Include the Independent Voter: Jackie Salit & Thom Reilly
December 15th, 2022
“The power of Independents is the growing numbers that they have.”
Jackie Salit and Thom Reilly are co-directors of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University and co-authors of The Independent Voter. Independents are making a statement about the culture, the practice, and the destructiveness of the current political culture. You have almost half the country identifying themselves as independents, but you have a system that is completely embedded with partisan bias.
Jackie and Thom break down the independent voting profile and why the two main parties need to sit up and listen to them. The independent movement of today is a direct challenge to the parties, party power, and the party system. The issue for America and for American democracy is having the fairest, most inclusive, most vibrant democratic process, as opposed to engineering a system to produce a certain outcome.
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Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: Jackie Salit & Thom Reilly
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham
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Thom & Jackie Transcript
Mila Atmos: [00:00:00] Hi there. Before we get to our show, I'm very excited to tell you that Future Hindsight is a finalist in this year's Signal Award! It's a big deal for an independent podcast like ours, and we thank you for your support and for listening. Now please help us take home the win! Here's how: Go to vote.signalaward.com. That's vote.signalaward.com and select Future Hindsight in the Public Service and Activism category. We can't do it without you. That's vote.signalaward.com and thank you!
Mila Atmos: [00:00:44] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas about civic life and democracy and turns them into action items for you and me. I'm Mila Atmos. When I started this podcast, my hypothesis was or maybe my hope was that the more people get engaged, the better the political outcomes. We would elect better representatives and act better policies, better serve everyday people and address our needs. And it turns out that that is a nonpartisan hypothesis. Independents think the same way. Independents are the fastest growing demographic of voters in the United States, and their votes are key to electoral outcomes. Independents make up somewhere between 40% and 50% of the electorate, and that's approximately 70 million people. But they are thwarted by a two party system that serves to entrench and protect itself with closed primaries and gerrymanders, rather than a system that prioritizes engagement and true representation. So for this week's show, we're focusing on Independents, their role in American democracy, and what engaging them could mean for our politics. We're joined today by Jacquie Salit and Thom Reilly. They are co- directors of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University. Together with Omar Ali, they are co-authors of The Independent Voter. Welcome, Jackie and Thom. Thank you for joining us.
Jackie Salit: [00:02:22] Yeah, thank you for having us. Thom Reilly: [00:02:24] Yeah, thanks for having us.
Mila Atmos: [00:02:26] So I thought I'd start with you, Jackie. Who is the Independent voter?
Jackie Salit: [00:02:32] The Independent voter is an American who, for a variety of reasons, has decided that they do not identify with either major party. They're not a Democrat or a Republican, and they want to locate themselves, if you will, on a different landscape, a different spectrum, and to engage in political life, whatever that means to them without the label, the category, the ideology, and the authoritarian demand for loyalty that the parties currently exert.
Mila Atmos: [00:03:08] So, Thom, as we heard just now, in a way, Independent voters are defined by what they're not. They're not Democrats and they're not Republicans, but they want to get engaged or they want to be engaged. So I'm trying to think about what they are rather than what they're not. Can you help us think that through?
Thom Reilly: [00:03:27] I think number one is that they do not want to be part of the two party system and they are looking at ways perhaps to engage in ballots, engage in selecting candidates based upon a host of other cues rather than political ideology. Independents span the spectrum of extreme liberal to extreme conservative and everything in between. It's a complex group of voters. Hopefully a big takeaway from our book is that this growing group of individuals should not be dismissed as leaners or as disengaged. It's a powerful group of individuals that are bound together by their rejection perhaps of the two party system, but also wanting to view candidates and ballots from a nonpartisan way.
Mila Atmos: [00:04:23] Well, so, Thom, what you just said is so interesting because Independent is so often used as a shorthand for moderate or swing voter in some sense. But Jackie, is that true?
