 Good evening from Washington. It is eight o'clock here, and we are having polls closing in 17 states right now We've had a couple polls closed earlier in the night and our election cycle in Covering these elections tonight polls closed at sort of rotating times across the country so at eight o'clock right now is sort of the biggest poll closing time that we've seen so far and Some of the polls that have closed earlier are still too close to calls for example, Florida is Everything will probably come down to Florida in North Carolina, and we're seeing raw vote come in from Florida It's very very close. So this is an exciting election night, and we're happy to be with you and take your questions We have our first question from Legos All right, hi Betsy, how you doing? Great Betsy my question is about the electoral college Can you please tell me the history of the electoral college and how the electoral college all started? And why is it that it is possible for you to win the popular vote in America? And you might not still be pressed there like I'll go I did in 2001 the popular vote for the electoral college But where's the game? Thank you. Sure, of course. Yeah, the electoral college at you. There's 538 electoral votes each state is allotted a particular number based on their population So a state like for example, Florida Has 29 electoral votes, but a state that's sort of equal in size Montana has a lesser population, so it only has three electoral votes and the electoral college was put in place by the founders to sort of guard against You know one particular area having too much power So you're right that the popular vote somebody could win the popular vote, but not win the electoral college You need 270 of those electoral votes to win That happened before in 2000 and in order to get the electoral votes from the state It's it's not done proportionally So it's done what we call a winner-take-all basis So if you win the state of Florida by just one vote You would still win the 29 electoral votes of Florida It doesn't matter how much you win or lose by the winner-take-all situation So the candidates right now as you might expect are focusing their efforts on some of these states where it's Tossup so in the last couple of weeks We have seen the candidates crisscross just those probably eight to ten states right now that are toss up States trying to get those electoral votes Hillary Clinton is coming into this race with pretty much a large lead Among there's several states that we call the democratic blue wall states where have they have voted in the last six election cycles For a Democrat Adding up those electoral votes. She is sort of over where she needs to be And the situation like Donald Trump is coming in with very little margin of error He has to really win all of those toss up states Which is why when I talked about Florida a little earlier a lot is gonna come down to whether he can actually pick up The state of Florida and North Carolina, Ohio some of these states and get his vote tallies up to 270 Thank you Great, we have our next question here Hi, basically, thank you for joining us a Lot of people are talking about what will happen to a Republican Party if they were to lose today But what do you think would happen to the Democrat Party if they were to lose to least popular candidate of all time? There would be a lot of a lot of discussion within the Democratic Party If that were to happen, I think you saw some of fracturing within the party during the primaries Bernie Sanders was not a candidate that many people Thought would do as well as he did He attracted a lot of young voters to his campaign a lot of more kind of far liberal voters into the process And I think that at that time you saw the Democratic Party sort of saying well We need to come together at this point and I think the Clinton campaign probably you did a good job in that respect after somewhat contentious primary to Kind of heal and put the party together I think much and they did a much better job than looking at the Republican Party He was also very fractured during the primary process They haven't come together as much as the Democratic Party Hi Betsy, how you doing? Hi, it's Rafa once again, and I have got another quick question for you In the event there is a tie in the elections Events that there is a tie That both of them got to almost the same electoral college votes at the same time Yeah, because that it almost happened in Florida in 2000 So take for instance Florida was inconclusive in the event that there is a tie. Is there a provision in the American Constitution for a runoff? There's no provision for a runoff and when you say tie You mean the electoral votes are the numbers are tied as I mentioned there You have to get 270 electoral votes But if you take 520 538 and you divide it in half you can get 269 So we could have a situation where there's 269 269 in that case it would be tied if that happens The election would then turn to the US House of Representatives and each state would get one vote So no longer would we have a situation like a state of Florida or a state of California? Having more influence over the election each state would be given one vote and the congressional delegation at that point in each state We decide who where that vote is going to which candidate is going to if the situation like that happened if you look at the congressional makeup of The states right now that would be heavily in the Republican favor if that was if that was the situation But there's no there's no provision in the US Constitution for any sort of do-over or runoff or anything like that Hi, I have a question for Tom. Great Okay, I'll say look guys my name I want to know how the electoral votes are distributed among the states because I noticed that It's not the same number for every state. So how where those numbers are located past it. Thank you Well as Betsy said they're distributed based on population. So each state gets a number of electors roughly proportionate to their population and Essentially what happens is the population determines the representation in Congress. So Maryland for example, which is the closest state here to DC They have a population that qualifies them for eight house members every state in our US Senate has two senators So Maryland has ten electoral votes as they have eight house members and two senators And so because every state is guaranteed at least one house member and every state gets the same two senators No state has fewer than three electoral votes So there