 Hello and welcome to RAD TV at 525 on CCTV Chittenden County Channel 17, Center for Media Democracy and Town Meeting Television. For those who have not seen our show before, RAD stands for Rights and Democracy. We're a grassroots people-powered organization committed to creating an independent political movement for long-lasting fundamental change in Vermont and New Hampshire. Each month we come onto Channel 17 to tell people about the projects we've been involved in the last month and what we're up to going forward. As a people-powered organization, we rely on grassroots membership and grassroots funding. If you like what you hear this evening, please consider donating. You can go to radvt.org or radnh.org slash support to pledge a donation. You can also watch our show on the 4th Friday of every month here on Channel 17 and whenever you would like on our YouTube channel, just search for Rights and Democracy. I'm your host, Tom Proctor. This month on RAD TV, we're going to be talking about the August primary elections that happened across the month earlier this month. What they mean for progressives and what we should be looking out for going into November will also be chatting about racial ex-voting. Why is important? Why got vetoed earlier this month by Berlington's Mayor Miro Weinberger and what RAD and other organizations will be doing to promote RCV going forward. With me tonight, we'll have two guests, a random volunteer leader for Essex and a state rep Democratic candidate for Chittiton 8-1, Tanya Vihovsky, and we'll have a government reform associate for VPurg K-Lap. First on the show, it's Tanya. And with me now is Tanya Vihovsky, RAD leader and 8-1 progressive Democrat candidate Vermont House. Hello. Hi, nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on the show once again. So tonight we're talking about a range of issues, but I really wanted to bring you on to talk a little bit about the Vermont primary that happened on the 11th of August. So across the month, generally speaking, what do we see on the 11th? So we saw a record turnout. We broke all kinds of records for primary turnout. We saw a lot of people participating in mailing in their ballots due to the global pandemic, but we also saw people coming to the polls. And that varied from place to place. I know at my polling place, we were pretty surprised at how many people still came out. And we saw pretty overwhelmingly Democratic turnout and not obviously not in every place, but it seems like people are really coming out to put a referendum on what we're seeing happening in Vermont and at the national level. We saw some really big progressive wins with Dave Zuckerman's win for the governor primary win to be the Democratic nominee for governor. We saw the Vermont Progressive Party had five women with contested primaries, all of whom won their contested primaries. And that those were the their contested primary ones were these five women and representing a wide range of voices from rural Vermont farming voices to the LGBTQ community to younger voices. And so that's really exciting. So I think there's a lot of really exciting stuff happening. And what we're really seeing is people are at least from what it looks like from the votes demanding change and that we shake things up and change our leadership. And you were in a contested primaries yourself, there was three Democrats and you were vying for two potential seats. And you campaigned in 2018 for the same seat. So with the brave new world that we now live in, what are the major differences between campaigning in 2018 and campaigning in 2020? I mean everything. So it felt a lot 2018 was this community building effort where it was knocking on doors and talking to people. And there was a constant stream of feedback, because I was talking to people every day all day. And this campaign felt a little bit like campaigning in a wind tunnel. There was like no feedback because people don't answer their phones, you can't knock doors, nobody want like, it's, it was like sending information out and then hoping it landed, but not really knowing how it landed. And so it was really difficult to get a sense or a gauge on like how things were going. And I know that that wasn't me alone, you know, I've been connected to other campaigns and both at the house rep level all the way to statewide levels. And that was really what everyone was experiencing is just this big question mark that's sort of like where we're at right now. Everything's just a big question mark. And so it created an intense level of stress not knowing. And it's also significantly more expensive is what I found is running in this, this framework because going to community events and knocking on doors and talking to people is free, but sending mailers is definitely not. And so the financial burden has been much more significant as well. And as a grassroots candidate who doesn't accept corporate money and who doesn't accept, you know, special interest money, that has been difficult, particularly added to the fact that people are in these economic hardship spaces created by COVID. There's, there's definitely been some really challenging spaces there. And I know a lot of candidates I've heard talking about, you know, we're not going to fundraise, but many people who, whose voices we need, don't have the privilege of being able to self fund their campaigns. And so you're going into November, it's also contested race, you're up against two Republicans to the two Democratic nominees. What lessons do you take from the primary that you're going to be focusing on for November? Yeah, so one of the things we're really trying to do is work with the other nominee to really build a united front and really work together and build that, you know, unity in not, you know, yes, of course, it's still two seats to two people, but the more we can present ourselves in a united way, the hope is that we can take both of those seats being seen as a team. So that hopefully we'll make it a little less stressful that it doesn't feel quite as much like where, you know, my campaign is in it all by themselves, but that we're building something bigger. And just really trying to get as many ways to connect with people sort of outside of our immediate network as possible. And then fundraise, fundraise, fundraise, fundraise, that seems to be the name of the game. I think the one thing I will say in the general is that it's a longer period of time. The primary is so condensed. You have to do the same amount of work that you would do for a general election, but in a much more