Safe Seats Exposed: Gerrymandering's Grip on Voter Power and Reform Paths

Alex: 00:00:00

Jerremy presses Rob on Voting Rights Act fallout, as protections

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crumble under court scrutiny.

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The looming shadow?

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If safe seats fuel polarization, voters'

real power fades—yet one overlooked

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fix still hangs in the balance.

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Jerremy: Rob, your invention of

the partisan voting index revealed

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distortions in winter, take all

systems, which you've mentioned a

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couple times already in this discussion.

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What surprises from that data challenge

assumptions about reform feasibility

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for individuals feeling unrepresented.

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Rob: Yeah, what was, we caught

the wave, this is like back in 97.

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So we had done initial set of

reports that just said, look,

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most of us lived in congressional

elections where we can't make change.

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And we lifted up incumbent

retention rates, always over

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95% and sometimes up to 99%.

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Like that's a pretty high rate of return.

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And the margins of victory and

how non-competitive it was.

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And then what we decided to do,

this is 97, so it was after the 96

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elections, is to try to say, can we

somehow use numbers in a simple way?

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To just say, this is not

gonna be close in 98.

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And it's not about money.

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At the time, there was a belief

that money buys elections.

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Of course, the candidate spent

a lot of time raising money.

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So there must be something to it.

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Like maybe it's the person with

more money always wins or something.

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That was a lot of what people thought.

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And I don't wanna undermine the case

for campaign finance reform because

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there's a lot of reasons to tackle that,

but not, but one of them isn't that

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it creates a lot of non-competition.

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In fact, it's the nature of the

districts that we were trying

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to show It was the imbalance.

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And right at that time was when things,

a couple trends were happening where

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people were starting to not split tickets,

meaning they'd vote for one party for

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president and another party for Congress.

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They were starting to get,

the parties were getting more.

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Branded for voters and they just said

I'm with Brand A I'm a Democrat, or

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I'm a Republican and I'm just gonna

start voting down the ballot that way.

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And that really kicked in 94 and

then kept accelerating in 96.

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So we came up with this simple

measure, which is, let's just look

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at the presidential vote, and not

just in the round numbers, but

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the relative presidential vote.

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So if the national presidential vote

was, say 48%, if a, the result for

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the president presidential candidates

in that district was say 50 52%,

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which is four points higher, that

is a district that a Democrat starts

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off where that presidential vote.

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With a four point advantage

like all things being equal,

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they will win 54 to 46.

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And we found, looking back

at recent elections, that was

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incredibly powerful open seats that

really predicted open seat races.

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And then we started to measure what

it meant to be an incumbent and

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what an advantage you got from that.

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We called that the incumbency bump.

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And and you put those together

and we can say, look, we can

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predict 85, 90% of races.

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This is now just done by everybody

but we did it first and and

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got a lot of interest for it.

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And it's gotten a little more

sophisticated, but in some ways

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just that simple measure has

become more and more potent.

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We only have four members of

Congress today who represent.

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The other party's district using

that measure of relative presidential

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vote outside of say 52 to 48, it's

just incredible just how locked

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in and almost all the districts

are outside of 52 48, right?

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So you just have all these races where the

general election's incredibly predictable.

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That makes the primary

election the only one that's

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competitive or theoretically is.

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And and so what it created the basis

for is that's what we need to tackle.

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In that sense of pragmatic

pragmatism, what that led to first

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is let's reform gerrymandering.

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Let's reform the way districts are

drawn to at least take away the power

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of the fox to guard the henhouse, the

politicians to shape their own districts.

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And that makes a lot of sense,

but it only has limited effect on

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that basic impact of competition.

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But it's, it's a good thing to do.

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And that was more straightforward to

do 'cause it didn't really shake up

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how candidates are used to winning

and parties used to representing.

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But now we're at that point where

there, we've seen real limits of that.

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And of course we're living in

an era of just completely broken

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down redistricting practices.

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And so I think it's a really

timely conversation to say, wait

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a second, this whole single member

district regime is just broken.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And Dave's over there shaking

his head up and down because

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we've talked about that a lot.

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And you mentioned the key word, I won $20.

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The bet was gerrymandering is

gonna come up in the first 20

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minutes of this conversation.

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'cause it has to.

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It's one of those very interesting

and in extremely wild way.

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To, like you said, guard

intentions for any particular

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individual or voting season.

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So for you, Rob, if advising a state

like Maine, what first steps would you

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prioritize to implement a proportional

element effectively for local communities?

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Yep.

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Rob: Yeah, let's start with local

'cause it's interesting almost.

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The great majority of local elections

don't actually run with parties.