are actually seven states that are so small in population that they only get the minimum three electors And then the district of Columbia also gets three electors So it's not exactly proportional to population because again each state gets the two Senate electors so to speak And so the smaller states actually have a little bit more voting power because of the extra two electors for the Senate And then what happens is every ten years we take the census in years that end in zero So the next census will be in 2020 and then after they finalize the data in 2021 They will reapportion the US House of Representatives and states that are growing faster like Texas and Florida We'll gain house seats and because they gain seats in the house They gain electoral votes since the electoral votes are equal to the number of seats in the Senate and the number of seats in the house Hi At the moment there are two major political parties in the United States Is there any chance that you could have a third one as major Furthermore What's process and procedures does it take for someone to emerge a candidate of a party? Thank you Well, it's very hard to get third parties in the United States We have the most stable two-party system really on the planet. We haven't elected a Candidate other than a Republican or a Democrat to the presidency since the 1850s and we have very few non Republicans and non-democrats. We have a couple of independence in Congress from Maine Bernie Sanders for a long time was an independent before becoming a Democrat from Vermont basically 98 99% of our members of the US House and the US senator Republicans and every president since the 1850s has been a Republican or a Democrat and the reason is structural We have single-member districts with plurality rule That elect pretty much every member with a few states exceptions like California, Louisiana and Georgia which have runoff systems, but In effect single-member district systems with plurality rule means whoever gets the most votes wins the entire district And so finishing second and certainly finishing third or fourth as a minor party doesn't win you any seats to take a relatively recent example Ross Perot ran for president in 1992 He won zero electoral votes because our electoral college is also Effectively a series of single-member district and plurality rule contest whoever gets the most votes in the state gets all Like all of the district gets all the electoral votes So Ross Perot got 20% of the vote almost and got zero electoral votes And there were about 300 candidates who ran for the US House of Representatives on the Ross Perot Independent Reform Party ballot and not a single one of them won a seat in the US Congress So until and unless we change the voting rules or the structure of our elections, it's very unlikely that third parties Will gain any traction in addition to that the two major parties often act like a duopoly They control the debate system for the presidential debates. They control the campaign finance rules They make it very difficult for third parties to get on the ballots in the states They usually have to get 5% or 10% of the signatures statewide So for as much as you hear fighting between Republicans and Democrats There's one thing that the republicans and democrats generally agree on which is the two-party system which benefits them I've got a quick question just to follow up on what you said about Ross Perot Why was he possible for Ross Perot to get about 17 million votes in 1992? And he didn't get a single electoral college votes Earlier with the electoral college in the winner-take-all system in the primary in the election So for example, unless Ross Perot won a state He was not going to get any electoral votes, but he got enough votes to Pretty do pretty well in the popular vote and got 19 of the popular vote But because he didn't win any states because he didn't have enough in one state. He didn't acquire any electoral votes Ross Perot was able to As a third party candidate. He was a self funder. He had a lot of money He was able to fund a lot of his campaign. He got a lot of media attention He actually got into the presidential debates But because that structure that tom was talking about he did not have a political party of any significance behind him To do a lot of that ground game campaigning that we see going on right now To turn out voters to get to the polls that is all Just from a practical standpoint the political parties put a lot of effort and money into that process And he didn't have any of that. Um, he basically You know had a one person campaign if you will I had a couple of consultants, but he didn't have a huge political party with Limitless expenditures voter files Research information to get behind him. Um, so he was able to get that popular vote of and you know get 19 percent But uh, like we said, he was not able to go over the top in any one state to get any electoral votes Good morning. My name is baimi. What are swing states and how important are they to this election? Well swing states are basically states that are relatively evenly divided between the two parties in terms of their competitiveness And they're important to this election and every election because essentially because it's winner take all as betsy and i've explained It doesn't matter if you win a state by one vote or a million votes You win all of the electoral votes in that state And so the two campaigns and the two candidates spend all their time in the states that Because we have very sophisticated polling and so forth We know are going to be very close states, you know that are two three four five ten percent difference between the two candidates Whereas they don't spend any time in states that are overwhelmingly republican or overwhelmingly democratic states Which in most elections is you know 35 or 40 states are really not even under discussion And so the election map really narrows down to at best 10 12 Maybe 15 states and as you get closer election today Maybe only six or seven states because those are the states that could tip either way and by tipping either way They could tip the total electoral vote Toward one candidate or the other so it's all about the swing states and really actually not even all the voters in the swing states It's not like Some of our swing states like virginia or north carolina or florida It's not like 100 of the voters that are undecided even in those states about 90 of the voters are strong democrats or republicans It's just that they're about 45 each And the fight is