed voter.
23:37
Speaker 1: Maybe they should in the States do it with pictures
23:42
Speaker 1: as a who's hot and who's not, or who were best,
23:46
Speaker 1: who were best in in terms of ranking, just so
23:50
Speaker 1: we can understand it. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a
23:54
Speaker 1: there has to be as as far as ranked choice
23:58
Speaker 1: voting goes, there has to be a a UM, real understandable,
24:04
Speaker 1: really robust public education campaign that goes along with it.
24:10
Speaker 1: UM or else it's not gonna get anywhere, I don't think.
24:13
Speaker 1: But I think so far in like Maine, which I
24:16
Speaker 1: think you said already is the first state to ever
24:19
Speaker 1: uses in statewide elections in the US. Right, Yeah, they
24:23
Speaker 1: hand count there too, they do, but this article what
24:27
Speaker 1: kind of worried about that? It's like, well, how long
24:29
Speaker 1: is this going to take if they're hand counting? Well
24:31
Speaker 1: if if if under the first count like they normally do,
24:34
Speaker 1: there isn't a clear winner, a majority winner. All those
24:37
Speaker 1: battlets gets sent to the capital, which which I think
24:40
Speaker 1: UM uses software from that point on. So it's not
24:43
Speaker 1: that big of a deal as far as Maine goes. Yeah,
24:46
Speaker 1: and I read, uh the governor remains UM. The reason
24:49
Speaker 1: why he vetoed it, he wrote like a op ed
24:51
Speaker 1: or whatever, made a statement and he he had a
24:54
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One was financial, because they came back
24:57
Speaker 1: and said it would cost an extra three thirty thousand
25:00
Speaker 1: dollars or something, and he said, you know, they're sticking
25:03
Speaker 1: it to you. They're sticking to you the taxpayer, with
25:05
Speaker 1: more money for this election, which I don't know if
25:08
Speaker 1: I haven't done the math, I can't imagine that would
25:10
Speaker 1: amount to very much money per person, like per voter. Uh.
25:14
Speaker 1: And he also said that it was it was sort
25:16
Speaker 1: of voted on and run through in the middle of
25:18
Speaker 1: the night. Uh. One of those type of deals where
25:21
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people weren't there, It wasn't debated,
25:23
Speaker 1: it was voted on in less than five minutes at
25:26
Speaker 1: you know, late at night, and that kind of thing,
25:28
Speaker 1: that kind of sneaky politics. So that's that's what that
25:32
Speaker 1: was his contention. Although I imagine if the people have
25:35
Speaker 1: Maine voted for it to begin with, then uh. I
25:38
Speaker 1: mean from everything I've read, it sounds like he was
25:41
Speaker 1: just sort of like on the way out the door,
25:43
Speaker 1: given everybody the finger. Yeah, that's that's what every That's
25:46
Speaker 1: what I've read too. That's that's kind of my interpretation.
25:49
Speaker 1: I want to hear from people the people of Maine
25:51
Speaker 1: though about this. Well, the people of Maine have already
25:54
Speaker 1: spoken on. On I think June eighteenth, they using the
25:58
Speaker 1: ranked system for the first time. The first question on
26:02
Speaker 1: the ballot was do you want to keep using ranked voting?
26:05
Speaker 1: And it was um. It was passed with like a vote,
26:09
Speaker 1: So clearly a majority of people in Maine at least say, yep,
26:13
Speaker 1: let's give this a shot. Was that ranked choice? Was it? Yes?
26:17
Speaker 1: I used ranked choice? Right, right? And then maybe but
26:21
Speaker 1: only if this and well, I guess if they don't
26:23
Speaker 1: do this, and we should do this, right, so maybe
26:26
Speaker 1: let's take a break, talk about some history. Let's well,
26:44
Speaker 1: now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
26:48
Speaker 1: to learn a thing or two from Josh? Can chuck
26:52
Speaker 1: stuff you should know? All right? All right, Chuck? So
27:00
Speaker 1: ranked choice, like we said, it's been around for a
27:03
Speaker 1: little while in the US took a stab at it before. Um,
27:06
Speaker 1: I think back in the nineteen thirties in New York, right, yeah,
27:10
Speaker 1: I mean the Brits used to do it in the
27:11
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, and then America tried it in New York.
