Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-30-25_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

News and morning talk and later in the hour Jason Snead from the Honest Elections Project Action - Ranked Choice voting helped get that Commie Mayor candidate in NYC higher in the results, and we discuss that and the Oregon System.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clauserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Delighted that you are here this Monday to start the week off. It is the final day of June, June 30th, 2025. It is the end. That's right.

I mean, I can't believe this. This is the end of the, hey, we have sex differently than you month. Maybe, I guess that's longer, right? That's too long to put on the calendar. But the crowd, hey, we have different sex than you and we want you to feel prideful about us all month. Yeah, this is the final day. Final day of that, I suppose. Then I guess into the 249th celebration of the United States, birth of the United States

of America. Then we start thinking over the next year about the 250th. That's going to be a big one. Remember, it was a big deal when I was growing up. High school. I was a freshman in high school. I was a freshman in high school. Or was I a freshman? No, maybe a sophomore.

I think I was a sophomore in high school with the bicentennial, 1976. And boy, that was a big, big deal. Everything red, white, and blue. You'd look at railroad trains that would be going around the country on the normal tracks and they'd all be put up in bicentennial livery. We'd see the trucking companies would do everything. Remember that? I think we'll see some of that in the 250th,

for the 250th anniversary. Like I said, 200 was a big, big, big deal. A lot of republics don't make it this long. Of course, one could argue that maybe we're not as much of the republicans we would like to think we are. So maybe we could have that conversation about it if you wish. How was your weekend? Did you stay cool? Probably not. It was pretty hot yesterday. I stayed inside for the most part. I was just kind of having a lazy Sunday. I really was. It was kind of noodling around the computer, reading a novel, was doing more of that, staying touch on what was happening,

the horrendous shooting over in Idaho. And that's over now, apparently. A couple of firefighters ended up dying responding to that. We don't have the full story on that at this point, but they did find a deceased dead guy with a firearm near him. I think they're presuming that this is the person. You know, essentially, the guy ends up setting a fire and then trapping the firefighters. They're luring them into an ambush, and they knew that pretty much right from the beginning.

Very sad. Don't know the story. Don't know the whole story at this point. I was kind of wondering if this was going to be an example of the sleeper cell kind of terror thing. You know, you start thinking about that kind of stuff, don't you? Yeah. Does it appear to be at this point? But yet the individual, the alleged perp, has not been identified yet. So we don't know. I guess we'll probably find out a little bit more as time goes on. Big beautiful bill by the fourth. They have started their Votorama thing this morning in the Senate when they're out there putting all and proposing and debating all sorts of amendments to the big spending beautiful bill. That's really what I prefer to call it. I know everyone's going to... The Republicans would prefer I call it big, beautiful, the big, beautiful bill, but it's

a big spending, beautiful bill from all accounts. It's going to increase the national debt by over $3 trillion, but even as it is right now, but maybe this is all that would pass. It's a matter of, yeah, you could sit there and be a purist and say, hey, just stop the spending, lower it, da-da-da-da-da, don't spend this. But if you're going to get the votes of the various senators and the various members of the House, everybody has to have a bit of their... Well, you've got to have your own grift, your own constituent grift here.

There is talk of them trying to nip in Medicaid funding even more, try to save about $300 billion or so. And I know that, yeah, you're going to, the progressives are all out of it all weekend long. Oh, we're doing cuts on Medicaid. It was million. I think it was, yeah, Tina Koteck. It was Tina Koteck's team, Tina, that wrote me over the weekend how we had, they were asking for a donation from me, 23 bucks or whatever it is, to help Tina because the thing is to help fight Trump. That's essentially what it was saying. I remember they were gas bagging about all the hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts

in Medicaid that helped millions of Oregonians get health care. Well, first off, there's only 4.2 million Oregonians in the first place. I don't think we have millions and millions. Yeah, there may be some. But what we have to remember is that what they, what Team Tina, her pack or whatever it was, it was out looking for money, what they were trying to go after, it's incredibly expensive. And the point of the Republicans and the debate over the big spending beautiful bill has to do with putting a work requirement. In other words, we're not just going to take everybody who is a bum sitting around and especially young able-bodied people

who could be going out and getting a job, we're not going to throw you into the Medicaid pile. Now, I guess what they're talking about is if you have dependent children and you have various other things, yeah, they'll keep you on the Oregon health plan. But if you're just some single person running around able-bodied, but you just assume play video games and hit the bong, and you're expecting everybody else to pay for your health care where they're not real big on that, that's the way it has been explained to me for the most part. But Team Tina, of course, wants your $23.76 or whatever it was in order to

help Tina fight. They say, please get this money into Tina Koteck because, well, you know, Tina's not paying attention to our funding deadline, which was today, apparently. They're a quarterly deadline here. We need it from Team Tina, but we need you to help us out. No, I did not send them any money. I did not send Team Tina any money. Tina actually kind of upset about this. She ended up having a press conference on Saturday. Legislative session ended up shutting down and the big really ugly transportation spending bill, that went down in flames. They couldn't get the votes. In a meeting with reporters, this is according to the OPB,

