 Okay we're back we're live I'm Jay Fidel this is Think Tech we're having a wonderful day learning so much from so many important people such as Kate Stanley the interim chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii wow to have you want to showcase I am so excited do I look excited no I'm still ready to be a Democrat so so you're the interim chair that means you are waiting for Gordau so when is the when is the final chair coming well what what we happened to us was COVID-19 so we didn't have an in-person convention last weekend Memorial Day weekend in May which which would have been the event and the convention of which would have elected a new chair so now we're going to have an electronic convention people are going to vote through their computer and we will complete that process and have a new chair about July 26th at on July 26th so I'm chair until that time so I promised the party that I would help them through the precinct elections which were finished on March 4th just before we got shut down and that went well and then the party run presidential primary now this is a new thing for the Democratic Party because we used to do our presidential preference poll at the caucus meetings when we had our precinct meetings but the DNC encouraged states to go to a prime primary so the state didn't want to run the party primaries so the state party decided we could run a primary and then we had a committee that was appointed and they developed a plan we raised the money to pay for it and that's how we had a male ballot election party run primary to express our presidential preference now what happened is that we confused a lot of people because as you know the state has gone to an all male primary which will occur in August and then in the general so and many people in Hawaii who consistently select the Democratic ballot thought that they were Democrats enrolled party members but that's not so you have to actually enroll in the party you have to register to vote and be a card carrying member role in the party that entitles you to vote in this party run presidential primary so we had a committee that developed the plan we hired a vendor Merriman River Group to run the election for us and we chose to use ranked choice voting ranked choice voting allowed a voter to choose up to three candidates so you could vote for Biden Sanders and Yang or any combination of the names of people who are on a ballot wait a minute maybe I'm maybe I'm out of step here but neither Sanders nor Yang both of whom you know we're very credible candidates are no longer candidates so why would I what's the point of having them on the ballot well because the ballot people had to drop out of the ballot by before we printed our ballot so they didn't so they were on the ballot so though most people chose Biden or Sanders but there were people who wanted to vote for the other candidates you know we had we actually had Michael Bloomberg on the ballot Peter Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Kohlschauer, Deval Patrick, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, and Uncommitted so what happened to us was Super Tuesday happened at the same time as our ballot was delivered to homes in Hawaii so unless people took their name off in early February as did Kamala Harris they were still on the ballot but most people who voted in the primary are pretty politically active and they paid attention so they knew had dropped out already so most people voted for Biden or Sanders though other those other candidates did get some votes but because of ranked choice voting what happened was if you voted say for Yang first because you really liked Andrew Yang but you picked Biden second and Sanders third your ballot would be counted according to your ranks so your first ballot for and your first vote for Andrew Yang wouldn't count because he didn't reach 15% of the total which would have been entitled him to a delegate but your second choice Joe Biden did reach 15% or when you moved his vote you that second choice to him he got more than 15% he got well over 15% he actually got 67% and Sanders got I mean pardon me Biden got 63% Sanders got 37% so ranked choice voting worked very well for people who had second and third choices and they when they say they wanted to for Elizabeth Warren but they voted for Sanders second so lots of people's votes got counted we only had a thousand four hundred and twenty four people out of the thirty three thousand who none of their choices counted because they didn't pick anybody who reached 15% but one thousand four hundred twenty four out of 35,000 is not very many so most people got their first second and sometimes third choices so people you know got to express how they thought who they wanted in their preference so and we only had sixty eight vote voided ballots or incorrectly marked so it was clear on the instructions how to vote how to select the ranks what and what to do so from that point of view everybody was really happy that that seemed to work very well for the members of the party now the big confusion we had as we had many people who thought they should have had a ballot or members of the party or people who gave us misinformation like they moved and we didn't have a correct vote we needed to have the correct voting address so there were some hiccups and things that you would have to improve if the party decides to do this again oh this is not a permanent change in the voting system within the party this is something that would have to be decided what every year no every four years because this is the presidential part of it okay all right let me do that so for for other determinations by the party you'd fall back on the regular voting system so the party doesn't run the other primaries the