27:15
Speaker 1: Of course, and if this weird thing hadn't happened, it
27:20
Speaker 1: may still be around today. You never know. But in
27:23
Speaker 1: a nineteen thirty seven city council election, a communist actually
27:28
Speaker 1: want a seat because of rank choice voting, and that
27:32
Speaker 1: changed everything. And I think if it hadn't been for that,
27:35
Speaker 1: it might have actually caught on. Yeah, because I think
27:39
Speaker 1: a decade later they used the um the red scare
27:43
Speaker 1: to basically say, look, you can't have ranked choice voting.
27:47
Speaker 1: It gets communists in power, you crazy, And everybody said, oh, okay,
27:51
Speaker 1: let's get away with rank let's do away with ranked
27:53
Speaker 1: choice voting. And they did. But as in this case,
27:56
Speaker 1: as in all the other cases where ranked choice voting
27:59
Speaker 1: has been tried out and then left behind later on,
28:03
Speaker 1: it's been tied to some other issue, it doesn't seem
28:08
Speaker 1: like ranked choice voting itself is the problem. It's the
28:13
Speaker 1: the establishment who's threatened by ranked choice voting tends to
28:17
Speaker 1: tie it to an unpopular political thing, and then UM
28:21
Speaker 1: gets rid of it that way, like in Burlington, Vermont
28:25
Speaker 1: back and I think the mid two thousand's they tried
28:29
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting and this mayor that got elected was
28:32
Speaker 1: a super progressive UM who upset I think a Republican incumbent,
28:38
Speaker 1: and the progressive was doing fine, everybody's happy with him.
28:41
Speaker 1: But then he got embroiled in a scandal where apparently
28:44
Speaker 1: he used public funds to keep a telecom company in business.
28:49
Speaker 1: That did not make the people of Burlington, Vermont very happy.
28:52
Speaker 1: So he he became a very unpopular mayor, like almost overnight,
28:56
Speaker 1: while he had been elected through ranked choice voting. So
28:59
Speaker 1: the republic Kins the next time around said, look what
29:02
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting did? It got this, this scandal plagued
29:05
Speaker 1: mayor in office. Let's get rid of ranked choice voting.
29:08
Speaker 1: And people voted voted against ranked choice voting, and it
29:11
Speaker 1: was a very close vote, and it was mostly Republicans
29:14
Speaker 1: who voted against it, but more of them turned out
29:16
Speaker 1: to vote against ranked choice voting, so it went away.
29:19
Speaker 1: Same thing with the communists in New York. The Democrats
29:22
Speaker 1: did that. They said, look, it elected a Communist to
29:26
Speaker 1: the New York City Council. Let's get away. Let's do
29:28
Speaker 1: away ranked choice voting. Same thing. So it's not like
29:31
Speaker 1: the ranked choice voting there's anything wrong with it, and
29:34
Speaker 1: there may be a lot right with it. It's just
29:36
Speaker 1: that it gets tied to political scandals pretty frequently. To
29:39
Speaker 1: get rid of it, I think it's it's because it's
29:41
Speaker 1: a new thing. People are like, oh, yeah, that was weird.
29:44
Speaker 1: That was weird. Let's go back to the old way,
29:46
Speaker 1: even though the old way is broken. Yeah. Oakland, California
29:50
Speaker 1: is a pretty interesting situation too in two thousand ten,
29:54
Speaker 1: because people could make arguments I guess on either side here. Uh.
29:57
Speaker 1: In two thousand ten, for its mayoral election, there were
30:00
Speaker 1: ten candidates on the ballots. You gotta rank all ten, um,
30:04
Speaker 1: And I didn't see anything about like, is a ballot
30:07
Speaker 1: counted if you only rank like four. Oh, that's a
30:11
Speaker 1: really good point. I wonder if that's an incomplete ballot.