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There are, some New York City, they,

have Democratic nominees and Republican

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nominees and so on, but most don't.

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So candidates run in a

nonpartisan election.

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So if you're changing winner take all.

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The solution isn't going

to be a party based system.

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And that's a different conversation

for when you have a partisan election.

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So it's like how do you make more votes?

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Count Maine.

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I happen to know a lot about Maine

'cause they have rank choice voting.

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It was our kind of threshold

win for rank choice voting.

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Find every excuse to try to get up

there, such a beautiful state as well.

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And but on most of their local

elections are nonpartisan at large.

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So candidates run, three candidates

up or three seats are up and people

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have three votes and, it's not

necessarily super polarized and things.

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So it's not necessarily clear what

might be happening that's not,

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it's giving some people the chance

to elect three people and others.

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None.

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But that actually happens.

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Some people go out and they vote for three

people and they lose, and their neighbor

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votes for three people and they all win.

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And it's a real imbalance.

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When you think of representative

democracy and Maine as part of New

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England isn't far from the traditions

we started with town meetings, right?

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And town meetings are still happen

less in Maine than say Massachusetts.

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Everyone goes, or not

everyone goes, but they can.

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And then everyone is there,

has a chance to be represented

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because they are there physically.

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So if you're trying to duplicate the

goal of oh, let's have the town in

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the room, that's where proportional

rank choice voting really fits in.

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And the Maine League of Women

voters just endorse this principle

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and are starting to work for it.

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It's allowed in cities

in Maine to just do this.

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And so a rank choice system with

proportionality is so you run at large

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and proportionality means, it's a big

word, but simply like-minded voters of

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however, is defined by the way they vote.

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Like it's not imposed upon

them from the outside.

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It's the, is defined by the

cohesion of how people vote.

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They can elect.

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People in proportion to their share.

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So if you're electing three seats at

large, and if 25% of people rank a

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candidate, that candidate will win.

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If 25% of people rank two candidates in

some order first or second, but all of

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them do those candidates either first

or second, then that candidate will win.

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So there's a certain threshold that

where you are gonna have access to win.

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At the end of the day, the math is

about 75% of people will help elect

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someone, probably more than that.

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Maybe 90% plus will have ranked

someone highly and maybe their

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vote didn't directly help elect

them, but they feel represented.

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So it greatly expands who's at the table.

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Very good remedy for voting

rights, minority voting rights.

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Let's say a lot of cities, maybe bigger

ones, are having these debates about

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growth, and it's like slow growth, big

growth, build more, control, build growth

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and and having both sides at the table

means you don't have like a growth regime

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replaced by an anti-growth machine.

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And this sort of winner take

all swing, you have more

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continuity on an issue like that.

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My wife runs a group on that called

Represent Women, which works to elect more

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women to office through structural change.

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And they found that these kinds of

systems do a lot for say, women's

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representation are new voices.

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We're trying to break into our

politics of however that is defined.

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So I think there's a really great

case for, at the local level it's

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different case than what it is going

higher up, but I think it's one

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that quite specifically on Maine.

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I think a lot of those main towns

will be having that conversation.

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We have.

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One city Portland that uses some

proportional rankers voting elections.

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Not much, but some.

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But I think there are other towns that

are gonna start looking at it too.

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Jerremy: Gotcha.

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All right, beautiful.

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So drawing from your national popular

vote plan to elect the President

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by popular vote, what interstate

compact strategies could accelerate

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proportional adoption and make

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National elections feel fair?

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Rob: Yeah.

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Lemme briefly explain the interstate

compact and then pivot to how that

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can be related to gerrymandering

and proportional voting.

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'cause there is a connection, but one of

the cool powers within the constitution.

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Is that is, explicitly created,

is that states have the right to

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essentially go into formal agreements

with one another effectively, like

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treaties, like international treaties.

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But these are called interstate compacts.

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They're on Powerball, the lottery or

the Port Authority between New York and

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New Jersey, or they're the, I live in DC

right outside DC in Maryland and Maryland.

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DC and Virginia govern the

metro system together, right?

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And like through an interstate compact.

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So the national popular vote

Interstate Compact says, you know what?

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We have the electoral college.

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We as a single state are

frustrated that we're ignored,

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which is true of, 43 states.

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And they're just like really ignored.

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We wanna do something about that.

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Even the states, by the way,

that are competitive can feel

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unhappy with the system too.

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It's easiest to make the

case where they're ignored.

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But as a single actor, if we try to

change our system to make it more

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competitive, we're sacrificing our

political power by which currently comes

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from giving all of our electoral votes

to the winner, who's generally associated

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with the majority in that state.