KOTEC accused Republicans of being unreasonable by refusing to waive legislative rules that might have allowed at least some new funding for the Oregon Department of Transportation. So, Governor KOTch accusing Republicans of being unreasonable because we weren't going to go lickspittle over the transportation funding bill. This coming from the same governor who signed a bill that stops school boards from being able to keep porno books out of the library. You're not even really allowed to question that sort of stuff anymore. And Governor Koteck calls Republicans unreasonable. Pretty rich, in my opinion. All right, so we got the big,

beautiful bill. The big, ugly bill goes down in Oregon. Public Transit having trouble here in southern Oregon. OPB, I think, you know, Rd Valley Times, Daily Courier, they've all been reporting on what's been going on with RVTD. RVTD has laid off 82 employees looking to cut services 60%. That's a big cut coming months. $7 million in federal reimbursements remain in limbo. At the center of this is the Trump administration's directive requiring public transit districts to help with immigration operations in order to get federal funds. There we go. In other words, a state that goes all in on sanctuary and keeping illegal aliens in there and

nobody can touch him and you can't help anything, well there are some ramifications for this one. Julie Brown, general manager at Rd Valley Transportation District says, in our present agreements there was a stipulation put in there that we would help with deportation and would allow immigration and customs enforcement to actually use our facilities. And she said that Oregon's sanctuary laws prevent that kind of cooperation, which has led to RBTD not getting $7 million in reimbursements.

Now this may not be the end of it. The thing is though, Julie Brown is absolutely right. So it's a matter of who is she more concerned about? Is she more concerned about violating Oregon law or is she worried about the $7 million coming from the Trump administration? And apparently she's more concerned about Oregon law. That would be a tough one. If you were running RVTD, would you bend the knee on the enforcement and risk the ire of

the state of Oregon? What do you think? It might be something worth talking about this morning for sure. 7705633770KMED. All right, part of my tasks over this weekend, this has absolutely nothing to do with the news, but it does have something to do with just me wanting to give away some stuff. And it's you, Stuff. But you know how I'm a big fan. I know we have hundreds of people who listen on the stream every morning. And I appreciate you being here on the stream on KMED.com or whatever streaming outlet you

end up getting it through. KMED.com is the easiest actually. But what ends up happening is that a lot of people say that, oh my gosh, the internet's down. I don't have a radio. It astounds me because I just have radios and radios. I have so many radios at home and I'm trying to divest myself of them and I want them to go to good homes people that would appreciate it. And I've had this here for a couple of years. It's a, you know, I'll hold it up to the Facebook thing. If

you need a garage radio or something, even if it's just a just in case radio, it's an old General Electric AM FM 8-track. It actually has 8-track in it from the day. Late 70s. I don't know if that part still works. The belts probably rotted away by this time, but the radio sure sounds great. Well, you know, if you like it, I'll give it to you. Just come down to the station. I'll give it to you. You can put it in your garage or keep it in there. It sounds plug it in or you can use C cells nobody has C cells these days but back then they ran a lot of radios on C cells but it could take batteries too for that matter just let me know I emailed Bill

at Bill and my show calm and my other little mini garage sale which is free I am a fomer I love trains if I hadn't gone into broadcasting, I probably would have gone to work for Union Pacific or some other railroad because I just love the railroad. I always have loved the railroads. So I have trains magazines and I have like 18 of them from the last year and a half or so. It's an expensive subscription and I just could not bear to throw them into the recycle. No way. So if there's another foamer here in Southern Oregon that would like my trains magazines, just let me know. And I'll give them to you.

See, there we go. No politics involved. So trains magazines and an old AMF M8 track. My gift to you, you're welcome. This is the Bill Meyer Show. One of each, Seltos VIN 823772, MSRP 28575. Tell you right, VIN 649956, MSRP 43155, 5999 due, 10K miles per year, zero security deposit,

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Rush in today during the Kia Summer Sticker sales event. Then trade keys and pay less on a huge selection of new Kia's. Like a new 2025 Kia Seltos S, only $159 a month lease. Or a new 2025 Kia Telluride S, now $229 a month lease. Both for 24 months. Need credit? Go to kiamedford.com to get pre-approved in less than 30 seconds. 2020. Hi, this is Dr. Emily Sander with the Well Integrative Wellness Center. You deserve a healthcare experience that is personal, proactive, and rooted in real healing.