state does you go and declare yourself as a Democrat or Republican or a Lohanai Aina and the state runs the primary in August people will get a ballot and then the instructions will say vote all on the Democratic part of the ballot or all on the Republican if you crisscross your vote won't count they run as most states run the primary and in fact most states run the presidential part too for the various parties but not in Hawaii okay just the presidential just wondering though hypothetically hypothetically suppose suppose Andrew Yang won in this paper ballot the male ballot experience you had what would happen would he would he be our nominee from from Hawaii no Democratic nominee he would have to have like one if he got 15% he'd be entitled to one delegate then it would be up to Andrew Yang to then we would elect somebody to represent that but it would be up to the Yang campaign to instruct their delegate what they wanted it to do and they may say we would prefer that you don't vote for Andrew Yang because he was drawn please vote for Biden you know I know this I know there's some discussion about this Kate but I'm wondering whether at least in Hawaii maybe other places I know there was some litigation about it is is the is the delegate obligated to vote for the person that was selected in the primary or in the in the party party vote that you had or can a delegate vote for whoever he wants in his best judgment no you're pledged so you have to vote for the person you pledge to you have to report that vote now because the next step after we elect our delegates to the National Convention then the Biden and Sanders campaign have to decide how they're gonna do that because Sanders has sort of said he's not running but he's still collecting delegates so he they have to work that out so that you the states are reporting either the division between Biden and Sanders or they report all the delegates are gonna go to Biden because he's won enough to secure the nomination just give just give Sanders some leverage in terms of the platform I guess that's what he wants does it give Sanders some some kind of special advantage to be able to proxy out the votes that came to him to go to Biden and extract some some promise about it so the Biden and Sanders campaign agreed that they would honor the division in delegates when it comes to the at-large and the political leader and that and the appointments to the campaign committees so I think Biden wants to honor Sanders campaign and his ideas and has agreed that people representing who are Sanders voters or committed to Sanders will have an opportunity to be delegates and to be on the committees the platform the credentials and the rule committee okay so there's still a little post-training left I guess I think the Sanders campaign would describe it as they want to make sure that Sanders point of view on various issues is represented on all the particularly platform and the rules committee we had some he had some points of view that have since become more persuasive than they were before you know as the country has suffered over COVID and racial divisiveness who knows but let me let me ask you this suppose for one reason or another and I I won't even speculate as to what that reason might be suppose we have suppose Biden can't run as we get closer to the I guess the convention what what what discretion does a delegate have to vote for someone else for example Cuomo out of New York if he decides to run could it took to delegate switch to Cuomo if Biden was not available for some reason I don't know the specific rules that govern that but the DNC will have rules of the convention that would provide for how you would handle that situation so the DNC would be involved and the delegates to the National Convention will be involved and the DNC the Democrat National Committee has assured every state delegation that whether you go to Milwaukee or not you will be able to vote on the platform and to announce the vote for president and vice president so I I am anticipating that in Hawaii we won't be going to the National Convention and will be voting from on Zoom or electronically in some manner but our votes will be counted whether we are there physically or not Wow gonna have thousands of people on Zoom how's that gonna work well I don't think you can have thousands of people on Zoom I think they'll work out a system where the committees participate in their report the results and then the delegates you when you go to a National Convention the delegation has a has a delegate a delegation chair usually the governor and they report the vote so you don't have to you're not everybody you're not having a thousand people on Zoom being called one by one or over or 2000 because you need a thousand nine hundred so many votes there's a lot of delegates to the convention this is going to be unique and so many things are these days we always finding we're in a unique situation that we've never unprecedented situation we never had before that's going to be I guess you're going to participate by Zoom in the convention when is the convention and I don't ask where because I'm not sure that that settled yet is it settled they've chosen that decision was made some time ago Milwaukee is the place for the convention how they're gonna conduct it is still so so are you gonna be a delegate no I don't think so I think that I've been a delegate to a National Convention I was a delegate in 2008 and then I was National Committee woman in 2016 so I've had my opportunities to go to conventions I I personally like to think that a wide variety of Democratic members should have the opportunity to go to a convention even this one they even the well let's get to that you know this is going to be extraordinary election extraordinary