30:14
Speaker 1: It is. And all that's counted though, is your first vote.
30:18
Speaker 1: So in the first round of voting, your ballot counts
30:21
Speaker 1: whether you rank one person or four or three. However,
30:26
Speaker 1: if you don't fill it out and you just fill
30:28
Speaker 1: out one, it gets counted once. So you could write
30:30
Speaker 1: nine out of ten and it only counts the first
30:33
Speaker 1: from what I understand. Yes, interesting, alright, So in Oakland
30:36
Speaker 1: and there were ten candidates, Uh, there was a front
30:38
Speaker 1: runner named Don Parata. He got thirty of what they
30:42
Speaker 1: called the first choice vote, which is, you know, obviously
30:44
Speaker 1: pretty low for first choice did not win, and then
30:48
Speaker 1: Jane Kuan she finished pretty far behind. She only got
30:52
Speaker 1: of the first preference, but she ended up winning with
30:55
Speaker 1: fifty to Paradas forty eight percent after they rolled all
30:59
Speaker 1: those other votes up. Yes, because she had gone to
31:03
Speaker 1: the other candidates who were long shots and said, hey,
31:06
Speaker 1: let's let's form an alliance here. Let's let's try to
31:09
Speaker 1: like get as many voters as possible to vote for us.
31:12
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that ranked choice voting does, Chuck,
31:16
Speaker 1: is it incentivizes you to appeal to as many voters
31:22
Speaker 1: as possible rather than alienating another candidates voters and just
31:26
Speaker 1: appealing to your own base. You want those second choice
31:30
Speaker 1: votes too, because they count in later rounds, and that
31:34
Speaker 1: means that you have to say, hey, I know I'm
31:36
Speaker 1: not your first choice. I'm I might even be from
31:40
Speaker 1: a different party than the one you're planning to vote for,
31:42
Speaker 1: but let me tell you about some of the things
31:44
Speaker 1: that we have in common that might change your opinion
31:48
Speaker 1: of me, which means that there's probably going to be
31:50
Speaker 1: less negative ads, less negative campaigns, and in some some
31:55
Speaker 1: um cases, I think for the main Attorney General's office,
31:58
Speaker 1: some candidates have them together to um to basically run
32:04
Speaker 1: ads like joint campaign ads saying hey, everybody, I know
32:09
Speaker 1: you're playing in the vote for me, but maybe put
32:12
Speaker 1: this person is number two and the other person says
32:14
Speaker 1: the same thing. And in doing so, what you're doing
32:17
Speaker 1: is is is rather than splitting the vote, you're consolidating
32:21
Speaker 1: what would have been previously split votes into something that
32:24
Speaker 1: could actually lift one or the other to to office. Yeah.
32:30
Speaker 1: And I mean as far as appealing to the center
32:32
Speaker 1: one of the people want that, that's that's got to
32:36
Speaker 1: be better than what we have now, which is people
32:39
Speaker 1: digging in so far and so hard to the left
32:42
Speaker 1: and the right that they're basically they might as well
32:45
Speaker 1: just come out and say screw you of the country.
32:50
Speaker 1: And that's that's a broken system. Uh. And there are
32:53
Speaker 1: a lot of people, including uh Bloomberg View columnists Leonid
32:58
Speaker 1: Breschitzky speaking of communists. I'm just kidding, Leonid. I'm sure
33:05
Speaker 1: you're a fine American. Uh. He you know, he basically
33:09
Speaker 1: came out and wrote an article that said, if we
33:11
Speaker 1: had gone with this type of thing, Donald Trump would
33:13
Speaker 1: not not only would he not be president, he would
33:16
Speaker 1: not have even won the primary because there were so
33:18
Speaker 1: many sort of establishment traditional conservatives that would never have
33:23
Speaker 1: voted for Donald Trump, and may have even set out
33:27
Speaker 1: the election that would have written in like maybe John
33:29
Speaker 1: casag first, then Jeb Bush second, and then who knows third.