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So there's a, this incentive to

keep winner take all if you act

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on your own to back together in

through an interstate compact.

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The incentives change and the interstate

compact is defined by saying these

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are states coming together in a formal

agreement to say, we're gonna give all

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of our electoral votes not to the winner.

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Take all winner in our state,

the candidate wins the most

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popular votes in the state.

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We're gonna do it for the whole nation.

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All 50 states in DC every vote equal.

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We wanna give our electoral votes to

the winner of the national popular

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vote on the basis of equality.

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But we don't wanna do

it in an irrelevant way.

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We wanna do it when it matters.

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So we, this compact will be activated

and control what we do next once the

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number of states that have passed it.

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A majority in electoral college,

they have enough electoral votes that

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whoever wins the national popular

vote gets all of those electoral

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votes and that candidate always wins.

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And there's this definitive nature.

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We now up to 17 states in DC

that have passed this compact.

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It's not up to a majority

of the electoral college.

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So people keep, winning another state

and it's almost every year one state

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join it or it's like taking some time.

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But I think it could still govern if not

the: 2028

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but it still could the 2028 election.

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So similarly, so that's the

national popular vote plan

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changing presidential election.

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So all of our boats count the same and

the popular boat winner always wins.

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The, another approach with redistricting

would be some ways, the mirror image of

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it, the negative image of it is playing

out right now in, in California and Texas.

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So Texas redraws districts.

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A lot of pressure from the National

Republican Party and the White House.

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We're gonna try to chisel every seat we

can out of the current states and put a

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lot of pressure and break all traditions

and re redistrict in the middle of

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the decade to try to get extra seats.

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And they got about five extra seats.

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The Republicans, for their party,

the voters have to go along with it.

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But they basically created

opportunities for Republicans pretty

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straightforwardly to gain five seats.

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And Democrats therefore responded

in California and have this proposal

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on the ballot to change districts.

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So the Democrats have an

advantage in five seats, right?

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And it equals it out, right?

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And the math is, maybe not exactly

five, five, but about that.

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So another approach theoretically could

be those two states could enter into an

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agreement to say, okay rather than, being

unfair and make it even more unfair,

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we're both gonna be fair together.

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And that might mean in California

republicans get five more seats 'cause

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they're underrepresented right now.

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And in Texas, Democrats might get

five more seats and we'll both do a

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multi-member district system together,

we'll draw this compact and kind of work,

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work together and it balances things out.

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That could be through fair districts,

it could be through something else.

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Like for me it would be multi-member

districts, but then you'd have

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a, like those two states could be

fair together and still not have

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one state being fair and the other

not affecting the national impact.

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So this is again, just for congress

con, you know's a whole different

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calculation when you're talking

about state legislative elections.

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This is like congressional elections,

which are all part of the power

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of the House of Representatives.

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But that's that's an interstate compact.

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So Jamie Raskin, who is my

congressman here in Maryland.

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And used to be on our board.

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And a good ally and friend when he

was in the Maryland legislature, put

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this idea forward as a, like Maryland,

we're gonna explore, he called it the

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Potomac Compact, a negotiation with

Virginia to try to be fair together.

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It didn't move forward into law, but

it triggered a good conversation.

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And that's, that's a proactive

approach to this problem that

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doesn't rely on Congress.

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So at the end of the day, Congress

would need to ratify the con or

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approve the compact particularly for

the congressional election one 'cause

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it affects a congressional power.

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They don't actually, may not need to

do the national popular vote plan.

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That's in a dispute.

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But yeah.

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But it be started at the state level.

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It's not, I would say at this point,

a super likely strategy, but it

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is an intriguing one and it gives

people some agency that's more

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positive agency rather than this.

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Race to the bottom that we're

currently in, where every straight's

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trying to be less and less fair

to keep up with the other guys.

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It's really messy.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Oh man.

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Let's history question for a quick second.

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So the first time voting

reform got on my radar.

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Hanging Chads baby

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Rob: Yeah.

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Jerremy: Bush, v Gore.

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So I feel like there's some, always

good opportunity for positivity.

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The US is the largest democracy that

successfully processes hundreds of

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millions of votes every two to four years.

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What makes you really excited

and optimistic for the future?

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Rob: Let's, we'll briefly talk

about Florida, 'cause that was a

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really seminal opportunity to have a

different conversation about voting.

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What made it so important was that

in the electoral college system,

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it all came down to Florida.

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Whoever won Florida is gonna be president.

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And the margin between those candidates

in the official tally was only

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about 500 votes out of a big state.

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And of course, almost anything, a

way of counting ballots a little bit

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differently could flip the outcome.