That is why we've created a premium integrative primary care package. It is a concierge-style care model that gives you direct, ongoing access to me and our integrative care team for only $150 per month, plus a registration fee. You'll get priority scheduling and unhurried, unlimited, personalized care whenever you need it at any of our practices in Wyricka, Reading, or Ashland. At the Well Integrative Wellness Center,

we go beyond symptom management to uncover root causes. And if you are hospitalized, I will advocate for you to help ensure your care aligns with your values and full health picture. Our focus is on faith-rooted, whole- person healing for your body, mind and spirit. This is a true healing approach from a practice that truly knows you for one low monthly price. It is more than a medical membership. It is a partnership in your health journey. Call us today to find out more or visit us at TheWellCenterForHealing.com. Hi, I'm Riley with Rotary Grilling Company and I'm on KMED. 25 minutes after 6. A little bit of open phone time before we get into some of our guest action. We're going to be talking with Jason Snead from the Honest Elections Project and about Rank

Choice Voting. Rank Choice Voting, by the way, ended up helping getting that communist in the running for New York Mayor. We'll talk with him about that coming up. Hey, Cliff, how are you this morning? Welcome. What's on your mind? Well, it just ceases to amaze me that Governor Kotech is not assailing her own caucus. This is with the Downing Flames of the transportation bill, right? The 11.7 transportation bill didn't get the votes. Yeah, and you know the Senator Meek was on one of these committees. He's a good Democrat up there and he was pulled off the committee couldn't vote to

push the Original 11 14.6 billion billion the original $14.6 billion to the floor. And so he was pulled off and then Wagner came in and was sitting in the committee so they could push it out of the committee. And then Weber, same thing happened to Weber, I think she's a representative.

But they can't even control their own caucus. And when you look at the response to the bill, it was running at least the first two bills, three to one, two to one, something like that, against taxing Oregonians on this ODOT bill. Yeah, it was, they didn't have the votes. It wasn't about Republicans not supporting it. It wasn't about Republicans being non-cooperative. Of course, they wanted the Republicans to speed things up, like not reading of the bill or whatever it was in order to help them. But, you know, and the Republicans and Christine Drazin rightly said, it's not our job to help you with your

crappy bill, in essence, is what she said. Well, and then on the last bill amended to another bill to partially fund ODOT, COTEC actually came in and testified in front of the committee. And she was saying, you know, come Monday morning, I'm going to lay off 650 to 700 employees. Yeah, now she's talking about 800 are getting the pink slip today, 800, 850, somewhere in that neighborhood. But then all these community leaders were saying, hey, the 50, 30, 20 split wasn't even in the bill, and we're going to be left out without money, so we're going to have to lay off people, so I'm against the bill. So it's just, I can't believe Oregon politics is just going down the toilet.

Well, I can believe it just fine. It's looking this way, and frankly, if this transportation bill was so key, they should have been talking about it and really debating it out of the open hard early on, and they did not. It's like they're leaving one of their supposedly most important issues till the very end. And I think the assumption was that it was just like going to be shoved through like everything else, like the Christmas tree bill. Right? You just shove it through. Yeah, we'll push it through and Republicans will help out. But their own people didn't help, didn't want it. So what do you want? Yeah, I know.

Yeah, but you know, she needed a whipping boy in that case. The Republicans are always happy to volunteer to be the whipping boy, but that's another conversation. All right. Yeah. Hey, one more thing I'll let you go there on. I get those Team Tina emails somehow too. Yeah, I get them all the time. And then what I just respond back is, hey, why don't you get a whole emot Moda and ask for more back the cash? Did they ever answer you just curious That's pretty funny Cliffy. Thanks for the call. That's great. Yeah, what about Lamota? Yeah, Lamota. There we go

Hey Chris, how are you this morning? What's up? What's happening with Chris, huh? big a Bill I'll take the magazine. I've never even heard of those magazines kind of something like Be a B magazine, you know Anyway, so yeah, I'll stop by the station. What's a good time? Ah Well, anytime I'm off the air is fine. Okay. Yeah off there. Yeah, I was saying Okay, Chris, what's your last name though? So I'm going to put your name on him. On the air.