33:35
Speaker 1: I can't I can't imagine who they would have picked third,
33:37
Speaker 1: But they probably would have put Donald Trump dead last.
33:40
Speaker 1: So he would have never rolled up in the primaries
33:43
Speaker 1: even right. And so the reason why people would have
33:46
Speaker 1: put Trump dead last in this case is because he
33:50
Speaker 1: was so he was so far away from the clump
33:55
Speaker 1: of the other guys who were a little more towards
33:58
Speaker 1: the middle, and just by day of their being more
34:01
Speaker 1: of these guys more towards the middle, that means that
34:03
Speaker 1: there are more voters voting for those people, and so
34:06
Speaker 1: Trump would have been left out and somebody like Jeff
34:09
Speaker 1: Bush or somebody who was a centrist would have been
34:11
Speaker 1: more likely to to reach the primary. And that's the point.
34:15
Speaker 1: Because more people tend to aggregate towards the center than
34:19
Speaker 1: towards the fringes. Ranked choice voting serves the center a
34:24
Speaker 1: lot more clearly than it does the fringes, and it
34:27
Speaker 1: it drags the fringe candidates toward the center more and
34:32
Speaker 1: and and get it does away with the polarization that
34:36
Speaker 1: creates the fringe candidates in the first place. Yeah, and
34:40
Speaker 1: I guess we should point out that center center of
34:43
Speaker 1: your own party more like, I don't know, man, I
34:46
Speaker 1: think center. The thing about the center of the own
34:49
Speaker 1: party is that the difference between the two is not
34:52
Speaker 1: as pronounced and so like there's a lot more reaching
34:55
Speaker 1: across the aisles, which I think is why a lot
34:57
Speaker 1: of people value you know, centrist Paul. It takes a
35:01
Speaker 1: lot more is there's a lot more compromise that comes
35:03
Speaker 1: out of it rather than gridlock. Yeah, I mean, I
35:05
Speaker 1: guess in theory center right and center left is more
35:07
Speaker 1: towards the overall center. But when I hear things like
35:12
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is more centrist, I mean, it depends on
35:16
Speaker 1: who you compare him to. I guess exactly he's he's
35:18
Speaker 1: a little more central compared to Donald Trump, maybe on
35:21
Speaker 1: the Republican side, but I don't think any Democrat would
35:23
Speaker 1: identify with him. Sure, agreed, So I think you could
35:26
Speaker 1: make a case that ranked choice voting would probably keep
35:29
Speaker 1: somebody like Ted Cruz from being president one day too,
35:32
Speaker 1: you know, maybe, So who knows what I'm interested in.
35:37
Speaker 1: Is the money, like one of the things that Governor
35:41
Speaker 1: la Page or Lapage, do you know what's one it is? No,
35:46
Speaker 1: I don't, or however you pronounce that in Maine. Let's
35:48
Speaker 1: go with Lapage. It sounds fancy. Yeah. So Lapage talked
35:52
Speaker 1: about the money, and that is one of the things
35:54
Speaker 1: that critics bring up is it will cost a lot
35:56
Speaker 1: of money. But I'd be curious just to see dollars
36:00
Speaker 1: lines on runoff elections and what they cost um. I saw, Well,
36:05
Speaker 1: that's the other thing too, because this would eliminate those
36:08
Speaker 1: it would right now, from what I saw, there's twelve
36:11
Speaker 1: states that have run off rules. The rest of the
36:14
Speaker 1: states don't. It's all winner takes all. But the only
36:16
Speaker 1: the states that do have runoff rules, that's only in
36:19
Speaker 1: the primaries. Interesting. Yeah, so in a federal election, uh,
36:24
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting UM or a general election, it's going
36:28
Speaker 1: to cost more just because it's it's a little more expensive.