Jackie Salit: [00:04:35] I don't think it's an accurate characterization because in some respects, maybe to go to your earlier point, it positions independence as quote unquote, in between the two parties. They're actually not in between the two parties. They're something other than the two parties. And there's a very big difference between being in between something and being other than something. I think that independents are making a statement about the culture, the practice and the destructiveness of the current political culture, and that is a viewpoint and a statement and arguably even an action that places them outside of the typical ideologically drawn spectrum. They care
very deeply about this country, and their decision to be an independent is an expression of that.
Mila Atmos: [00:05:32] Mm hmm. Well, so, Thom, as we continue to try to define them and they are very broad and there are pockets that are different in each across the spectrum. You mentioned ideology. Do independent voters share an ideology? And I wonder, though, if ideology is anathema to the independent voter?
Thom Reilly: [00:05:56] I think they fall across the entire spectrum. So to suggest perhaps that they are coalescing around one issue, I think where you probably see independents coalescing around issues would be around issues such as the right of all individuals to vote without joining a party. Some of the ways we select our representatives, right, that they should be perhaps selected in more of a nonpartisan way that concerns perhaps about our election system in electing our chief election officer, concerns about gerrymandering. So instead of just like political hot button issues, which they would span the spectrum, I think where you see a lot of common bonds with independents is about their right to participate in our democracy without barriers. You know, the fairness issues.
Mila Atmos: [00:06:50] Right. Yeah, we had John Opdycke on and he really gave us a lesson on just how much of an act of voter suppression it is to have closed primaries and how many opportunities there are to fold Independents into elections in general, especially at the primary level, because that's where sometimes -- depending on where you live -- where races really are already decided.
Thom Reilly: [00:07:16] And that's the case in majority of places too, is that, you know, a lot of these key issues from congressional on down are determined in the primary. And if Independents either can't participate or are required to join another party to participate, you know, we are creating significant barriers to a large percent of those that are choosing to be unaffiliated. You know, right now, you know, 52% of Millennials and 52% of Gen Z are not party affiliated. And that's pretty astounding that we have this large number of individuals that are not getting their political cues from each of the parties.
Mila Atmos: [00:07:54] Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a good point. I think there's also this idea that having more independence, especially at the primary level, would moderate our politics. We would have more moderate politicians and moderate ideas. It would be more middle of the road. But I sometimes wonder about kind of the almost fetishization of moderates, right? Like because there's... Is there anything that says that the middle of the road ideas are the best? But there is perhaps something else uniting independents. You know, is there a way in which independents are just tired? Sick and tired of partisan politics? And either of you are welcome to jump in here.
Jackie Salit: [00:08:37] Yeah, they're pretty tired. How could how could they not be? I mean, it's a pretty. It's pretty exhausting, particularly in election season. And we're already in the run up to 2024, even though we're just wrapping up midterms, etc., etc.. But look, if you're trying to look at and understand what are the problematic dynamics in our democracy and what role can Independents play in making things better, more participatory, less partisan, healthier, more engaged, all of those criteria, then I think, frankly, it's a mistake to look at structural reforms from the vantage point of whether they're going to produce this or that outcome, whether it's moderate or something else. To go to your point, you're asking the question, "well, is it better for the outcomes to be more moderate policy or whatever?" That's a very interesting question. And in part, it seems to me it turns on how you define moderate. But that aside, I'm suggesting that we have to pull the lens back even further, which is to say at least this is how I think about it and how we think about it at the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy. It's not our job to engineer a system to produce a particular outcome. The issue for America and for American democracy is having the fairest, most inclusive, most vibrant democratic process. And then if you have that, then the people will make the choices that they make. And presumably some of them will be good, some of them will be not that good. And then you'll have an opportunity to take the not that good ones and fix them in a next cycle. But the fixation on trying to engineer something that produces X as opposed to dealing with issues of voter suppression, dealing with the extent to which the parties now run and regulate a process in which they are competing for political power that's very, very dangerous and destructive. And in a way, to go back to some of what Thom was saying about the thing that ties independents together, the parties should be political organizations that bring like minded people together and compete in the political marketplace for public support. But they shouldn't be running the competition in which that's going on, that that's the definition of not just an unfair
system, but arguably a system that is highly vulnerable to various forms of authoritarianism. And so I think I think that's really where we are. But for our approach on this, we're less interested in trying to produce some kind of predetermined outcome and more interested in reshaping the political process in a way that accurately reflects the state of the electorate. And if you have almost half the country identifying themselves as independents, but you have a system which is completely embedded with partisan bias, then you have a problem and you have to fix that.