Okay, well, are you concerned that people will be able to find you and they're going to try to steal your trains magazines? No, no, no. Moina, M-O-Y-N-A-G-8. Okay, all right. Great. So I'll put Chris M on it. Just give me a call before you come down. But yeah, I just want them to go to someone who appreciates them. And it's not a B magazine at all. It is beautiful. It is full color. It is one of my favorites. It has nothing to do with politics other than the fact that Trains magazine always shills for the failing Amtrak, but I'll kind of look away at that kind of stuff. I just wanted to say that I met a veteran at the White City at Domiciliary when we were

both needing a place to stay at the time in my life in 2003. He was an artist and he drew me He was an artist and he drew me two trains, Santa Fe, New Mexico or Santa Fe, and the copper nickel that's in Portland at the railroad heritage. And he did those in pointillism, which is up there on my wall. Oh, that sounds like some great artwork. Well, you can add some trains magazines to it, Chris. And like I said, they're such great magazines. I love the read. It's non-political.

And you're looking at what's going on with transportation. And like I said, except for their kissing the behind of Amtrak service, I think you'll enjoy the read. OK? It's good stuff. That's cool. All right. I'd rather them go to you than going into the trash. I don't want it to be part of... you know, remember I was talking with Charles Hugh Smith a few weeks ago. He has this book, The Myth of Progress, and that so much of what we

do these days is the landfill economy. Everything... oh, it just has to be the newest and the greatest and the latest, and then we shove it into the landfill economy. Everything, oh it just has to be the newest and the greatest and the latest and then we shove it into the landfill and then at some point we're going to have to come up with a new myth that doesn't involve just filling the landfill with our last gigauss. I think he's right about that. 630 KMED 993 KBXG honest election project afternoons and a little more open phones. We have Richard Emmons from the Oregon Eagle with a Well kind of a post-mortem on the legislative session. We'll talk with him at 710 should be good Hi, this is Bill Meyer and I'm with Sharice from no wires now your dish premier local retailer

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From the KMED News Center, here's what's going on. The Oregon legislative session came to an end late Friday night and Oregon lawmakers failed to pass a transportation package before the end of the session. When it became apparent, House Democrats didn't have the votes for a nearly 12 billion dollar package. They tried for a smaller last-minute bill. It would have increased the gas tax three cents a gallon and raised title and registration fees. It also added more hypothetical oversight to ODOT projects. It passed the committee but never made it to the House floor. Governor Tina Kotec was angry, saying she'll likely call lawmakers back for a special session. A 19-year-old died at a southern Oregon swimming hole.

The teen drowned after falling from a cliff into a rock quarry reservoir outside Ashland. Investigators do not believe there was foul play. The Oregon Department of Forestry has declared fire season for the North Cascade District starting July 1st. It includes ODF and private land in Monoma, Clackamas, Lynn and Marion counties. The fire level will be moderate. The London KMED. With SRN News, I'm Rich Thomason in Washington.

A Senate vote on President Trump's massive spending and tax cut bill could come as soon as today. Senators debated the bill overnight. Now they're preparing to vote on a slew of amendments to the measure. And one of two Republicans who voted to, in effect, kill the bill is calling it quits. North Carolina's Tom Chilas saying that he will not be running for reelection. In northwest Idaho, they are mourning the loss of two firefighters. They were shot and killed in what police describe as an ambush.

A third firefighter was wounded in the attack on a mountain just north of Coeur d'Alene. It's been nothing on a motive. After President Trump called off the trade talks with Canada, the Canadians have now rescinded a digital services tax on big American tech firms that was due to take effect today. So now the U.S.-Canada trade talks will be resuming. More details at SRNNews.com. At Siskiyou Pump Service and Rotary Drilling Company, we provide well water services to

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road cams and gas prices in our region. Be prepared with the Travel Report on KMED.com. Brought to you by Lithia Body and Paint on Bullock Road in Medford. I'm Nicole Murray with your Money Now. Comscore data says Apple's racing film F1, the movie roared to the top of the U.S. and Canadian box offices this weekend, fueled by star power and a finely tuned marketing

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last week. Americans are continually encouraged to sock away money in a 401k for other retirement plans to ensure a comfortable life in retirement. Pew Charitable Trust data says roughly 56 million American workers in the private sector lack access to an employee-sponsored retirement plan. Futures are slightly higher. Friday the Dow Industrials gained $432. The NASDAQ up $105. That's your money now. You love, love what you find. A total wine and more, there's so much waiting for you. Spirits and beer, thousands of wines. Walk right through the door, it's all here to explore. With guides in the know and prices so low,