36:31
Speaker 1: But what I saw was that cost Maine. There's a
36:34
Speaker 1: Boston Globe editorial by the editors of the Boston Globe
36:38
Speaker 1: that said, let's do this in Massachusetts. They said it
36:42
Speaker 1: was just like a hundred and ten thousand dollars more
36:45
Speaker 1: for the entire state of Maine to run this UM
36:48
Speaker 1: this election over ones that didn't have ranked choice that
36:51
Speaker 1: used plurality voting. Yeah, that's like fractions of a penny
36:55
Speaker 1: per voter, probably right, I should say. Also, since talking
36:59
Speaker 1: about bringing it to Massachusetts, UM, I thought of doing
37:02
Speaker 1: this episode because remember our friend Dave who used to
37:05
Speaker 1: work at Sweetwater Dave Morrell. Oh yeah, he is running
37:08
Speaker 1: for the UM I think District five House for the
37:13
Speaker 1: New Hampshire House District four New Hampshire House. He's got
37:17
Speaker 1: my vote. He the same here. Unfortunately we can't vote
37:20
Speaker 1: for him, but UM Dave was saying one of his
37:22
Speaker 1: platform planks is bringing rank choice voting to New Hampshire. Interesting. Yeah,
37:27
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm happy to be your number three.
37:30
Speaker 1: I think he wants to be your number one. Well,
37:33
Speaker 1: another criticism that this one is the one that gets me,
37:36
Speaker 1: Like everything else sounds pretty good, but uh, a lot
37:40
Speaker 1: of these cities limit, like I said earlier at the
37:43
Speaker 1: very beginning, to the top three candidates. So there's something
37:46
Speaker 1: called ballot exhaustion. If all three of your candidates on
37:49
Speaker 1: your list are eliminated, then your ballot is basically just burned.
37:55
Speaker 1: In fact, I think they burn it. They hold it
37:58
Speaker 1: up and they burn it in front of your face,
38:00
Speaker 1: like Tony Collette and hereditary and then laugh at you.
38:03
Speaker 1: So you would think this probably didn't happen much though,
38:07
Speaker 1: But there was a study in electoral electoral studies in
38:10
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen set in four cities, between nine point
38:14
Speaker 1: six point seven percent of voters were eliminated due to
38:18
Speaker 1: ballot exhaustion, which those numbers are super high, they are
38:21
Speaker 1: very high. Well, one way to get around that is
38:24
Speaker 1: to um not just rank your top three, but to
38:27
Speaker 1: rank every single person. I wonder why they did that though,
38:31
Speaker 1: maybe to make it easier. I'm not sure, but the
38:33
Speaker 1: San Francisco just ranks the top three for their mayor
38:36
Speaker 1: mayoral races, which is kind of I don't know about that,
38:39
Speaker 1: because they frequently have like ten people in there in
38:42
Speaker 1: the race, like you were saying, so just to rank
38:45
Speaker 1: the top three that will lead to a lot of
38:47
Speaker 1: ballot exhaustion, which is a real problem. But again, if
38:50
Speaker 1: people just rank all the candidates, their ballot will keep
38:54
Speaker 1: getting getting counted round after round, because after your first
38:59
Speaker 1: two were eliminated in three and then four, those your
39:03
Speaker 1: vote for that rank keeps getting added depending on the
39:06
Speaker 1: round that you're on. It's pretty pretty interesting stuff. Man,
39:09
Speaker 1: I don't know. You think it'll catch on here? It
39:12
Speaker 1: has piqued my interest. Same here. I think anything that
39:15
Speaker 1: does away with um with um polarization and does away
39:21
Speaker 1: with people who share pretty similar views. But anything that
39:26
Speaker 1: does away with that, I'm I'm in favor of trying
39:28
Speaker 1: for sure. Agreed. Well, if you want to know more
39:32
Speaker 1: about ranked choice voting, go check it out some of
39:35
Speaker 1: those videos on the web, and um, you're probably going
39:40
Speaker 1: to learn to like it. But whatever, make up your
39:42
Speaker 1: own mind. And since I said that, it's time for
39:44
Speaker 1: listener mail. All right, this is a bit long, but
39:49
Speaker 1: it's a good one. This is from an actual recently
39:52
Speaker 1: retired New York City detective. Hi, guys, love the show.