Thom Reilly: [00:11:55] If I could add to that too, I mean, I think by the various different type of reforms that allow for all citizens to participate in elections and democracy, I think in and of itself, those reforms would produce a bit more moderation, because keep in mind that most of, as you had pointed out, most of these decisions about who wins elections are done in the primary. And those that participate in the primary tend to be the most extreme on both sides. Very liberal, very conservative. And when one party dominates the various districts, then that extreme person rises. So I think a system where everybody can participate, regardless of party or not being forced to join a party, I think that would reflect perhaps, as Jackie said, more of the electorate, which wouldn't be these polarized extremes.
Mila Atmos: [00:12:47] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yes, for sure. That's true. Well, having said that, though, Independent voters do have a lot of power, especially in big general elections. Right. I want to talk about the power of independent voters in U.S. presidential elections. It seems to come from a couple of places. On the one hand, they swing elections as spoilers. I'm thinking about Ross Perot here. Or on the other, throwing their weight behind a major party candidate. So, Thom, can you talk about that?
Thom Reilly: [00:13:20] Well, you know, if there were cases where there an independent candidate running is different than, you know, a large portion of the individuals who identify themselves as unaffiliated. And I think the problem that the two parties have had in the past is that once the majority of independents may swing their way at a particular election, they begin treating them as partisans when they're not. Because what we have found in our research, and I think this is a really important part in a departure from what's out there with political science that assumes that the majority of people who profess independence are really not independent or leaning towards
Republicans or Democrats. But when we have tracked independent voting over time, which I think is the key, we find that Independents move in and out of independent status. They have no firm loyalty to parties and they're quite unpredictable. One election they may lean more towards Democrat either because of the candidate, the issue or other circumstances that may arise, but they move in and out of independent status. And I think that's the key of why we started the center, why we wrote the book, is that this group of voters deserve a deeper understanding of who they are and what their dynamics are. And in the past, academia has treated them in a pretty dismissive manner by just looking at do they lean Republican or do they lean Democrat. So I think the power of Independents is the growing numbers that they have and their inclination to vote on issues and people separate than getting a political playbook from their parties that makes them volatile, but it also also makes them extremely powerful. Right. But the parties reach out to them differently. They talk to them in partisan terminology, and they expect that if that election they lean, then therefore, okay, they became Democrat or they've become Republican. And that's the fault. Because if you track the last several presidential elections in 2008, they supported Barack Obama by eight percentage points in 2016, flipped to Trump by four percentage points. Then four years later, you know, 12 to 13% supported Biden. So that volatility should tell you something. And I think that's the key is to to to have a better understanding of what motivates them to vote. And what accounts for a lot of their volatility.
Mila Atmos: [00:15:59] Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, thanks, Thom, for making that distinction between an Independent candidate on the ballot as opposed to the Independent voter and how really the Independent candidate is more like a spoiler, as opposed to the independent voters acting as spoilers. In fact, if anything, Independent voters can decisively make or break elections. I mean, for races, like you said in 2008 for Obama and in 2016 for Trump.
Mila Atmos: [00:16:28] We are taking a quick break. When we come back, who is the Independent voter in terms of demographics? Young, old, white, Latinx, African American. Jackie and Thom break down this fascinating voting profile and why the two parties need to sit up and listen to them. But first I wanted to tell you about a podcast that I think you'll enjoy. Prevail is a weekly podcast about politics, history, national security, foreign affairs, organized crime, dirty money, global corruption, and the fight for democracy. Every Friday, Greg Olear sits down with an expert guest for a lively, in-
depth conversation. It may be a journalist or an author could be an academic or law professor, a former British diplomat, or even a retired CIA analyst. But it's never dull, and I always walk away having learned something, something I didn't know was relevant. Like Greg had on an expert on Ukraine to talk about tensions between that country and Russia almost a full year before the invasion. Not only that, but every episode of Prevail features a comic bit, usually a song parody or fake ad that's legit funny, even when Greg is talking about something serious. He never loses his sense of humor. Subscribe to Prevail with Greg Olear for episodes every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. And now let's return to my conversation with Jackie Salit and Thom Reilly.