condensed time schedule. And so, you know, I think the other thing I'm going to really take away and celebrate with this general is that I need to take some downtime. There wasn't really space for that in the primary, but I'm really hoping to make space to just take care of myself so that it's not quite as stressful as the primary. We also, just as an FYI, we also have a libertarian running. So there's three, there's five people that we know of right now running for that seat, two Republicans, myself, the other Democrat and a libertarian. Yeah, well, if anything, that's going to help your marriage race, a marriage best race. So, any big bold predictions for November across the state? I mean, I think we will again see record turnout. I think that with the universal mail ballots, really interestingly in, we did universal mail ballots for our school board and budget vote here in S6 back at the end of May. And the voter increase turnout increase was 432% over the year before. So I think that with the universal mail ballots, we'll see record turn, like record breaking turnout. I also think that provided we do a better job educating people on how that process works and what, how to get their ballots in correctly, we could bring in people who haven't participated in the past to really participating in the process. You know, I think the governor's race is going to be a really hard one, but I do think it is winnable. I am hoping that there are some unity found there to really lift David up and try to get him into that seat to provide leadership forward out of this crisis. And I think that we're going to see a lot of new faces in our, in the statehouse and in the Senate and, and really bring a whole new diverse set of voices that can hopefully build some really transformative change for our state going forward. With, with the predicted or hopeful wins, how does that change policy in the statehouse in 2021? Well, so I think that for me, as we get more diverse voices represented and people who on the ground have experienced some of the things that we are struggling with, you know, I think our statehouse, while better than some is still, it's narrow in whose voices are represented. And a lot of times the conversation around what people are struggling, struggling with becomes very intellectual. And I think that by really lifting up this younger, more diverse group of voices to lead, we can really craft changes that none of us could have intellectually thought out ourselves by coming together and collaborating. So I mean, I'm hopeful that we will see the passage of paid family leave in a way that is publicly funded. I'm hopeful that we will make some strong moves towards implementing more universal healthcare. I think there's a bunch of different ways we might do that. But I think that we, you know, with some of these newer voices, we can potentially make some movement in that direction. I am hopeful that we can see some bold climate action and just really people-centered recovery from this COVID crisis. You know, I think that this is one of many crises that have happened and are to come. And if we don't really ground our recovery in the people and in our local communities, then we're just going to jump to the next one while people suffer. And so I'm hopeful that if we get this really amazing, diverse group of people into our statehouse that we will rebuild an economy that is for the people out of what is currently very broken and very much not grounded in what's for the people. Well, Tanya, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. And I wish you best of work going into November. Thank you so much. And with me now, we have Kate Lapp from Veepe. Hello, Kate. Hi. Thanks for having me, Tom. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Kate, you have been working with City Council members and with Zeepeg on Ranked Choice Voting. Could you tell everyone what Ranked Choice Voting is and why it's important to be pushing it right now? Yeah. So Ranked Choice Voting is a democratic reform that Veepeg has supported for several decades at this point. It focuses on majority winners of elections. So that means that folks need to receive at least 50% of votes to be elected to public office. And the way that works is that voters select their first, second, and third choices for a particular office. And then if no one person gets 50% of the vote from everybody's first choice, which is basically how the system works now, then the person with the least amount of votes would be removed from the race. And the people who voted for them first, their second choice would now be counted and so on and so forth until we had a winner with the support of at least 50% of the electorate. So a big advantage, obviously, is majority support for the person elected to office. But another huge advantage of Ranked Choice is that there's no longer a spoiler candidate effect. So for example, if you had three folks running in the same seat who were equally wonderful or very well liked, and let's say two of them were in one political party or ideology and one person was, you know, on the whole other side of the spectrum, it could be that the two folks whose ideologies are more aligned, split the support of the voters. And theoretically, both of their voters may be more than 50% of the people who show up and vote on election day. But they may split it and it may be that the third person who has the least amount of support and the ideologies that are not as well reflected actually wins because they split the majority. So we avoid that problematic circumstance with Ranked Choice voting. There's a lot of other great advantages as well, such as increased participation and electability of folks who come from more diverse or typically underrepresented backgrounds. We've seen some great data that really shows an advantage for that. And I think overall it's just a really important reform that has been gaining traction, you know, in the decade since it's left Burlington. We've seen its adoption and support grow double in a lot of municipalities nationwide, including, you know, New York City, the state of Maine. We're seeing more and more states using it for their presidential primaries. And we're also seeing major parties from both sides of the aisle using it for their internal elections in places like Canada and the UK. So it's really exciting and I'm really thankful to see Burlington once again having this important conversation with voters. So it's not a partisan issue across the country because that seems how it's being framed, at least in