over the last 10 percent of the voters in those eight or 10 or 12 states Yeah, which is why we've you know following the campaign news from there You can probably see that candidates are only spending time in those swing states because it doesn't make sense For example for a candidate to put their resources in a state that they know that they're not going to win Because building up that popular vote doesn't matter So a state like texas which the last couple of election cycles is what we call a red state a republican state That there's no way that hillary clinton is going to be spending her valuable time and resources Campaigning in a state like that on the same token Donald trump is not going to be spending his time and money in a state like california Which has been historically a democratic state for the last couple of elections So they really focused all of their attention their time their effort their money their staff In these probably 12 states that can go either way in the election Are are there any laws that restrict the electors from Voting with or against their their um the state's popular vote? And if so as when when's the last time that that happened? Uh, about half of the states have what they call um, uh, laws that against faithless electors Electors voting for a different candidate other than the one To whom they are pledged those laws for the most part are unnecessary because the not just the parties But the specific candidates get to choose who their electors are in the state Now we've had reports of a couple of electors this year who said they may not vote for the candidate of their party If their state wins that if their party or a candidate wins that state So we could have a faithless elector a person who essentially defects from their commitment The most recent time this happened was in 2000 We had a dc elector right here in the district of columbia A woman who simply refused to cast her electoral vote. And so technically there were only 537 electoral votes cast in 2000 Of the 538 there have been other moments in 1988 one elector who was not happy with michael dukakis the democratic nominee Voted for loyld benson the democratic vice presidential nominee So loyld benson running for vice president with dukakis actually got one electoral vote There was a faithless elector back in 1972 But in the history of the electoral college the number of faithless electors is just a few Dozen out of hundreds really thousands of electoral votes cast and the reason is because these electors are party loyalists Who are loyal not just to the party, but to the specific candidate and so they cast their votes With that candidate because they're loyal to that candidate and they were essentially put on the slate of electors Because of that loyalty So who do you think is going to win the world series next year? Not the clubs and not the cubs again. I think uh They'll have a good shot. How about the washington nationals right here? That sounds good to me They're getting better every year. They keep Stepping on their toes in the playoffs, but uh, I'll put I'll put in an early bid for the for the washington nationals I wanted to see if either of you can talk about what measures the u.s. Has in place to Make sure that elections are free and fair and also prevent fraud I think you're starting on anything. Uh, well The problem with the elections of the united states is that It's a federal system So there are as many different state laws about voting And elections and election rules and how votes are tabulated and counted and whether there's early voting or absentee ballot voting And how long the periods are and how many days in advance you need to register we have essentially A composite quilt of 51 different state laws and in the district of columbia here, washington dc Despite that and despite the possible problems of access to the ballot and Long polling lines and some of the things i'm sure you've heard reported We have advisors and people who are supervising and overseeing the elections The parties have their own lawyers the candidates have their own lawyers And the secretaries of state in most states supervise the board of elections And it it is a non non-partisan officers who are who are managing and supervising the election So we have election watchers and outside groups. We have both parties watching each other mutually sort of assured Check against either party Trying to you know manipulate the elections. So it'd be very difficult. We have so many counties in so many states to coordinate a systemic voter fraud or manipulation or Vote counting or vote rigging And so, you know, there are always some problems in some of the states We certainly saw some problems in florida in 2000. We've seen some problems in north carolina this year But a systemic cross national problem is very unusual precisely because It's different states and different counties regulating it and you would have to have a massive conspiracy for there to be any widespread fraud And we also have the department of justice that there's civil rights division Overseas a lot of the poll watching in specific areas that maybe have had trouble in the past So I think there's probably you know 500 or so poll watchers out from the department of justice Strategically placed to make sure that there are no irregularities And you know, we can't under emphasize the importance of lawyers in washington So, you know, even on early voting on nevada a couple of days ago The trump campaign has filed a complaint Saying that the polls were kept open later than they should have been And so that went before a judge today and there's there's been an initial ruling on that that He that he was unsuccessful in sort of that appeal to the case because there was this issue of When the polls were closing people were in line Letting them vote and the trump campaign said the polls were closed and then they bust additional people in And they didn't find they didn't find that to be the case Yeah, hi, um when I was in the 70s I was in business school and there was this guy We had a pub on the campus and who he every day he would come in drink six or seven beers pass out But before he passed out he said his family was going to ensure he became a governor and later the president That was george w bush Can you speak also mit romney was in my class too so At harvard business school So the point is uh, can you speak a little bit about political families and dynasties the clinton's the bushes? Even the romney's again, you you know speak a little bit about