Mila Atmos: [00:17:54] So, Jackie, let's talk about the demographics of Independent voters. Thom mentioned up top about how Millennials and Gen Zers are identifying primarily as independent, unaffiliated. So what have the demographics of independent voters been and how are they changing?
Jackie Salit: [00:18:11] You know, this is such an interesting way in, to talk about this phenomena. So I'm so glad you bring it up. Just kind of at a statistical level, you know, and it varies from state to state, but at a national level, you're seeing patterns like between 35 and 45% of Latinos now identify as independent. You know, here in Arizona, where we are, 41% of Latinos are registered as independent, which is huge among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, for example. Another interesting group, which, of course, comes back home after serving in the military, where there's a very strong principle of being politically nonpartisan and independent of partisan politics, serving in the military. And Thom and I were just at an event recently where General Casey was talking about the strong tradition in the military of that. But veterans come back and then suddenly they're in a totally, you know, partisan environment and they've been fighting for our country. And then they come back and they're sort of like, whoa, the numbers are in the mid forties among that sector of the population. And I think in some ways, having talked with numbers of veterans who are back, who've chosen that identification, part of what they're saying is, wait a second, you get into partisan politics and you start having the American people fighting each other as opposed to being unified as a country and standing for our principles, you know, as a democracy, as a leading light in the world and all of that. Thom, of course, has mentioned the demographics among younger Americans. In the African American community under
the age of 30, it's getting up to between 25 and 30% identifying as independents. And this is also very important because there's such a long tradition of multiple generations of African American voters being strongly allied with the Democratic Party and in fact being one of its most, if not its most loyal and consistent voting bloc within the party. And yet even there, you're seeing these fissures and you're seeing younger African Americans who come of age. They don't have that same connection to the civil rights movement and to the ways in which the Democratic Party was leading so much of that effort. They don't have that connection. And now they look at the party and they look at the circumstances of poverty, which, you know, the war on poverty 50 years ago was led by the Democratic Party, by a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress. The intent was to use the federal government to eradicate poverty in the United States. And now we're 50 years or more down the road. And these young people are you know, they're looking around and they're saying, hey, not only has that not happened, but you go to neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood and the conditions are worse and worse. And isn't it the case that we're now being taken for granted by a political party? And what do we need to do in order to maximize our leverage? So there's just there's a lot of different motivations, a lot of different currents that are producing, I think, those demographic changes. But they're very pronounced and they're not going away. And way to go to Thom's point earlier about the ways that the parties are dismissive of and don't give the necessary respect to independent voters. This is a foundational change that is happening at the base of American life. And, you know, the parties and the party allied institutions in this country are some combination of bewildered by it. They don't believe that it's real. They think that it's just cyclical. You know, hey, people are kind of upset right now, but, you know, we'll just kind of make a little few little changes around the edges and we will restore the integrity and the consent of the governed. I honestly, honestly, honestly, I don't see the rationale. I don't see the analytics. I don't see the evidence that that is true. Things are going in the other direction. They're moving away from a level of trust and a level of deference to those partisan governing institutions. And so, look, I think the parties, frankly, they're confused. They're concerned. They're, you know, they're sticking their heads in the sand. You know, I mean, you could describe it a million different ways. But I think part of what Thom and I are trying to do at our center and in the book is to give a new framework to look at this phenomena and to understand it. It's very complex and it's not going away.
Mila Atmos: [00:23:21] Mm hmm. When 50% of the population decides that neither party represents them enough that they would join it, that's definitely not moving in the direction of more party politics, although I think we are really in some big battles about what the future is going to look like. And independents obviously are going to be a part of it or are a part of it. But I have a question about some social movements, because you mentioned this in the book. Looking back over U.S. history, Independents have always played a part in reshaping our democracy, actively shaping our democracy. And I just didn't quite know how much they did until I read your book. So that was fascinating. But tell us about where independents have been really central to social movements and in improving our democracy.