period between now at the time of the protests and November at the time of the election as it is legally scheduled but you know anything could happen we live in an unprecedented time and I wonder how confident you are that that we will be able to get through this time with a an election that hangs together me what are the pitfalls that you see what are the challenges that you see between now and and you know a responsible election a legal election election that people can come to consensus about and and give us a new president I should say a president a president I think we'll have a president as a Democrat I want it to be a Democrat president Joe Biden I think that the elections are pretty well run across all the states they've always improved there's a lot more mail in ballot elections Hawaii has an all mail ballot election I think there it's a paper ballot so that's safe and there's a lot of security measures I have confidence in the in the vote and I have confidence that the courts will ensure that votes are counted and not hijacked in any way and I think also I remember 19 you and you probably do to Jay 1968 there were riots at the net Democratic National Convention so we we we've had some very rough times before and rougher and we managed to have elections and I think we will again knock wood I'm knocking would let the record reflect that I'm knocking wood because you know there have been draconian scenarios suggested where Trump somehow puts this off the side for example I mean this is a small example but he is trying hard to pull the rug out from funding to the post office now that may seem like an expression of his concern over fraud and mail ballots which I don't believe is is sincere or true but if he's able to stop the post office defunded close its doors you cannot have mail-in ballots period doesn't that get in the way it certainly would so I don't think the post office you know the post office does an amazing job they delivered to the Democratic Party 33,000 over 33,000 ballots they came they you know and they came on time and we sent the ballots from the mainland and I got to people's houses so I think the post office will function I think they'll get some their funding I think they're knocking wood on that one too but I think they'll be you know there's always glitches but I think that overall the system will still work it's very hard for me to think that we're gonna have total collapse I mean we've had awful situations in our past we had the riots and mods we had the ready King riots we've had a lot of terrible terrible things it happened to the country a lot of assassinations we had 1968 was not a good year we had a lot of go wrong no and we got through that and we will we I believe we will again I think it's gonna be very difficult I think it's more difficult because of social media and instant news and cable news so we know everything all at once that adds to the stress and and apprehension people have about the process I'm I am I am still confident and I'm confident that there are safeguards to make sure that one of them is Ruth Bader Ginsburg we need her to remain where she is and be our principal safeguard on a on a Supreme Court which is not nearly as reliable as it used to be that is correct but they'd had a region recent decision where the Chief Justice went with that I saw that so that was encouraging actually you know so okay the Democratic Party you know has been and this is national not local but the Democratic Party criticized for not not standing up to Trump not being organized on a national level and not being able to you know meet the the challenges of the time when when he is distracting everyone coming up with ridiculous decisions and surprises and proclamations and the like that many of which are completely unconstitutional and do you think those are valid criticisms of the National Democratic Party the Democrats always have challenges because we're such a diverse party with so many different points of view and Democrats tend to explain over explain things because they actually do care about the truth and the nuances and the complexity of things and most things are complex so Trump has this sort of way of saying the most outrageous unfounded things without blinking an eye and Democrats can't do that they're not they're not like that they do need to hone their message and make it simple and convincing and I think that they will I would not would notice I'm knocking wood right on through this this discussion I want you to be correct on all these points I do too well something else will happen will I don't think we're watching the demise of the United States I think we're watching a very stressful time you know we went through a civil war I mean over a century and a half ago somehow we got through that knock wood we got through a depression looks like we have to get through another depression yeah we got a lot of challenges let me ask you about the Republicans you know because if you've been and you have been associated with involved in underst you know in the interstices if you will of the Democratic Party its ideology and its organization for really for a lifetime and so you have to look across the street you have to see what it's like in the Republican Party what they're doing as if for no other reason than just to make a comparison if for no other reason you know to understand the strategies involved and the Republican Party has changed dramatically in the past I'll say 20 years about it but it might be more or less what has happened in your view to the Republican Party and one of the chances that the Republican Party can return to a party that you would respect as a worthy contender I think Trump has to leave the White House as a result of an election and I think that will help