Toppling the Duopoly

On this episode of Toppling the Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths welcomes back FairVote Senior Analyst Deb Otis to discuss a new report she co-authored on the impact ranked choice voting had on New York City. NYC held its first ranked choice voting primary election in June 2020, and after the November election, the nation's largest city got its most diverse city government in history. 

Ranked choice voting is an alternative voting method in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. Advocates point out that RCV gives voters more choice and allows for additional rounds of runoff in no candidate has a majority without the expense of another election. A separate runoff election would also have a lower turnout meaning winners wouldn't be decided when the most voters participated.  

FairVote's report shows a higher turnout in the primary, and greater confidence among voters that their voice at the ballot box mattered. Shawn and Deb dive deep into the report and talk about what voters should take away from it, as well as campaigns looking to pass ranked choice voting in their own city or state. 

Want to know more about the benefits of ranked choice voting and what it offered the nation's largest city? Check out this episode. 

On this episode of Toppling The Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths is joined by Andy Moore, the executive director of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers (NANR). NANR is a coalition of several organizations that span the political spectrum and advocate for a broad range of reforms. However, they are united behind the shared goal for solutions that will give voters more competition, choice, accountability, and transparency in elections. 

The group is hosting its annual summit on Friday, December 10, at 2 pm EST. Due to the ongoing state of the COVID-19, the summit will be held virtually and is open to both members and non-members to attend. It is an excellent opportunity to not only learn more about the coalition, its diverse membership, but also get up to speed on how dozens of organizations are making history each year with election innovations that millions of Americans want to see. 

Andy says reformers have a message for hope that Americans need to hear at a time when so many are disenchanted and disenfranchised by the electoral process. 

On this episode of Toppling The Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths is joined by Eric Bronner, co-founder and COO of Veterans for Political Innovation (VPI). VPI's mission is to mobilize veterans and supporters to advance reform measures that produce a more competitive and less toxic electoral process. It's the first national group of its kind.

Eric talks about his own journey in helping create the organization, and why veterans are a critical segment of the population to get behind reform. According to Eric, half of veterans do not identify with a political party and would be better served by a political system that is not controlled and dominated by the Republican and Democratic Parties. 

We need a system that does not force voters into two divided boxes. We need a system where candidates have to actually compete for voters, and is accountable to citizens. This is how we shift the incentive in the political industry to put the public interest above the self-serving interests of public officials and their parties. Eric talks about what elections need to give voters a system they desperately need and deserve.

On this episode of Toppling the Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths is joined by the leader of the Yang Gang himself, Andrew Yang. Yang is a US business leader, a former Democratic presidential candidate, a former Democratic mayoral candidate in New York City, author of the book "Forward,"and has been featured as a commentator on national media outlets. Now, Yang has founded the Forward Party with a focus on bringing systemic democracy reform to the US political process that will give control back to voters.

Griffiths and Yang discuss his decision to leave the Democratic Party, register independent, and form his own political party. They also discuss the short- and long-term goals of the Forward Party, and why he supports reforms like ranked choice voting, open primaries, independent redistricting commissions, and term limits. It's a candid conversation on what's wrong with the way the US conducts its elections, why the duopoly must be toppled, and where the country needs to go to move Forward. 

Note from the host: Apologies for the occasional choppiness in the audio. There were some brief but sporadic connection issues during the interview.

On this episode of Toppling The Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths is joined by Cathy Stewart and Amikka Smith, who are co-hosting IndependentVoting.org's 20th Annual Anti-Corruption Awards on Monday, October 25 at 6 PM EDT. This year, Independent Voting is taking the event national by hosting a virtual event available to anyone who wants to register to attend. The awards honor individuals that span the political spectrum who are working to advance the independent voter movement. This year, the honorees include former Gehl Foods CEO Katherine Gehl, founder of the Institute for Political Innovation and leading advocate for Final Five Voting, which would implement a nonpartisan top-5 primary with ranked choice voting in the general election. The event will also honor Farhad Mohit, founder of Flipagran (which was acquired by the company behind TikTok), who started an open source platform to help independent candidates be more competitive called the Good Party, and Gaby Cardenas, Principal and CEO of the multicultural marketing firm The Colibri Collective, for the strides she has made in connecting independent voters. Cathy and Amikka promise attendees will have a good time as they learn more about the honorees and the growing independent voter movement. You can register for the event here. 