Jackie Salit: [00:24:11] Depending on what timeline you want to start on. And we actually offer a timeline in our book, which our wonderful co-author, Dr. Omar Ali, from the University of North Carolina, provided for us, which was really great. But the abolitionist movement was an independent movement. The suffrage women's suffrage movement were independent movements. You could go on and on. And those movements grew independently of the party structures. In some cases, they produced a new party, which was ultimately the case, of course, with the anti-slavery movement in the middle of the 19th century. Those are the roots of the Republican Party, which ultimately was a coalition of a broad variety of anti-slavery forces within the country. And the party was created in the 1850s and won the presidency, of course, in 1860. And the Whig Party essentially went away in the face of that, you know, the labor movement, which was an independent force, which did ultimately pressure and and force the Roosevelt administration and the Democratic Party in the 1930s to recognize the right to unionize, to enshrine that in federal law and so on and so forth. So that part of the book is a fascinating review of that history. That said, though, I think something that to me is very, very interesting about today's independent movement is that whereas those earlier movements were built around fundamental social transformations that the country needed to incorporate in order to more fully democratize and to prosper economically and internationally and so on and so forth. The Independent movement today is actually a critique. Going back to what you said at the very beginning about independence being against something. Independents are against the deterioration and the narrowness and the limited scope that the two parties currently bring to the political table. So the idea that one or the other of the major political parties would incorporate a movement, the purpose of which is to remake the party system. That's an interesting question because,
you know, whereas ending slavery was a crucial, crucial moral shift on the part of the country, incorporating the rights of all individuals, including women and non property owners, to be able to participate fully in a democracy, a crucial political and moral and social and cultural shift which the parties did find ways to incorporate. Ultimately, even if that meant having to create a brand new one. The independent movement of today is a movement which is a direct challenge to the parties, to party power, and the party system. So one could reasonably raise the question, well, are the parties going to be able to incorporate, you know, such a focus and such a framework? That's a really interesting question, and that's why I think the rise of the independent voter and the rise of an independent movement, which may or may not include the rise of a new independent political party or multiple independent parties, because I think all of that is on the agenda. And if you if you look at the surveys that are being done now, where you're seeing 60 to 65, 67% of Americans say they think there should be a new party in American political life, a third party, some kind of alternative party, and so on and so forth. That's a high number. And that number has been in the psyche of the American public for some time. But that that sentiment combined with the political circumstances that exist today, that's a different kind of chemistry, if you will. So can this social movement be incorporated into the Democratic and Republican parties and the way that prior social movements have been? I would say no, no, not in the ways that those movements have. What comes in the wake of it, what comes as a result of it. That's an open question. And I honestly don't think there's a prior model for it. I think we're on new ground here, new terrain that needs new new approaches.
Thom Reilly: [00:28:53] If I could add to that, too, I think one area looking at the current state of affairs where Independents are impactful, deals with the issue of how they can carry on conversations, be part of networks of both Republicans and Democrats. I think we had a chapter in the book and some of the research that we have done and looking at how individuals get their news and who they talk to about it. The conventional wisdom is that we live in bubbles, right? That we we choose our news sources to reinforce our worldview, and then we end up talking about it with people who think and act like us. And that because of this polarized nature that we have and these bubbles that we live in, there isn't a lot of opportunities for people to have those type of conversations that are necessary, right. For people to form their social and political identity. And what we found is that not only do Independents have their own ways of gathering information, but Republicans tend to migrate towards different news sources and talk with
Republican friends. Democrats, same thing. Talk to Democratic friends, but Republicans and Democrats, when they have Independents as part of their social networks and they're more likely to do so than other opposite party, it tends to moderate their news sources. And I think this is pretty compelling because it flies in the face perhaps, of some of the conventional wisdom that people who are polarized don't have those willingness to talk to people who are different. But Independents in this case may be serving as a moderating force because each of the political parties are willing to talk to Independents. And perhaps that's opens up new and different news sources that they may begin to entertain.