39:57
Speaker 1: I was a NYPD detective for twenty years and just retired,
40:01
Speaker 1: And I'm glad to say you guys remotely spot on
40:03
Speaker 1: with the lineups episode. And then he gives us some
40:07
Speaker 1: really interesting tidbits here. I can't wait. He says, double
40:10
Speaker 1: blind lineups are better, but they are a huge suck
40:12
Speaker 1: on resources. You have to transport a witness or witnesses
40:16
Speaker 1: who also need to be separated fillers the suspect who
40:20
Speaker 1: requires two detectives to safely transport from one site to
40:23
Speaker 1: the next. And now you have to find another detective
40:26
Speaker 1: who who knows nothing about your case, So that usually
40:29
Speaker 1: means to go to an outside detective squad, who themselves
40:33
Speaker 1: have their own cases for which they may need blind administrators.
40:37
Speaker 1: So you can see how this ripples outward. Photo arrays
40:40
Speaker 1: would be helpful in terms of logistics, but they are
40:42
Speaker 1: inadmissible as trial evidence in New York. You can only
40:45
Speaker 1: be used to identify a possible suspect, but in order
40:47
Speaker 1: to bring charges you have to conduct a live lineup. Additionally,
40:51
Speaker 1: many victims feel more confident looking at real people than
40:53
Speaker 1: it photos. UH defense lawyers will claim they want to
40:56
Speaker 1: be present for the lineup to verify it's impartiality, but
40:59
Speaker 1: do not actually want to be there and in fact
41:01
Speaker 1: rarely are UH. If they're not present, they can then
41:04
Speaker 1: accuse officers of all kinds of misdeeds and an effort
41:08
Speaker 1: to have the identification suppressed at hearing. If they are
41:11
Speaker 1: present and observe nothing untoward during the procedure, it becomes
41:14
Speaker 1: more difficult for them to later claim otherwise super interesting. Uh. Lastly,
41:20
Speaker 1: I spent the last four years of my career in
41:22
Speaker 1: a robbery unit that worked with federal prosecutors. We begged
41:26
Speaker 1: squad detectives not to show photo arrays or conduct lineups.
41:30
Speaker 1: As we know what Josh said. Many times, it's true.
41:32
Speaker 1: Witness testimony more often than not as terrible. We build
41:35
Speaker 1: most of our cases using co conspirator testimony, perpetrator statements, UH,
41:40
Speaker 1: DNA criminalistics, so, social media analysis, cell phone tracking, security video,
41:45
Speaker 1: license plate reader data, etcetera, etcetera. Uh, witnesses really just
41:50
Speaker 1: muddy the waters. Uh. They're best used to say, hey
41:53
Speaker 1: I got robbed and then just leave it at that.
41:56
Speaker 1: It also takes the emotional burden off them at trial
41:59
Speaker 1: should it ever come to that. Yeah, my wife and
42:01
Speaker 1: are big fans kept us entertained on many road trips.
42:04
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, have a great day. And that is from
42:07
Speaker 1: former detective Jason Allison. That is an amazing email. Man.
42:12
Speaker 1: I'll bet social media is a huge tool because I'll
42:16
Speaker 1: bet there's so many goons just run around like I
42:18
Speaker 1: totally just robbed this place. Check it out here, here's
42:21
Speaker 1: the money. I guys, speaking of huge tools, yeah, uh,
42:25
Speaker 1: good one, Chuck. Well, if you want to get in
42:27
Speaker 1: touch with us like the former detective did, that's pretty awesome.
42:30
Speaker 1: We always want to hear from experts in the field
42:32
Speaker 1: that we talked about. You can get in touch with
42:35
Speaker 1: us via social media. Just go to our website, Stuff
42:38
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com and it's got all of
42:40
Speaker 1: our links up there um. Or you can send us
42:43
Speaker 1: an email. Just send it to Stuff podcast at how
42:47
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
42:54
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.