I think somebody night you're in the listeners here would Uh, like to hear more about these political families. Yeah, of course. There's another generation coming up Under the uh clinton's and the bushes. Yeah, but you notice we're not here tonight sitting talking about governor jeb bush as the republican nominee, so He has he has a couple of sons It's never too late. It's never too late Yeah, we do have you know this concept of You know dynasties and american politics The examples that you pointed out there But you know, I was surprised for example, you know, I just mentioned jeb bush that his campaign just never took off in this primary He had the establishment behind him He had you know, obviously the bush family and yeah the most money and none of that mattered. Um, he didn't even get close So, you know I think a lot rests on you know, who the candidate is the time You know this the the climate right now for trump was such that he was disabled to take off and and jeb bush just didn't have a chance Against that. Yeah, I think there's a certain share of the american electorate that's kind of tired of dynastic politics I mean we came very close Obviously to going sort of bush clinton, you know, uh bush and then clinton again Right because hilly clinton came very close to winning the nomination against barack obama in 2008 And I think if she had won that nomination in 2008 it was clearly a democratic year Given where bush's poll numbers were and you know voter fatigue and it's very hard to win three elections in a row for either party And I think hilly clinton would have won maybe not by the identical margin that barack obama beat john mccain But I think she would have beaten john mccain And we would literally have gone from bush to clinton to bush to clinton Directly in a row now we're going to go bush to clinton bush to obama and then maybe to clinton So with a bit of a stutter in there still have sort of two dynasties one father son one husband wife It's a little bit different. Um, I guess the one point that I would make is It's fascinating to me especially on a gender level. Maybe betsey has something to contribute here like The history of women getting elected to office the first women to break through the door Have often been women who didn't win in what's called their own right They won because their husband died or resigned or ran for governoress or ran for senator for a different office So the first governors the first congresswomen many of the first u.s senators were either daughters of or wives of politicians and they kind of inherited their seats And so I think there's probably some women maybe younger women who are like boy I wish the first woman president didn't have to be a former first lady whose husband sort of opened the door for her And we could have won with the first woman president like obama won in his own right as the first black president, right? He wasn't like vice president and then the president died and he became president He won in his own right. He won a primary one of the general election And I think there are certain women maybe even many men who are like boy It would have been cleaner for the first woman to sort of win come out of nowhere for elizabeth warren or sarah pale And whoever to win But unfortunately the history is just the opposite the history is very much what we're seeing right now Which is a former Former first lady a wife of a politician breaking that glass ceiling and winning after her husband held that office previous Right and but in fact that that does pave the way I mean those are always sort of the first steps and then we will eventually have someone in their own right Uh, a woman, but you know, it's interesting I because I don't think she has as much as of an asterisk next to her name in that respect Unless you really think about it Because she has seen as you know, she was secretary of state. She was a u.s senator It's not like she was first lady, um, you know last year and now she's running and then bumps right in So, um, you know, you can sort of see it both ways But it's funny that you said that because I was actually just talking about that yesterday with my daughter Like it can be done and in the future you won't need your hubby to pave the way right, right? Which is a good sign and of course many of our u.s senators and we have a record number going in We have 20 women. I think in the u.s senator all-time record Um, you know, they're they are not women who followed their husbands or or fathers into the senate They won in their own right and so this is changing in pretty much every elective office governor senator US house and state legislatures. It's much different now Uh, but president is a little bit, you know, it is still the highest office And it looks like well if if she wins we'll have our first female president who was a previous first lady and that's not the worst thing This has been a contentious election to say the very least I'm just wondering what you think The winning candidate can do to unify america and to rehabilitate The u.s's image globally following this Well, I mean, you're right. It's been very contentious and the electorate right now no matter who wins is very It's an angry electorate. Um, it's a very fractured country And um, what we're seeing right now just even in the exit polls that that are coming in right now I'll just read you a couple of things. Um, that four in 10, uh, americans are bothered by the hillary clinton email Scandal and six in 10 are bothered by the trump email scandal and um, you know, the mood is definitely much more darker and more pessimistic Than four years ago. We're seeing that in the in the exit polls. So you're right the next incoming president Does have there's not going to be I don't think this traditional what we call honeymoon period After election we saw that a little bit with barack obama in 2008. I don't think we're going to see the same thing here If hillary clinton wins, I think we were going to go Into congressional hearings and investigations and you know, I don't think any of this is going just to end If trump loses, I don't think he's the sort of person that will go quietly into the night He's obviously built up a movement. Um, what is the next step for that? Some people think, you know, is he going to form His own media network? Are we going to have trump tv happening? Is that he's going to, you know, constantly sort of be that thorn in the side? And you know the the electorate right now is very torn. So If no matter who wins, you know, if trump