Mila Atmos: [00:30:47] Mm hmm. Yeah. I think the news question is really interesting, because sometimes it feels like we really are not going to stop self-selecting into these spheres. You know, It's just. It's such a vicious cycle that reinforces so strongly for everybody. You know, it doesn't matter who you are. It's very difficult to get out. But in terms of incorporating these social movements and these sort of rebelling against the existing parties, Thom, with that historical background and what you just said about news, what potential do you see for the role of Independents going forward?
Thom Reilly: [00:31:23] Traditionally, everything is looked at between the lens of the two party system. And right now that is hyper polarized, right? Rarely do you have news sources that invite Independents from a different perspective. There's not this polarized perspective, but I think you're seeing an increase because of the growing numbers. They can't be ignored. I think media is willing to begin to entertain and reach out to Independents as separate than Republicans and Democrats. And I think that becomes key. Is that breaking that that long term tradition of treating them as leaners. But by engaging Independents in a host of issues and discussions, I think that opens up a lot of possibilities. One is, again, the moderating source that perhaps they serve as a bridge to some of these polarized camps to entertain new ideas or if nothing else, engage in discussions. And we know through civic discussions, you know, that leads to different possibilities. But I also think that's what's very intriguing is that if in the past majority of voters received their information from the political playbook or political cues from their parties, and now we don't see that, then where do they go? And I think that opens up new opportunities for like civic education, You know, with young people who I interact with quite a bit, they don't vote at the same percent, about 15% less than their older counterparts. But when you press them about voting, the first time they vote, it is a bit
more complex than people make it out to be, particularly if you move from state to state and what the deadlines are. And do I have to join a party to vote? But when pressed about where do you go for information? A lot of them are embarrassed to say they don't really know where to go. Right. And if they're not going to their parties because 50% of them aren't part of parties, where do they go? And I think that opens up opportunities for civic engagement, civic education, right. Where you can help individuals began to look at candidates and ballots from a different lens, not a polarized lens, from a different lens. So to your to your question, I think there is there's some tremendous possibilities by engaging Independents in our civic and national discourse that aren't polarized, that has a different unique perspective, and that's perhaps focused more on the issue, the the person and the situations that are occurring versus if Republicans take this and Democrats take the opposite approach and they tend to be very hyper polarized.
Mila Atmos: [00:33:54] Mm hmm. So well, if I were a young person and I were to ask you, where should I get my news, what do you say?
Thom Reilly: [00:34:00] What I tell young people is that you should have a variety of news sources, right? You should have it at the local level. You should have the state level, the national level in the international level. And you don't have to read everything in depth, but you should have sources to go to that are different, that put different perspectives. I mean, how we view things locally, how we view things nationally and how people view these same issues internationally are very important. So diversity of news sources becomes incredibly important. But I also tell them is to look at other type of ability to fact check and look at the nonpartisan or neutral sources to understand issues, not that they can't again, look at the hyper polarized issues, but look at other issues. And I think that becomes really crucial about how state and local governments put out nonpartisan, neutral information that successful for individuals. But I think the key is, again, is to get out of our bubble, which I think Independents can help facilitate at various different levels.
Mila Atmos: [00:35:01] Mm hmm. Yeah. So read widely and at all levels, local and national and international. I think international is really important, actually, and often gets missed in all of the hubbub about what's happening in the U.S.. There's a huge wide world out there.
Thom Reilly: [00:35:15] And one other point to that, too, is that I think we also have to look at creating places where people can engage in this discourse, because it is those opportunities where people talk about issues, right. And build trust with each other and allows for an openness of different ideas. When you use the work of Robert Putnam that talks about bowling alone. In his famous article, he argues that more people in America are bowling, but they're doing it alone. And why is that bad for democracy is because we don't create places and sports and civic and neighborhood groups or places where people traditionally have talked about issues of importance. And it's through that conversation and that trust that they build with each other allows them to talk about more difficult issues, right, without name calling or demonizing the other person. So we have to talk about how we create these these places. And I think media, for example, has a really important role in this and not to look at things through this, this two lens perspective that gained viewers because they're hyper polarized, right. That you don't bring in a different source to to begin talking about issue and allow people to discuss in a very civil manner issues of importance, because that is how young people form their social and political identity. But we have fewer and fewer of those opportunities to do that and fewer places to do that. And I think the media is is playing upon that because the hyper polarization gets viewers.
