Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash
Tusk Ventures Founder and CEO Bradley Tusk has been making his rounds both in the media and with nonpartisan reform groups to discuss his new book, "Vote with Your Phone: Why Mobile Voting Is Our Final Shot at Saving Democracy," and the need to change incentives in US elections to guarantee less extremism and more accountable representation.
Tusk recently sat down with Open Primaries President John Opdycke for the group's ongoing virtual discussion series, "The Primary Buzz," to talk about why increasing voter turnout in primary elections is especially important because they are the most critical stage of the elections process.
And yet, partisan primaries tend to draw turnouts that range from 10-15%. Tusk believes that secure mobile voting would incentivize more people to vote in primaries and if the nation can increase primary turnout by just 20 percentage points, it could lead to less extremism in national politics.
Public officials speak and act based first-and-foremost on what will benefit them most in elections, and since most elections are decided in low-turnout primaries, their incentive is to approach legislation in a way that will please the voters who turnout for primaries.
These voters, as Tusk notes, tend to be "far left, the far right, or big special interests that know how to move money and votes." And because of their low turnout, they can be weaponized by the parties or special interests to get rid of any candidate who doesn't perfectly toe the ideological line.
For example, Tusk talks about former US Rep. Chris Jacobs from New York. A Republican, Jacobs held staunch conservative policy positions. However, following a mass shooting in Buffalo and the Uvalde school shooting that happened just 10 days later, Jacobs said he would vote for an assault weapons ban and raising the minimum age for some gun purchases to 21.
This statement of intent basically ended his political career. The opposition from within his own party to his re-election forced him to end his final campaign on June 3, 2022.
Jacobs was a MAGA Republican when he ran for Congress in 2020, endorsed by Trump, voted not to certify the 2020 election results. But after giving an inch on one issue and saying that the nation needed a different approach, the party turned on him.
Freed of the burden of re-election, he voted to codify same-sex marriage into federal law and for an assault weapons ban.
Tusk believes that if primary turnout in Jacobs' district was 35% instead of 12%, the outcome would have been different because public polling shows that the majority of voters across the political spectrum agree some gun policy is needed -- but the incentive right now isn't to do what most voters want.
This is why Tusk believes simply giving voters the convenience of secure mobile voting would go a long way to creating a better political ecosystem -- and giving voters equal access to primaries can contribute to this as well. The point is Americans need to be able to vote when it matters most.
Check out the full conversation above.