wins as well, there's going to be a lot of upset people And to see whether they can actually govern and a lot, you know We're going to look to congress too to see sort of what the balance is right now in congress We have a system of checks and balances. So A lot is going to depend on Who controls congress who controls the senate as far as, you know, what the new president is going to be able to enact But I don't think we're going to see in any situation any kind of honeymoon period coming for the next president Yeah, I don't think the country's going to be any more unified may in fact be more divided and there may be a Subdivision within the republican party that they have to sort of work out their own Internal fight between, you know, the insurgent trump wing of the party Which is, you know, running against the establishment wing of the party You know, I have a sort of theory of the case about this election and it really goes back to the last two presidents George bush, as you may remember, he was mentioned earlier by the gentleman who went to uh, Harvard business school with him You know, bush ran as this united or not a divider He was trying to heal all the fighting of the clinton era and the Impeachment of bill clinton in in response to the to the intern scandal And he won the election and at the end of his eight years the country was actually more divided than when Bush came in and that was despite having 9-11 as a potentially unifying event then obama This unifying event happened while he was still running for president He had an economic catastrophe of epic proportions And he ran as a no red america no blue america no white america no black america unifier a healer of the breach And the country is a little bit more unified at the end of his eight years But we still have really high record levels of party polarization between blue america and red america between democrats and republicans between left and right So I think this election was both parties have tried that they gave the republicans a chance to heal the country They gave the democrats a chance to heal the country and they just said no way We're just going to double down and I think that helps explain why Both parties which is counter-intuitive and irrational both parties nominated the least Approved candidate the candidate with the highest net negatives Hillary clinton was the least like candidate in the democratic field in terms of her approval ratings And donald trump was the least like candidate among 17 republicans in the republican field And I think it's a war against each side against the other frankly from this point forward because you didn't hear a lot of talk Maybe a little bit at the end with every clinton about let's bring the nation together She said you know i want to represent the people i've voted for me and the people who didn't You don't hear any of that talk from donald trump He's not talking about trying to bring the nation together and heal the wounds of the last 16 years So I think our polarization is going to continue I think it's going to get nastier before it gets nicer And I think we're going to have a really contentious period that's going to perhaps involve investigations trump threatened to To prosecute hillary clinton and try to throw her in jail if he won and Republicans are already talking about impeachment of hillary clinton if she wins and I don't know that the democrats will go after trump He's not in office and you know, I don't know what they could do to him But um, I think it's going to get angrier and more divisive before it gets better Um here in Nigeria, we uh consider political godfatherism as a A major challenge to our democracy But do you see it Like that and I you you call it thanks to see our obama Companion for clinton Do you see that as uh or consider that as political godfatherism? Was a stake of the american government in the in the regards He's over here Yeah, I think it's it's sort of a different concept. Maybe yeah Sure, sure, um, you know, um We have the history in the united states of the of we talked about earlier the strong two party system and Barack obama at the end of the day While he may be present in the united states is also literally the head of the democratic party And it is in his interest as such to elect Someone another democrat to be his successor For just the practical purposes of of his party But also to continue sort of the legacy that he's built up during his presidency He wants to see that the work that he's done Continue in that same vein. So, um, you know, there is There there is a long precedent of having our our Incumbent presidents be out on the stump campaigning openly and vocally For their same party successor. Um, what what you don't see as much as other members of the cabinet Especially members of the cabinet, um that, um, for example, secretary of state secretary defense and the attorney general Who sort of kind of take a step back in a political season and you don't see them as much Advocating and being involved in politics, but for sure the president and the vice president Are definitely out there, uh campaigning strongly for the same party successor I think the one thing that I would add here is that that's Almost always the case in most elections and for both parties You see former presidents, former vice presidents, first ladies Former second ladies, the vice president's wives out on the campaign trail for the campaigning for the current party nominees and we clearly saw that obama Mrs. Obama, uh, joe biden Bill clinton, of course all out on the camp al gore, uh giving doing events with hillary clinton What we did not see on the other hand were either there's only two living former republican presidents They're both named george bush and neither of them voted for trump and they definitely didn't endorse or support or campaign with him The only living ex republican nominee, I believe who showed up at the convention for the republicans was bob dole john mccain did not show up at that convention dick cheney the former vice president did not show so that Sort of talks speaks to what I mentioned earlier, which is The republican party is having a little bit more internal division right now than a much more unified democratic party And so that may change again in the future the next republican nominee may have Bush or excuse me Both bushes and cheney all come out and and go out on the stump But this republican party is internally divided and trump is a big part of that reason, of course Yeah, I saw the report today that george w