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And it really put great scrutiny on a

lot of practices that weren't very good.

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I'll give you one example.

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Duval County, where Jacksonville

is Florida had changed their

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ballot access laws, so a lot more

candidates can run for president.

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And so these local jurisdictions, without

any real oversight or support from outside

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entities were coming up with solutions.

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And in Duval County, they said let's

have the presidential candidates

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listed on more than one page.

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So we had page one and then page

two, and it was all one contest, but

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they were across two different pages.

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You at about 10% of voters.

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Vote for candidates on both pages.

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'cause it seemed intuitive that

they should, oh I'll vote, vote

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for the candidates here and I'll

vote for the candidates here 'cause

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it's the next page or something.

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That's a lot of votes.

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And there was, and the hanging chads

like machines that didn't count ballots

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even though you punched it, maybe you

didn't completely punch the ballot out.

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These were these old punch card systems

ballot designs that were confusing

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and people voted for a candidate.

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They didn't realize that they were

voting for the butterfly ballot.

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Voter registration issues and vote

timing issues like Florida is divided

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in two time zones and people were

calling the election starting to

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call the election when some people

were still voting and that was messy.

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So a lot of things to think about

and within a couple years, in a cool

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way Congress for the very first time

passed laws that appropriated funds

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to states, the Help America Vote Act.

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It was a bipartisan bill with a Republican

president and a Republican senate, but

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a Democratic house, I think, it was

like the kind of a lot of negotiation.

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And I forget which party

controlled which chamber, but

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anyway, it had to be bipartisan.

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And and they put a couple standards in you

have the right to do a provisional ballot.

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And that means that if they say, oh,

you're not registered here, and wait

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a second, I am registered here that

you have a bureaucratic snafu, you

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can still cast a ballot that will then

be counted if if it d determined that

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you should have been able to vote.

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: 00:17:59

And that's a national standard.

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: 00:18:00

Anyway, there were things like that.

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: 00:18:02

So that was like some positive changes

and it led to more professionalization

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of election administration more

standards not perfect, far from perfect,

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but I think today we run elections a

lot better than we did 25 years ago.

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There's so much more to go

just on this access issue.

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: 00:18:19

I would say if I could wave a wand,

there's sort of two changes that I would,

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that we've worked on over the years

and I think would be really important.

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: 00:18:26

One is a principle change and almost

like a mindset shift, which is to

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have an affirmative right to vote

in the Constitution if American

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: 00:18:34

citizens have a right to vote, right?

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: 00:18:36

If you're 18 and above,

you have a right to vote.

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: 00:18:39

And that is not stated

clearly in the Constitution.

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: 00:18:42

When we started, there

was no right to vote.

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: 00:18:44

And a whole bunch of people

were not able to vote.

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: 00:18:46

And we've expanded voting

rights, but not universally.

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: 00:18:51

And I think if we set that principle

down, then the lens by which we look at

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voting would always be from a positive.

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: 00:18:58

Is this good for voters, right?

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: 00:18:59

Is, like voters first kind of thing.

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: 00:19:01

Let's have a right to vote in the

constitution, which shockingly we don't

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: 00:19:04

have almost all of our kind of major

democracy allies and thi or in other

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: 00:19:09

countries that are democracies have

a right to vote in the constitution.

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: 00:19:12

But we are.

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An old democracy.

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: 00:19:14

So we have some old ways

of thinking about things.

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: 00:19:18

The second one is to come up

with some smart way to say,

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you are reaching voting age.

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: 00:19:26

You are a new citizen.

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: 00:19:28

You are now eligible to

vote in this country.

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: 00:19:32

One, there's some change where you

weren't eligible to vote and now you

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: 00:19:35

are, we're gonna get you registered to

vote because we've determined you're

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: 00:19:39

eligible and your voter registration

will stay with you for your lifetime.

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: 00:19:43

Some clear identifier.

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: 00:19:45

And if I move to another state, my

voter registration moves with me.

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: 00:19:49

I'm just, we get everyone registered

in this country and we have people who

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: 00:19:52

aren't eligible, not registered, and we,

so we come up with systems to do that.

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: 00:19:56

It's not rocket science to do that.

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: 00:19:58

We don't do that.

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: 00:19:59

So we have a ton of people registered in

more than one place because they've moved.

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: 00:20:03

We have confusion over that.

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: 00:20:05

We have.

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: 00:20:06

A whole bunch of people that don't and

never get registered in the first place.

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: 00:20:09

And one of the sad realities of voting

is that if you don't vote the first

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: 00:20:14

time you're eligible, you begin to

get an imprint in your own head.