the Republican Party find Republican candidates not people like Trump who are conveniently Republican remember Trump was a Democrat and donated to many Democrats for Ian's he has no sort of compass it's just whatever helps him personally it's not about being a Republican or Democrat the I think the Republican Party will find a new way to express some of the Bob Dole kinds of things that represented Republican viewpoints I think Mitch McConnell is terrible for the Republican Party I certainly hope he goes down to defeat Kentucky he's he is not a Republican in the best sense he's very much into securing power and position for people that agree with his ideology and I don't think he thinks about the country I think he's very wrong in his unable to realize that the Senate and the House must help state and local governments meet their financial obligations we can't have a country where we have to lay off firemen and EMT personnel and policemen or teachers for the state of Hawaii so I think that the Senate the Senate and House were at were able to act fairly rapidly for the first three bills and I think they will get to a fourth one which will help states and cities get through their financial crisis because if they don't then we're just on a spiral ever downwards and then we're really in big trouble the one thing the federal government can do is borrow money and help and I think they will and they should on those elections in other places certainly they're important especially in the Senate because it'd be the Senate is completely dysfunctional these days under McConnell I've always felt that Hawaii has a strong Democratic background and a sense of fairness and morality and there are people in the Democratic Party here who can actually talk to voters in other states and you know try to convince them by phone call it a phone bank is this happening is it possible would it be effective where does it fit in the national picture both Senator Hirono and Senator shots are very active in helping flip the Senate in campaigns and they have active groups here that are working with them to write in contact voters and in battleground states for the presidency and for those Senate seats that will help flip the Senate from the Republican majority to a Democratic majority and both Senator Hirono and Senator shots been active in that and contacting members of the Democratic Party to participate in that effort and we will be doing more of that as we get and get toward the general election in November that's great I'm glad you're doing that I hope you can come back in the show and talk about that as you go forward because I think that would be a very valuable expenditure of time and effort by people in Hawaii to try to influence the decisions on the mainland voting voter decisions but one thing about Hawaii is it really has only one party Kate and the Republicans have withered away in Hawaii and frankly these days that's totally appropriate in my opinion because Republican Party is not not effective and no you know of no use to the national interest but I wonder how you feel about the Democratic Party going forward in Hawaii I wonder you know what you would say this is my question what would you say to somebody a younger person a millennial who is committed to Hawaii excited about making life better here and who has a thought perhaps that he she would like to be involved in local politics what is your advice to that person how can that person serve and does a Democratic Party or any political organization who I offer an opportunity an avenue by which a young person can participate in government make things better yes I think people have an opportunity to participate in the party we have younger members of our party we have a lot of members in my age group but we also have people who can become active in their communities and community organizations and then find their way to elected politics the Democratic Party in Hawaii is a very large tent we have lots of people who identify themselves as Democrats whether they belong to the party or not and we have diverse views within the party and that brings its own challenges but it also brings richness of perspective and life experiences and people's opportunities for people to contribute to the life of Hawaii which is still a very very good life and I hope will be after we get through this pandemic I'm knocking wood again so Kate how do I join the Democratic Party I mean really be a card-carrying member so I can participate in all the decision process and all the conversation why Democrats org you will find on that website a way to enroll in the party you know someday a sooner or later the interim chair you will be replaced by a permanent chair someone else and your status your stature your situation as the interim chair will be over that's after having spent a ton of time in the political system in the legislature where I met you originally and so forth and what what exactly would you would you do with yourself Kate well stop being a Democrat your chair which I will be also remains on the state Central Committee and will continue to participate so I may fade a little but not I haven't won't be completely off the stage but I think it really is time for younger people younger generation to take over the leadership of the state and of the end of the party and I look forward to that yes I think it's important to allow the up and coming to come in but it's also important to retain people like you Kate you're a special person in a special situation with special experience and I hope we can keep you emeritus in any event thank you thank you very much Kate it's been wonderful to talk to you and I hope we can do it again as we get closer to the election good to talk with you Jay aloha aloha Kate Stanley