bush voted and he actually left the the top of the ballot the presidential ballot empty He didn't vote for hillary clinton, but he didn't vote for for donald trump either Sorry a slightly more serious question on this occasion so A lot of the debate has been around the negativity around both candidates be it on the international stage as mark mentioned earlier Or be it around the fact that there's ancestral politics in play so if we were to wipe the slate clean and Both of you were to have a clean vote Who would you have in terms of historical presidents elected today and for what reason? Which historical presidents would you elect today for the next term and for what reason? Not the two candidates right now Neither of the two candidates we've written both of them off for moving on I mean, I mean who can argue with thomas jefferson or hebram lincoln or fdo I would probably vote for franklin roosevelt I mean washington and lincoln were very important presidents, of course But in many respects roosevelt was the first modern president of the presidential power era And built the early forerunner to the modern sort of american welfare state and and governance and Modernized our department of war as it was called and fought the second war war So Though i'm no disrespect to lincoln or washington. I'd pick fdr Yeah, I I mean, you know something also interesting to think about is I think we right now in a country want Want to see a government that is actually doing something So bringing back somebody like lbj who was the master of the u.s senate He can actually get stuff done. He knows how to get legislation through the senate And maybe that's what's needed right now too because we're sort of in this Position where people are so upset at washington because nothing here actually gets done Can you talk about gerrymandering and uh and how that affects us elections It affects them a lot I mean I just wrote a book about how the republicans have this stronghold as I call it on congress and to a certain degree they have that stronghold because They benefit from gerrymandering now they benefit from gerrymandering in two ways One which is not their fault democratic voters particularly non-white voters are just inherently clustered in and around city areas and the inner suburbs That's not because of any evil, you know Mustache twisting plot of the republican party on the other hand in 2010 they very strategically determined And had a plan the red map plan to further maximize the republican share of the congress by Trying to find ways to pack as many democrats into a few districts as possible In states like pennsylvania and states like texas and and elsewhere so And to their credit I mean both parties should try to do it And in fact president obama has already announced that one of his primary agenda items after the election Will be to try to do something similar in the 2020 cycle to what the republicans did in the 2010 cycle to try to rebalance the gerrymandering maps Back now in the senate there is no gerrymandering because the district is the state so you can't redraw districts because Entire state gets to vote so it's really only a phenomenon in the u.s. House And of course it is it can be an important phenomena in state legislative races as well for state house and state senate Yeah, and the end result of that as we see in congress a more and more divisive on the extremes so There's there's not a lot of people now in the middle to govern And you know candidates in the u.s. House of representative incumbents are more worried in a lot of cases about a primary challenge Than they are a general election challenge. So if you're in a sort of safe republican district you You formulate your positions as being more To the right because you're scared of having being primaried from the more conservative wing of the party and similarly goes with Democratically drawn districts The incentive for the member there is to be more liberal because they're concerned about a challenge in the primary for there So at the end result you have members who don't want to vote in the middle that don't want to do compromise Because they will have a challenge in the primary and then they'll lose their seat. Yeah Have a question Do you see the electoral process in the u.s. Changing anytime soon from what it is right now and has been for for quite some time Do you see any changes coming? You know in in the future after this election Was the very beginning of your question you were cut off there Do we see any changes coming in the electoral system? Oh in the electoral system Very difficult to do any sort of make you know changes on our electoral system You know, it has to really have to go through, you know, a constitutional amendment process To do any significant changes to to the electoral system Which is very difficult to get a constitutional amendment through congress and it has to be ratified by the state So, um, you know, there's been things that have been discussed for example Why are our elections on a tuesday? Why are they why don't we have them on a saturday? There's been You know certain things like that that have been brought up But nothing has there's been no movement to actually make any sort of significant changes Yeah, I don't think the electoral college is going to change anytime soon It's you know, george bush as was pointed out earlier. He won the electoral vote even though he lost the popular vote A misfired election 2000 john carrey actually came pretty close to winning the electoral vote Even though he lost the national popular vote he had flipped ohio he would have won I think if each party had lost despite winning the popular vote Maybe we would have had a bipartisan movement to rid ourselves of the electoral college and have a national popular vote And change the constitution, but that didn't happen. And so I agree with betsey I you know, some states are changing a little bit their primary processes States are changing some of their early voting rules. It's really incumbent upon the states to change make these changes. So But on a national constitutional amendment process It's very very difficult to pass constitutional amendments. They require two-thirds of vote Both chambers of congress and three-quarters of the states to ratify in there I can't think of any amendments that can really get through those kind of high threshold super majorities We can't even get a supreme court justice We can't even get a supreme court justice and confirm the senate, which isn't even 60 percent controlled by one party