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You're waking up with the Bill Meyers show. Proud to have Jason Sneed back on the program, executive director of Honest Elections Project Action. And I want to talk about that, well, rank choice voting. And something which has not been really talked about much was what happened in New York last week. Could be partially to blame by rank choice voting. Is that the case, Jason? Welcome back to the show. partially to blame by rank-choice voting? Is that the case, Jason? Welcome back to the show. Well, thanks for having me back on. And yes, I would say that rank-choice voting certainly played a role in the election of a candidate that is so far outside the mainstream that you've even got folks on the left that are calling

this guy a radical politician. And that flies in the face of the signature promise that rank- rank choice voting proponents and lobbyists have tried to offer to the public to sell us this convoluted system, which is that it's all about finding a way to the middle. It's all about electing moderates and consensus candidates. And yet here, once again, we have a clear example of rank choice voting doing what I've always said it's intended to do, pushing politics to the left. That's why you've got so many liberal mega donors pushing this. That's

why you've got so many liberal activists demanding this system. It's all about pushing politics to the left. Hey Jason, how many municipalities or states are getting really big into ranked-choice voting at this point? I know that Portland, city of Portland up in the northern part of our state, has used this for their city council election and the one thing they noticed is that fewer people voted because it was so complex and involved that people just kind of forget about it. They just weren't taking part in the election, which also goes against the other side of ranked choice voting which says, oh everybody will want to get in there, right, and

vote more. Well, that's right. I mean, really the problem that we've seen with ranked choice voting is that it deterred people from participating. You're 100% correct. And that's not an isolated incident. You know, they use this in only two states, Maine and Alaska. Meanwhile, 17 states have actually proactively banned ranked-choice voting

and six more rejected RCV ballot measures in November of last year by wide bipartisan margins. And all of those states have said no because the data, whether you're looking at its use in Alaska, whether you're looking at its use in Portland or any of the other cities that use it, it deters people from voting in the first instance. When they used ranked-choice voting in Alaska for the first time, they had the lowest participation election in state history. There is plenty of data that shows that if you are a minority voter, you are more likely

to have your ballot, what they call, exhausted and eliminated with ranked-choice voting. If you are a low-income voter, it's the same story. And if you are a lower-education voter, it's the same story. And if you are a lower education voter, it's the same story as well. Ranked choice voting makes sure violence is more vulnerable to elimination and all of this plus the added complexity deters people from voting in the first place. And that's the exact opposite of the marketing sales pitch for this very gimmicky system. Jason, I was wondering if you could briefly explain how ranked choice voting works too, because I know that I understand this,

but you actually ask when you're voting for a position, I know you have to go for like the first, your second choice, your third choice, your fourth choice. And how is it that you could get to the point where the actual winner of an election was such a system actually ended up having fewer votes than anybody else, or that actually does not have the most votes overall, I guess, is what we're talking about.

Yeah. So, ranked choice voting is a fundamentally different type of an election system. Instead of voting for one person in each race, you're asked to rank multiple candidates for every race on the ballot, which would be 10, 15, or 20 races, which means that you're actually asked to rank 60, 80, 100 candidates every time you go to vote. It's already right off the bat a much more time-intensive process. It puts a greater burden on voters.

You have to learn about all those candidates and then run through very strategically which one they're going to rank first, second, third, and so on. So then what ranked choice voting purports to do, and this gets back to the very first thing that we talked about, the signature promise is that it will find consensus candidates,

and it says it will make sure that the only people who get elected are people who enjoy a majority of the support within their community. And so what it does is it holds together all the ballots and then if nobody gets over 50% of the first place ranking then it begins a series of elimination rounds where the candidate who gets the fewest first place ranks it's eliminated and everybody who voted for that candidate has their ballots shifted to their next highest pick. And

you go through this process of eliminating and redistributing ballots until you manufacture a majority. But along the way, you have problems where not every American wants to risk a second or third place vote getting counted for a candidate that they oppose, so they may only rank one or two candidates because they don't like the rest. And if you run out of rankings before you get a winner declared in the election, then your ballot is what they call exhausted. And that's a code word for it's eliminated.

It's as if you didn't show up to vote at all. And so every time you run one of these rounds of elimination, it looks like fewer and fewer people actually voted. And that's why in so many cases with ranked choice voting, you wind up with winners who didn't win a majority of all the votes that were actually cast in the election. And sometimes you throw out more ballots than there are left to count in that final round of tabulation before you declare a winner. This is a convoluted scheme no matter which way

you look at it. And keep in mind, it took me about a minute and a half just to explain the basics of this system. That alone should be a red flag. I agree with you on this. Jason Snead is the executive director of the Honest Elections Project Action. By the way, is it still honestelections.org on the web or do you have a different one for the Project Action? That's for our C3 partner, but for HEP Action, we've got a very simple one, HEPaction.org. Okay, very good. I'm glad you know that.