Toppling the Duopoly host Shawn Griffiths is joined by Tom Charron, who is representing a new group called the California RCV Coalition (Cal RCV). At a time when ranked choice voting is having a moment, the group is set to officially launch on September 21 during an online Zoom event that is open to the public. Charron explains why more California cities and the state as a whole need ranked choice voting for their elections and the benefits it would bring to bolstering representation across sociopolitical demographics. The goal is twofold: (1) Work toward a statewide ballot initiative, but also to (2) help local RCV efforts in cities across the Golden State. Charron further explains the nonpartisan nature of ranked choice voting, which now has broad support across the political spectrum.

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On this episode of Toppling the Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths is joined once again by FairVote Senior Research Analyst Deb Otis to discuss the historic ranked choice voting (RCV) primary election in New York City. The election was not without controversy, as a human error caused the initial tally to be off in the hotly contested Democratic primary. Critics and individuals skeptical of RCV used it as an opportunity to raise doubts on the alternative voting method. However, it is widely acknowledged that the error was not a result of RCV, but human error on the part of election administrators. Deb explains exactly what happened in the election that caught the attention of media outlets across the country, and how ranked choice voting was a huge success in the Big Apple. Not only did it prevent a candidate from winning the Democratic primary with 32% of the vote, but voters reported that they found the voting method simple, fair, and easy. Check out this episode to learn more about the NYC primary under RCV and other additional wins in the RCV movement. 

On this episode of Toppling the Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths takes some time to discuss the purpose of the podcast and what it means when he and others talk about the "duopoly." This is not about dumping the two major parties. Parties have an important role in a democratic process. However, that role should not be to control the electoral and political processes. In any other industry in the United States, we would be outraged if one company or two companies had such an iron grip on their industry that competition cannot emerge. We should be equally outraged that this happens in our political industry. 

The rules have been rigged to protect the major parties from competition, and thus the incentive at every level is to put party first. We need reforms that shift the incentive to put voters and country first because that is the only way we will see long-term solutions to the nation's biggest problems emerge. This is what it means to "topple the duopoly."

On this episode of Toppling the Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths talks with Jeff Clements, the president of American Promise, a nonpartisan group taking on the challenge of big money in politics. Most Americans, across the political spectrum, agree that moneyed interests have too much influence over politics in the US, yet the Supreme Court has made it difficult to do anything about it, which is why American Promise is proposing a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution. It may sound like a tall hurdle to clear, but Jeff explains how it is not impossible. 

Shawn and Jeff discuss the process to getting to a 28th Amendment, overcoming partisan barriers, and the strength this movement already has, particularly in relation to the broader movement to give voters a fairer, more accountable, and less corrupt political system -- a system that serves the people first, not the parties or special interests.

On the latest episode of Toppling The Duopoly, host Shawn Griffiths talks with Benjamin Singer, the executive director of the cross-partisan organization, Show Me Integrity, about the effort to stop Missouri lawmakers from making the ballot initiative process all but impossible to use as a means to effect the direction of government and elections in the state.

Missouri lawmakers are proposing legislation that would raise the threshold to pass an initiative on the ballot to two-thirds of the vote, while also reducing the time campaigns have to collect petition signatures and raising the amount of signatures needed to put an initiative on the ballot. But, it doesn't stop there as legislators have decided that the people have too much power 

Singer discusses in detail the consequences the proposed legislation could have on politics in Missouri, and what this means for voting rights in the state. It is an important discussion about a blatant power grab at the expense of the rights and will of voters. You don't want to miss it.