So the idea that we're going to get a constitutional amendment through and we've only had 27 amendments ever and only 17 since the founding period is is is a bit of a stretch Given we're here in the year of potential women power I think some of our views here would be surprised to know that prior to their husbands becoming president Both Hillary Clinton and michelle obama was the Main breadwinners and made considerably more than their husbands when bill clinton was governor of arkansas He made 35 000 a year his wife was making around 200 000 a year as a corporate lawyer And also michelle obama was a senior executive in a health system in chicago When you know bill clinton was running around the south side making again about 30 000 so I don't think a lot of people here would know that they actually Supported financially their husbands political careers and not the other way around That's true and uh, you know gender equity and pay is a big issue You've heard hillary clinton talk about it a lot equal pay for equal women and there are you know Continuing residual disparities between what we pay men and what we pay women Uh, obama's first act signed into law was not the stimulus package It was actually the lily led better act which he signed on like Day nine of his presidency or something Which guarantees equal pay for equal work for people have the same experience and the same degree and so forth It's not equal pay for people have different qualifications or experience But so I think we're going to continue to see Less of a gender gap and in fact when we look at women under 25 who live in cities now There is no gender gap that young professional women with college degrees living in urban areas actually make a slightly more Than men it's the first time in american history We've actually seen a statistic where women Outgain men in terms of their salaries, but you're right about hillary clinton and michelle obama, but they are exceptions to their generation They are not the rule right that's it. Yeah, I think both of the uh, you know President obama and president clinton would tell you that you know, they're Their their spouses have been you know full partners with them and they are they are sort of these political partnerships And um, you know obama says many many times that you know michelle is this kind of the secret weapon And he looks to her for a lot of guidance So you know those two those two candidates would not have come into being and not have the success they had I don't think without without their wives. That's right Can you talk about um the role that the latino vote might play in this election? A lot of the media is saying that this might be the first election where um Latinos really um Make a difference in terms of who win and come out of big numbers. So can you just talk a little bit about that? Yeah, latino voters are the fastest growing population of voters in terms of rate of change. I think we're going to see an increase of 10 to 15 in the total latino votes cast I can tell you right now that about one in five latino voters this year Uh is a first time voter had never cast a vote before and the latino population has A greater share under 18. So they're going to continue to grow moving forward Latino population is largely concentrated in a small number of states half of all latinos live in two states alone california and texas But uh, they continue to expand their population in fact are more than 10 of the population and now Half of the states including states like connecticut and rhod Island states you wouldn't think of as latino population states So on election night here when we look at swing states, you're talking about florida Nevada, colorado Where latinos can play an important role maybe in virginia other states are overwhelmingly democratic or republican states like california and texas Which they're sort of a latent power there So they can certainly swing the presidential map and they can certainly swing some of these uh senate races competitive senate races But while they are growing they don't turn out as much as other demographics, right lower rate of turnout among Among uh, Hispanics and it'll be very interesting to see in this election Just because of the the nature of the election and the issue of immigration and um, you know, obama's, uh, I mean, excuse me trumps You know rhetoric on that issue if that will have motivated more more Hispanics to turn out Can we uh examine what? Implications of each individual candidate will have for Relations with africa and with nigeria specifically if they're elected I'm sorry. I honestly don't know much about us policy related to nigeria And I don't know that either candidate has made a public statement specific to nigeria if they have I I did not I do not know it Yeah, I mean I I think just you know more generically speaking I think you'll probably see for example, you know in a president clinton administration A continuation of a lot of the policies that obama has put in place I think we're less clear on what a president trump administration would look like in that respect He's a little bit more of a wild card when it comes to Issues of foreign policy and we know generically what his attitude is But he certainly hasn't put out, you know a five-point plan On sort of the public diplomacy and dealing with the region or anything like that Yeah What about uh, social media and now that social media is everywhere What kind of role is it playing in the way candidates campaign and kind of the way that they reach voters? I think it has a bigger effect on younger voters because of social media We know from contacting rates People who say they've been contacted by a campaign or a party or a candidate That those rates tend to be higher for for voters under 40 under 30 and the part of the reason is because they're on the internet more They're on tumblr. They're on twitter. You know various platforms in a way that their parents and grandparents aren't Who are you know contacted by traditional means telephone? Door knocking and of course many younger americans don't even have a landline at home They just own a cell phone exclusively So and have apps on that cell phone, of course on that smartphone So social media is having some positive effects Obama had some great apps where he would help you organize your phone and find swing Voters in your phone address and which you know and point out which ones live in swing states and ask you to call them So we're seeing campaigns use very sophisticated technologies Doesn't catch