Mila Atmos: [00:36:46] Mm hmm. Yes, That's their business model, basically. So if you had to choose one reform to invigorate democracy and serve this big sector of the electorate that is currently kind of politically homeless, what would it be? Jackie, Why don't you take that first and then Thom, jump in if you have a different idea.
Jackie Salit: [00:37:08] Can I choose three?
Mila Atmos: [00:37:10] Sure. Choose three. Go for it.
Jackie Salit: [00:37:12] I would abolish partisan voter registration nationally. Right now it's about kind of half and half. Half the states require or offer the opportunity to register in a party or not, and about half you register essentially, just as a voter, I think we should have nonpartisan voter registration across the board nationally so that there's a reset there. The contract is between the voter and the state, not between the voter and a party. Parties can organize, they can recruit, they can do all kinds of things, which, by the way, they should pay for, because right now the taxpayers are funding a lot of party
activity, whether it's a closed primary or all kinds of things like that. But I think we should abolish partisan registration, nonpartisan registration across the board. That's number one. Number two, I think we should open the primaries entirely. And I personally favor the model that's in use in California, which they call the top two nonpartisan primary. But there's various other versions of it. And the primary design based on our system happens or is enacted state by state. But I think there should be a standard of nonpartisanship and inclusion for independent voters at every level. As Thom said earlier, you should not be required to join a political organization in the United States of America in order to fully participate in every stage of the political process. So that would be my second offering, and my third would be to legalize fusion voting, which right now is legal in only eight states. It is banned in the rest and the ban has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court. So this would require Congressional action. Fusion voting is a voting system in which candidates can run on more than one party line, and the voter chooses which line they want to be able to vote on. The reason that I would support this, I was very involved in using fusion voting in New York. I'm originally from New York, and I ran the Independent component of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's three campaigns beginning in 2001, and fusion voting was essential there for allowing for a certain kind of voter mobility. And also to go to something you mentioned earlier, it's a way of mitigating the spoiler effect, and it allows independent parties, independent alternatives to thrive, even in an environment where we're looking to reduce the influence of political parties. I think if we did those three things, it would open the door to new coalitions, new levels of participation, new ways of framing issues. It would force the parties to attend to the totality of the American electorate. And I think it would create a pathway for empowerment and civic engagement that we just simply don't have right now.
Thom Reilly: [00:40:12] And I'll just add to that, I agree with all those. Another area, which is just a bit of iteration, a different perspective, is to look at increasing or pushing the nonpartisan ballot upwards. You know, right now since the Progressive Era, we've had nonpartisan ballots that local governments and school boards and judicial races for a long period of time. There's no reason why we can't push that up the ballot and have those for constitutional offices send it in Congress and two other areas that I think has a tremendous support across the political spectrum. One is to do away with gerrymandering. We're the only country that actually allows elected officials to draw their own lines in many cases and has created a lot of these issues, particularly when
one party dominates. And then the last one is to look at our election administration system, which is partisan by design. Again, we're the only democracy in the world that elects our chief election officer or secretary of state. They run these extremely polarized campaigns, and then whoever wins the day after is supposed to be viewed as this arbiter of neutral election information and nonpartisan ability to manage elections. And it just creates a good amount of distrust of the public to actually have these individuals elected or chosen in a very partisan manner.
Mila Atmos: [00:41:41] Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. These are all great suggestions. So what could an everyday person do? Normally, I ask for two things that an everyday person can do to advance this, but maybe one each, one for Thom and one for Jackie.