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: 00:20:18

I'm not a voter.

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: 00:20:18

That's something that other people do.

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: 00:20:20

And the lowest voter turnout rates

in the whole country are always for

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: 00:20:24

people who are just eligible to vote

like 18 to 25 year olds and so on.

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: 00:20:29

And they're, we're imprinting with them.

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: 00:20:31

Oh, that's not something that you do.

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: 00:20:33

So that's a change that I'd love to see.

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: 00:20:35

So there's progress, but there's

a lot more to do on, on, on

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: 00:20:39

Jerremy: It's one of those I love how

you're like, it's not rocket science.

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: 00:20:43

I fully agree.

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: 00:20:45

Absolutely.

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: 00:20:46

This is something that should

be very simple and effective.

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: 00:20:49

And so I guess I'd be really interested

to hear your take on this because

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: 00:20:53

you're obviously very extremely pro.

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: 00:20:56

You should be registered to vote,

but what about them showing that

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: 00:21:00

registration at the voting station,

which we could call it potentially an id?

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: 00:21:06

Rob: Yeah it's a charged question

or charged policy because the choice

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: 00:21:12

of ID has political repercussions.

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: 00:21:16

So we're very used.

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: 00:21:18

Those of us with driver's license, like

me, very, are very used to showing them

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: 00:21:23

when we go places, I'm just was flying

on Saturday and I showed my ID as I

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: 00:21:29

arrived, of course people can do that.

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: 00:21:31

There's a lot of segments of the country

that actually don't often have IDs

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: 00:21:35

that are, or at least driver's license.

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: 00:21:37

They're older and they've stopped driving.

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: 00:21:40

They live in a city and they've never

gotten a driver's license, whatever it

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: 00:21:42

is, they're and or your driver's license

happens to expire and 'cause you don't

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: 00:21:46

drive very much or and so if you say, oh,

you have to have a valid driver's license,

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: 00:21:49

that actually doesn't include everybody.

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: 00:21:52

And but I think there are solutions

people try to do signatures, but of

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: 00:21:58

course, I don't know, in the modern

era, people don't learn cursive and

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: 00:22:01

they don't necessarily sign their

name the same way sort every time.

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: 00:22:05

And that can be confusing.

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: 00:22:07

And so I think there are

solutions that are more inclusive.

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: 00:22:10

But I think that's the standard.

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: 00:22:12

We should always look, are we making sure?

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: 00:22:14

So if we're gonna do an id, I think

it's the government's responsibility

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: 00:22:18

to affirmatively make sure that

people have access to that id.

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: 00:22:23

And but I think if we had this

lifetime voter registration system.

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: 00:22:27

And kind of database is

consistent with that.

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: 00:22:29

And you have a kind of

a unique identifier.

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: 00:22:31

It doesn't have to be your social

security number, but some, like

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: 00:22:33

your democracy number or whatever.

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: 00:22:35

You have a unique identifier that was

assigned when you first got registered.

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: 00:22:40

That to me would be, you're not

voting more than once and you're

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: 00:22:43

eligible, like you haven't died

and you're here, so I think

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: 00:22:46

Jerremy: though, right?

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: 00:22:47

That'd be the exact same thing as a

voter ID is like showing your idea,

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: 00:22:50

showing your registration form to vote.

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: 00:22:52

Rob: yeah, showing your something.

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: 00:22:53

But I think if you had a unique

democracy number and it could be double

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: 00:22:57

checked and say, oh you're Rob Richie

and you live here and the person's

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: 00:23:01

checking you in can double check that.

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: 00:23:02

Of course, a lot of people vote

by mail, so we have to have

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: 00:23:04

systems that accommodate people

voting, voting by by paper or,

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: 00:23:09

sending it in or dropping it off.

436

: 00:23:11

But just the principle, this

is where the right to vote

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: 00:23:13

in the constitution kicks in.

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: 00:23:15

Okay, you do these things, but just

make sure you're not doing it in a

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: 00:23:19

way that undercuts the right to vote.

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: 00:23:21

You're actually always

building on the right to vote.

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: 00:23:23

And if that's the principle, then we

can always come up with solutions.

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: 00:23:27

Jerremy: Yeah.

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: 00:23:28

Yeah.

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: 00:23:28

Okay.

445

: 00:23:28

That's, love it.

446

: 00:23:31

Alex: Rob breaks down gerrymandering's

grip on safe seats, as Jerremy

447

: 00:23:34

spotlights everyday voter disempowerment.

448

: 00:23:37

But next, shifting to holidays and

education, Rob uncovers communal

449

: 00:23:41

gaps—can simple access ignite

turnout, or does apathy win out?