Burlington? Yeah, I think that's a uniquely Burlington perspective. If you check out, you know, some of the resources from folks like Fairvote, it's pretty clear that people from both sides of the aisle tend to be successful. And actually, there's a lot of data that suggests that it doesn't benefit one political party over another. It does tend to elect folks who may be less extreme on both sides of the aisle because if you need to get to 50% of support, the most extremist candidates may be less likely to win. But overall, there's not a clear partisan advantage with right-choice voting. I see. And so we were set to have this on the ballot in Burlington in November. Could you explain a little bit what happened? Yeah, so Councillor Jack Hanson introduced a resolution to the Burlington City Council in late 2019 originally, asking the city to hold a vote on right-choice voting. And that eventually made its way through the charter committee, though not before the March elections on new faces on the city council. And it did make it out of the charter committee and passed the city council with a strong support vote. But then the mayor for the first time in his time as mayor in eight years of Burlington, he vetoed that resolution. We were really disappointed to see that the mayor did not find it to be a good time to get democratic input from the people of Burlington this November. A vote by mail is something that VPurg and Rad and lots of other wonderful advocacy orgs have worked hard to make possible. And between municipal elections and places like Essex where voter participation went up 500% to the record-breaking turnout in our primary just a few weeks ago, I think that the higher participation of November would have been a really great opportunity to get a really clear sense of what the people of Burlington think about this and ultimately how they elect folks is up to the people of Burlington and all of them. So we were incredibly disappointed both by the logic provided by the mayor and his statement on his veto as well as just by the decision itself. I think that there's never you know a slow time in city government and obviously 2020 is a frankly unprecedented year but now is not an appropriate time to pass on important conversations about the way that our democracy functions, about the way that elections are being held, or about the way that public officials answer to the public. I'll also note you know that just cause eviction was likely to be a part of that special election that was hopefully going to happen in November and the middle of a global pandemic is not a time to delay conversations about keeping people safely housed while they should be doing social isolation and practicing safe healthy distancing. So we were incredibly disappointed for a myriad of reasons with the mayor's decision on that. And so what's next rank choice if it got vetoed is this is this the end of it or is it still light at the end of the tunnel? This is absolutely not the end for rank choice voting. I'm really thankful to be working with folks like yourself and leaders on the city council like Jack Hanson to continue to push for rank choice voting in the city of Burlington and I think the time is really now to start this conversation and continue it and to keep reaching out to folks from different pockets of the community and really start educating them and continuing to drum up enthusiastic support for this really critical reform. And so with rank choice voting getting vetoed and needing to continue to push it what is VPID looking for and what's RAD looking for from folks that are sympathetic for rank choice in order to try and continue this conversation and get this on the march ballot? Yeah absolutely so first and foremost you know we'd love to connect with you and get us y'all on our list of folks that we can call and think of as supporters when we need help on this really important issue. There's a lot of activities and ways that you can get involved and I'm sure both of us would be happy to chat more with you and I can tell you my email is klapp at vpirk.org and I'm sure you have contact info or a good form for folks as well but I also you know so some of the work around rank choice really looks like just getting in touch with the people who represent you you know now is a perfect time to be calling your city councilors both your ward and district councilors and letting them know that you would love to see rank choice voting on the ballot in November and you would like them to vote yes on the resolution as well. Another great thing that we can be doing is calling into city council meetings npa meetings just public events where elected officials are present and asking them about this issue asking them to support a resolution going forward and asking them to hear from the people of burlington directly about whether or not they're ready for this democratic reform instead of making that decision for them. I think hearing the voice of the people is essential to a functional democracy so anytime that we can kind of be communicating with the folks that we elect to represent us is a really important opportunity. Some other ways to get involved is just helping us share content on social media on front porch forum you know if you're not much of a phone call person there's plenty of emails that can be sent and you can help us call folks in our communities and ask them to do the same kind of communication there's also you know messaging strategy and social media graphics I'm sure there's plenty of ways that you can really help us get involved and get excited you know and we're always looking for new ideas on how to talk about rank choice voting and plan events so if you have beers you want us to rank and vote on or your favorite local cheeses you just love us to really put head to head in a rank choice rank choice vote I would love the opportunity to do that kind of work. Yeah and please reach out if that is something you would be interested in. I want to pivot a little bit here and look at elections so we just had our August primary we had Tanya on just before talking about primary results across the state. For you at VPurg what were some notable things of this August primary and what should we be looking at going into November? Yeah so August was really exciting you know I think this election is unprecedented in so many ways you know not just COVID and not just the things that we're seeing on a national level but also just the level of engagement from Vermonters I think was truly humbling and exciting for folks like us who are really passionate