Jackie Salit: [00:41:54] Here's what I would say. Whatever state you live in, educate yourself about how that state relates to and handles independent voters. Maybe you're an Independent, in which case that has a direct impact on your participation. Or maybe you're not. But you are a democracy minded individual and you want to educate yourself on the question of how this vast segment of the electorate is being treated in the state in which you live. And based on your findings, whatever they might be. If you live in a state that is, has a positive posture towards independent voters, there's probably only two of them in the country. Or if you live in the others, I would say write a letter to your local newspaper and share what it is that you've learned with the public. Become a part of the broad task of civic engagement. As Thom was saying, let's inform and educate the public about the fact that there is a baked-in bias. Some of it is regulatory, some of it is statutory, and some of it is just simply cultural. And let's start to educate ourselves and educate others and look at ways that we can take steps to change all of that and to level the playing field for all Americans, no matter how you identify yourself politically.
Thom Reilly: [00:43:22] And I would add to that, I do think that becoming more aware of the fairness about excluding such a large group of individuals from participating in our democracy, I think would resonate with a lot of individuals. But to build upon that and build upon some of our previous conversations is to seek out opportunities, to engage with people with different opinions and to listen more than just spout your own opinion. This, again, is where I think independents can serve as a bridge and as a moderating force, because they do have social networks of both parties which don't exist within those parties. And I think they can be a bridge to engaging in conversations and not
necessarily embracing the other's point of view, but being open to it perhaps, and having a deeper understanding of why that person has arrived at his or her conclusion.
Mila Atmos: [00:44:14] Thank you. So as we are closing in at the end of the interview, looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
Thom Reilly: [00:44:23] I think what makes me hopeful is that some people can see it as alarm of people leaving the two party system. I think this astonishing number, particularly of young people, allows us for new opportunities to rethink things, right? Is to look at how we can kind of reform our democracy, to allow for full participation and not take for granted things that we've had in the past about how the two parties have kind of just taken over our democracy. And that was never intended by our forefathers. So I think this is an opportunity of perhaps at a brink of this hyper polarization. Right. That there are new ways and perhaps young people who are leading in this way by their refusal to join parties really can help chart different ways to allow people to have full participation and for us to look at fairer systems.
Jackie Salit: [00:45:16] I'm a very hopeful person in general. I have to say I feel particularly hopeful right now because I think when a society begins to have a conversation about how some of its own systems are not benefiting the people of that country, I think that is an opportunity for reimagination and for change. In some ways, you really can't get there until you have a critical mass of people who are having that conversation. And I think that conversation is happening. It looks very different in different places, and some of it actually looks kind of nasty and some of it looks highly idealistic and some of it looks overly intellectual and some of it looks kind of ordinary. But that conversation is happening in a lot of different places. And I feel really good about that. And I feel really happy, honestly, to be alive in this time. It's a crazy time, but it's meaningful. Things could come out of all this, I think.
Mila Atmos: [00:46:21] Yes, I agree. I agree. The conversations are happening and that is definitely reason for hope. Well, thank you, Jackie and Tohm, for joining us on Future Hindsight. It was really a pleasure to have you on.
Thom Reilly: [00:46:32] Thank you for having us.
Jackie Salit: [00:46:33] Yeah. Thank you so much. It was great talking to you.
Mila Atmos: [00:46:36] Jackie Salit and Thom Reilly are co-directors of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University. Their latest book is The Independent Voter.
Next week on Future Hindsight, we're joined by Christopher Kang. He's a co-founder and chief counsel of Demand Justice. And he wants you to think differently about the Supreme Court.
Christopher Kang: [00:47:03] Because the size of the Supreme Court has been nine for as long as you and I have been alive. People think that that's the way that it's always been or that's the size of the court is set in the Constitution. And that's actually not true. Congress has changed the size of the Supreme Court seven times before. It's very much within their power and ability to change the size of the court again now to restore balance.
Mila Atmos: [00:47:25] That's next time on Future Hindsight. Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Seriously. We do. And actually, quite a lot of people listen to the show there, if that's you: Hello! If not, you'll find punchy episode clips, full interviews and more. Subscribe at YouTube. Future Hindsight. This episode was produced by Zack Travis and Sara Burningham. Until next time, stay engaged.
The Democracy Group: [00:47:58] This podcast is part of the democracy group.