every voter or every citizen, of course, but they're getting better at that on the other hand I think social media is sometimes poisoning the national conversation. It gets a little bit ugly We saw in some senses our first twitter candidate Donald trump who's you know up at two and three in the morning sending out tweets about you know last night's debate Or what he thinks about hillary clinton? So I think there's also some polluting effects of social media Yeah, I think the danger and that can come to where Voters right now are able to kind of live in their own bubble and social media You have people who are able to essentially they don't open themselves up to debate or discourse between Considering different opinions. So you can follow just certain You know certain people on twitter you can subscribe to certain people on facebook You can read certain political blogs and you can just sort of have your own Political opinions regurgitate it back to yourself in a very easy way And it doesn't sort of allow for the consideration of maybe other perspectives or ideas And then you know, but you know back to what tom was saying earlier the candidates have really I mean I noticed today just logging on to my facebook page. There was a pop-up. Have you voted? You know, here's where you can vote. So the candidates are out there Using social media. I don't think anybody's used twitter as much as we've seen donald trump do I think they've actually taken away his twitter account the last couple of days Which I don't understand why they didn't do that weeks ago. Yeah, probably winning this thing Yeah, yeah, yeah, but um, you know, I think uh social media has its positives and negatives as anything does Uh, I read um, that's to become a u.s president one has to be uh At least 35 years is j criteria for that one or 30 years or 32 years Has to be one 35 years old as a criteria to be president And one I just read that uh to become a president of the united states The minimum age should be 35 years. Yes It's 35 it's 35 years and you have to have been born in the united states And you have to have been a resident of united states for the past 14 years Yes, my question is why 35 years minimum. Why not 30 or 32? Oh It's actually kind of arbitrary the founding fathers have different age requirements for the three Federal branches 35 for president 30 for senate and 25 for the house um, there's some notion that Politicians would sort of work their way up from the lower house And so they could be younger and then the senate a more mature or austere institution So 30 and then the presidency for 35 You know back in the founding period in the late 1800s, of course people didn't even live that long So that was considered older 35 than it is today If the founders were back writing in constitution the age requirement might be 45 and 40 And 35 for the presidency in the senate and the house who knows right because people are living to 70 years old You know average age in the united states whereas back in the colonial period. They were living until their late 50s. Yeah so In the discussions around fund raising and the way in which money has been Generated for this campaign. Do you think there's another lasting indication on the way in which pittacle candidates reach out? to private business Reach out to charities reach out to hedge funds for example in the case hillu clinton And the way in which money is generated for pittacle campaigns in the future I mean The money situation is getting worse in the wake of the citizens united ruling passed by the supreme court in 2001 And so I think we're going to continue to see more money Not less money in politics and more what they call dark money money that can't be traced to It's original contributor or donors and that is problematic in my view from a small d democratic standpoint when You don't know who's you know funding ads and you don't know who's funding candidates And uh, I don't see the flow of money, you know ceasing or abating anytime soon No, I don't either and you know the candidates spend a lot of time raising money There is disclosure requirements for money that they actually raise themselves But you know as tom mentioned there's this whole vast area of dark money Where people can contribute seemingly limitless amounts and we don't know who they are And you just the candidates can't coordinate with them So they may even be on or off message of what the candidates want And you know we even in the house and the senate we find you know members that are elected You know immediately the next day have to start fundraising for their next campaign and they spend a lot of their time instead of governing Going and dialing for dollars as they call it To try to get money to be reelected. And so there is no incentive You know just to actually stay and do the work that they've been Voted upon to do that. There's this constant pressure for reelection and raising money And the cost of you know senate races has gone skyrocketed through the years And the same you know goes for the the presidential as well Right obama is the first billion dollar presidential candidate and uh, I don't know philary. You'll get that far this year Yeah, so uh, we've sort of crashed through the billion dollar, you know fundraising ceiling and I don't know that we'll go back Yeah, there used to be limits. Uh, well, there are limits if you take federal funding for a campaign Limits spending limits that you can spend but you know obama was the first candidate to say forget that right and Yeah, I don't need to be limited I don't need to take uh Government funding for a campaign because I don't want to be limited on the expenditures and I can raise the money myself And so thank you, but no, thank you I think we might have time for one final question Well, I think it's time for us to wrap up here So from all of us in lego, so we just want to say thank you to betsy and tom for joining us I think we've all learned a lot tonight I know you guys have a night of engagements all over the world So we're glad that lego's could be a part of it. Well, thank you. Thank you. And if you want to continue the conversation We're actually going to be doing a series of events until 2 a.m And you can join us online at um at It's already 2 a.m here. Oh, I mean 2 a.m eastern time So maybe you guys should go to bed, but they've got they've got cocktails. It looks like you're drinking a lot So if you want to follow the conversation further or send questions online, you can go to share dot america dot go Thank you. Thanks guys