Because I want to keep an eye on this. My question is, do we know how rank choice voting affected the situation in New York? Because from what I understand, they're going to start another run or another recount today in New York City because of... And like I said, we have this one real Democratic socialist radical who ended up really making it to the top of the pile, right? Was he a lot of other people's second, third or fourth choice? I don't know. How many were running? Maybe you can let me know. Well, this was the most practical, immediate effect of ranked-choice voting. It led to a massive proliferation of candidates. So if you were a New Yorker voting last week, you

had to go through just for the mayoral election here, you had to wade through a ballot with 11 candidates plus a line for a ride in. And each one of those candidates had five bubbles next to them because you were allowed to rank five of those candidates, right? So right off the bat, you couldn't rank everybody. You had to pick your top five,

you needed to rank them in order, which means you had to navigate 60 bubbles just to vote for mayor. Now, because there were so many candidates that automatically was going to lead to a split in the vote and what you saw was essentially many coalitions forming where you had progressive candidates cross-ranking one another right telling their supporters vote for me first but then vote for mom Donnie second to help make sure that when those even fringier

candidates get eliminated the people who voted for them are going to wind up having their votes shifted back to the progressive frontrunner. And they also ran a don't rank Cuomo campaign, right? So they were very strategically gaming this system to essentially guarantee that you're going to get this very progressive candidate elected. Now he won in the first round. He won about 44% of the vote, and we still have not actually done the rank choice tabulation. And this gets to another fundamental flaw with this system. It leads to delays.

New Yorkers basically already know who has won the election. Cuomo has conceded. We know who was in the lead lead and he's going to be the eventual winner at this nomination. But New Yorkers still don't know what the final results are and they won't know for at least another day because you have to get all the ballots in and the New York Board of Elections won't tell you what the actual rankings are until they do that rank choice tabulation. So this is a problem that we have seen in Maine, it's a problem we've seen in Alaska, it's a problem we've seen in a lot of local jurisdictions.

You don't get results on election night. You can't get results on election night anymore. And that's just one more way that rank choice voting dials down public confidence in our election system. It's interesting that you say that you can't know the results the night of the election. And Oregon, the state of Oregon seems to be really going down that point of view here or that way because since we went to a vote by mail, then the state legislature ended up doing some changes to the law that allow ballots to come in for up to a week, up to a week after election day here.

And you know, all these things that are supposedly helping more people get elected, as far as I'm concerned, Jason, seem to just engage in additional hinky and distrust of the system. You know, it's like, oh, okay. The, the votes come in a week after the election, after you said, well, you know, it looks like such and such and such and such. And, oh, by the way, you don't have to have a legible postmark on it too. Is it any wonder why there's a lot of growing distrust in the election of many states here?

At least it is for me, you know, here in Oregon. Well, that's right. And I have had plenty of conversations with voters and with lawmakers all across the country. One of the most important things that we need to do to deliver confidence is deliver clear and accurate results in our elections as close to election night as possible. That's what the average citizen wants. They want transparency, they want accountability, they want quick results. Well, we used to do it forever. You know, every time when I was growing up as a kid, you had results usually that evening. And maybe you had a few stragglers that were counted overnight.

But what changed between then and now? Do you know how it got to the point where they're counting and counting and counting, and we just have to keep counting and counting and counting? I know in France, when they count with paper ballots and they have everybody in their little precincts and they come in and they vote and they have ID and this and that, they have a presidential election and it's all decided that evening. They all know, you know, right then. Why can't we do that anymore? Well, you know, we have to remember decline is a choice, right? And what you have seen over the last 20 years is a series of discrete choices pushed by the left, mainly, to quote unquote make it easier to vote.

But it's things like moving us to all-male elections, allowing those ballots to come in after an election is over, after election day, right? It's decisions like that that all but guarantee that you are going to have delayed results. And then it's decisions like California to just have a very poorly constructed tabulation system as well. So they just don't make this a priority. They try to tell us that if we get results in two days or 10 days or two months, all that matters is that we get the results and that it's accurate. And they just basically try to sell us the lie that all of this is being done to make

it easy to vote. And yet what we see is that so many of these policies on the left, like moving to all-male elections, actually winds up having the opposite effect. It actually winds up depressing turnout, right? Allowing ballots to come in after election day that potentially swing the outcome of the elections leads to results that voters don't understand and they don't trust. and that drives down confidence in the elections. So it's all a choice that we have made. It's been pushed on us by the left with these very, you know, kind of warm and fuzzy talking points about making it easier to access the ballot and easier to participate in the process.

And none of it is necessary. And you're right, there is absolutely no reason that we could not have results in essentially every election in this country, except for the most narrow of races on election night. But here's the important thing. Your ballot deadline in Oregon is one week after the election. You would not be able with rank choice voting

to run a rank choice tabulation for at least one week. So it's just like in New York, you may look at the, you know, at the numbers that come in on election night and say, okay, the outstanding votes are X, that's actually smaller than the margin of victory. So we know who has won even in races in Oregon, practically speaking on election night. But that's not the case with rank choice voting, because it's not just the final number it's the order of elimination of candidates along the way that has a massive impact on the final outcome. So if candidate A gets eliminated before candidate C then candidate F becomes the winner.