about getting voters engaged and showing up on election day or mailing in their ballots um obviously mail ballots is a huge change in this election year and the primary is not exactly the same as the general in that you did have to request your ballot either online by calling your town clerk or via the postcard mailing so the Secretary of State did um so in November every registered voter will receive a ballot automatically in the mail which is really great because it means that more people will have fewer barriers to voting but we all as educated informed and engaged citizens have a duty and obligation to make sure that our voter information is up to date and ready so that our ballot can get to our house um and we can be voting on the district that we actually live in so I know young people like me especially move around a lot um and the summer is that time of year so if you haven't you need to go to um nvp.vt.gov I believe it is and update your voter registration make sure that your mailing address is up to date I believe the Secretary of State's office will be exporting their voter file data to the mailing center to begin printing processing and prepping the huge distribution of ballots that's going to happen this year to make sure that people can vote safely from home so you have until the last day of the month this year to make sure that you're or the last day of this month august to make sure that your info is up to date online and then if you want to update your info after that you can certainly still do that online but your ballot will be mailed by your town clerk and not centrally by the Secretary of State so just make sure that you call your town clerk if your voter information changes between um august and election day because it's really important to make sure that we get those right ballots to the right folks at the right addresses so um and tell your friends tell everybody in your quarantine pod you know if you're at a distance hang or whatever without your phone pull up that Secretary of State website and really let's all just hold each other accountable and make sure that this election is not one that we sit out because it is so so important you know and I'll just say it more generally I think it was really exciting to see such huge turnout numbers this year um and it's it's just so important for folks to be engaged now more than ever um I'm also you know disheartened to see the 6000 Vermonters votes were not counted when they tried very hard to vote in this election um and I want to talk just really briefly about um spoiled ballots and how that might happen um I know the Secretary of State has mentioned that the top three mistakes for um voting this year included um one and this was in the primary and things are a little different in the general so in the primary we were all mailed three ballots right we had one for each political party in the state so the progressives the democrats and the republicans um and in the vermont primary you can only vote one ballot and then you mail back your two unvoted ballots in a separate envelope all together in one neat little package to your town clerk and unfortunately um a lot of folks kind of struggled with that and I think um that's probably because a lot of folks were voting for the first time ever in their lives or voting by mail for the first time ever in their lives and thank you to the tens of thousands of Vermonters who kept um each other our communities our election workers safe by doing that um so a lot of folks often forget to return their two unvoted ballots or they um forget and vote multiple ballots which can lead to your vote not counting um but the really important one and the one that we can fix for November is that you have to sign and date your um little eye attest but nobody influenced my vote and I am who I say I am and I'm not voting more than once in this election and you must sign and date that little statement on your envelope before you mail back your ballot or else your vote will not count so um just please make sure that you're extra careful when you're voting this year um have somebody double check you um or just give it an extra glance and I'm sure rad and B. Perg and the secretary of state's office are all working really hard to ensure that voters feel informed prepared and like they're crossing those eyes and dotting those t's but um this is really important and it would be such a hard breaker if your vote wasn't counted um because of just such a preventable oversight so I'm really passionate about reminding folks to sign and date their envelopes when they mail back their ballots. Well thank you so much Kate and we really do hope to have some more of this uh election information as we run up to November but really appreciate you clarifying some of that information tonight. Yeah thank you and congratulations to all the rad endorsed candidates who were victorious on primary day it was such a thrill um for us at B. Perg having you know just endorsed our first lead of candidates with our electoral R&B Perg votes um and I know a lot of those were um some of the same folks that you guys endorsed although some weren't um and I yeah I'm just I'm so excited about what the future holds for Vermont and the nation and please don't forget to update your voter reg to get out and vote to email Tom and I about ranked toys it was just so important to be engaged in democracy now even when it's through webcams like this. Absolutely well okay thank you so much for coming on the show and we hope to have you on again sometime. Thank you Tom. Yeah and that's all we've got time for this month so thank you very much for watching and thank you for our two guests Tanya Vahovsky and Kate Lapp for a go on to talk to you a little bit about sustaining memberships as I said Rad is a grassroots funded and grassroots led organization and in order to do that we have sustaining members so if you want to help us continue to grow and win please consider becoming a sustain sustaining member today with rights and democracy and help us continue to push for progressive values all over Vermont and New Hampshire. In order to become a sustaining member you can go to radvt.org or radnh.org and you can donate a one-off donation or better yet a sustaining membership of just ten dollars a month to be a rad member. We will see you again next month right back here on channel 17 in September 5, 25 and this is on the fourth Friday of the month. This has been Rad TV, I have been your host Tom Proctor and thank you to all our guests again. Thanks for watching and good night.