But if you can get candidate C before candidate A then it's candidate D who is the winner. And that's why you can't do these rankings until all the ballots are in. And then you have to go through litigation as well, because if, you know, an early round of elimination is very closely decided, and you can flip a couple of votes from candidate A to B and you change which one is eliminated, then you can have a profound impact on the final result. So there's all sorts of ways that this is going to sap voter confidence, delays, litigation, and so forth. It's just a recipe for disaster. Jason, is there any role for ranked-choice voting in elections? I'll give you just one example that happened a number of years ago. In the Republican primary for governor in the state of Oregon, there were 17 candidates. Believe me, it was a slog, you know, trying to get through all of that.

In partisan races, could that be useful in any way, or does it still have the same kind of weaknesses like you have discussed about for these general election purposes? Well, you know, I'll tell you, we used it in the Republican primary to nominate Governor Glenn Youngkin a few years back, and that's become a talking point that's been used by the ranch with voting lobby to try to push this all over the place. It delivered a good candidate in Governor Youngkin, and he obviously went on to victory in the state, and so shouldn't Republicans everywhere want to use this system? The reality was that the Republican Party in Virginia only used ranked-choice voting

because the Democratic governor wouldn't allow the party to convene for COVID reasons, right? So they needed to come up with a system that would allow them to hold a convention without actually being able to hold a convention. And then we got Governor Yonkin in spite of ranked choice voting, not because of it. He was leading in every round of elimination. And I have talked to the people who were actually in the room doing the tabulations who told me that it was harder for the tabulators, it was harder for the lawyers representing the campaigns, it was harder for the candidates, it was harder for everybody.

If a political party wants to use it, that's ultimately their business, but I would counsel them very strongly to avoid this. The other excuse, essentially, that we've heard about an opportunity for rank choice voting is for military voters overseas, because if you live in a state that has a runoff, you have by federal law a requirement to get your ballot mailed out 45 days before an election. And there are a lot of states that want to do runoffs much sooner after election day in November than having to wait six additional weeks to do that. But what they will do is they will send a military voter a ballot that says, vote as

if you ordinarily would in a regular election. And then in the event that there is a runoff between two candidates, rank the candidates so that we can know which one your vote should go towards in that runoff. Now that's not ranked choice voting, but it's held up as ranked choice voting because the argument is, well if it's good enough for the military it should be good enough for you and me. But what they're doing is asking voters to rank a candidate in a runoff between two candidates and it's only if there needs to be a runoff. It is not a ranked choice election. So as far as public elections go, there is no excuse

in my book to justify RCV. It's all a gimmick and there's not a single election in this country that we should be using it for. Do you think ranked choice voting is being done to weaken party politics or just weaken voting in general? Well, I think it's actually both. I mean, on the one hand, you certainly see how ranked choice voting is used to weaken the political parties, particularly when there is a system called Final Five that is being debated.

Final Five involves marrying California-style jungle primaries, so you have no more party nominees. Everybody runs in a single jungle primary, and then the top five vote-getters advance out of that to a general election where you bring in ranked choice voting. That very clearly is designed to weaken the political parties. And here's the rub. Everybody has a beef with the political parties, right? Nobody really likes, whether you're a Republican

or a Democrat, nobody really likes your party establishment. But you have to remember, nature abhors a vacuum, and so does politics. If you create a power vacuum by sapping that political power away from the parties, something has to fill the void. And what you've seen in plenty of cases, whether it's Alaska that uses this system or whether it's New York with their

rank choice primary, it's the activists and it's the millionaire and billionaire elite liberal mega donors that are jumping in and they are filling that void and they are using it to expand their own power. So you actually in many, have a situation where, for instance, you have ballot measures like the one in Oregon that was defeated last year that are being propped up by millionaire and billionaire donors that are quite literally trying to buy a new election system that will give them more sway over American politics than they already have today. I think that's a pretty good recipe for corruption and again for sapping public confidence. But then the other thing that ranked choice voting does, whether you believe

that analysis or not, it separates voters from the results of the elections. Because right now we can say in most races, okay, we have a few candidates, this person got the most votes, that is the winner in this election. But with ranked choice voting, you go through a series of elimination rounds. Nobody really knows or can remember a week or two after how they ranked in terms of first, second, or third. Nobody really knows who they actually ended up voting for. And yet we just get a machine to spit out an algorithmic result that says, well, somehow,

even though this candidate only got 20% of the first place vote, that they wound up winning after nine rounds of elimination with a 60% mandate for change. And somehow 60% of the community supports this candidate. You lose yourself in that process and that's a real problem. And so confusing that it's difficult to explain. Jason Snead, once again, executive director of Honest Elections Project Action. And what is that website again one more time here? And I just thank you for your time, Jason. Well thank you. And it's HEPAction.org.

I encourage everyone to check us out and follow the fight against rank choice voting. Yeah, definitely. HEPAction. And thanks so much. We'll have you back. Take care. Thank you. 657.

This is KMED 99.3 KPXXG waking up with the Bill Meyer show. Three, two, one. Why pay full price for fireworks when you can get twice the fun for half the price? Discount Fireworks Superstore has all your favorites at over 50% off. Shop over 26 buy one get one free options. Discount Fireworks Superstore has all your favorites and epic finale fountains like White House, Gator Revenge and Big Shock. And with six convenient locations in southern Oregon, they're right around the corner. Find them on South Pacific Highway near the Grange, West Main near Thunderbird, in Ashland

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or log on to dfsfireworks.com for free fireworks at Discount Fireworks Superstore. All proceeds to sales go toward funding summer camps for kids. Ready for fun and excitement for the entire family? at discount firewood superstore. All proceeds of sales go toward funding summer camps for kids. theater Wednesday July 16th it's country superstar Jody Messina Thursday July 17th it's classic rock legends Kansas then it's skillet on Friday July 18th and a Taylor Swift salute on Saturday July 19th all headline entertainment is included with your fair admission enjoy over 25 thrilling carnival rides get your wristbands early at food for less or online at the expo remember kids 12 and under are free every day thanks to

the West Family Foundation. Sunday everyone gets in free thanks to Ray's Food Place. New this year free park-and-ride shuttles from Crater High School or the Back 40 off Gebhard Road. It's fun for the whole herd at the Jackson County Fair July 15th through the 20th at the Expo. For details, go to theexpo.com. You're hearing the Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED.

And I want to talk to you about money for something. It just reminded me the Jackson County affair of course coming up here very soon and there is a big ass talent show or you call it a big donkey if you want to call it that way but I'm going to be one of the emcees on one of the nights of it and have you heard about the prize one thousand dollars that is real money that is real money for going out there and demonstrating your talent. And I just want to let you know that they have extended the entry for the talent show, the big talent show, coming up. And we're gonna be out there one of the nights. I forget which night, but it's really great. You

could be a singer, you could have an animal act, a magic act, you know, something. Maybe you're a comic of some sort, or maybe you know someone, maybe, this is not just for kids, this is for everybody. Do you have a talent? Would you like a thousand dollars? Okay, and all you have to do just head to attheexpo.com and click over on the participate part and there is the talent contest. You click there. Now you do have to make an account and you just film, you know, take your phone, a short video of your talent and maybe just, you know, have someone, you know, whatever you're doing. It's in a band, do a little bit.

If you, if you do some singing, go ahead and do that magic act, whatever it is. Or if your dog sings along with you, like there's that one person on YouTube who has like millions of views or something, go ahead and put it in and we'll get you into the talent show and maybe you win a thousand dollars, or if you know somebody that could win the thousand dollars tell them about it okay at the expo.com. All right let me grab a call before a news here. Hi good morning, who's this? Welcome. Hi, good morning, Bill. This is Deb calling in. Oh, Deb, how are you this morning?

What's up? Hi, Deb. Good morning. Yeah, I was just calling in to say kudos to the Park Watch Group over the weekend. They were out at Riverside and had a big event for the kids. It was just wonderful. That's great.

Anytime you see those guys out, people stop by, donate, give them a little bit of cash to keep going. They're doing a lot for our community. God bless our firefighters as well. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I really want to find out more about the idea or the story of the person that ended up doing that to the firefighters over in Coeur d'Alene, right? I know, right? Yeah. Yeah, you know, if we see something, say something out in our woods. And if you come across people that don't look like they have good intentions, don't be afraid to report it.

Yeah. Good point. They've gotten a few already. It doesn't get reported on a lot, but they have gotten a few. All right. Glad to hear that. Yeah. And the other thing I wanted to say, this ranked choice voting, this is just a backup plan in case the first cheat doesn't work. This is just the one that locks it in. That's a really good point. That's it. You know, vote by mail, bad enough. Rank choice voting added to that is just a, this is the second cheat to lock it in. All right.

Exactly. Good stuff. Appreciate the call. Thanks Deb. All right. Take care. This is KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Town Hall news is coming up. We have Richard Emmons joining me here shortly from the Eagle, Oregon Eagle, and we're going to talk about the legislative session. Fortunately, it's done and right now, at this point, it's still about licking wounds and actually happy about one big loss of that was the transportation bill. But we'll talk about that and kicking around with Richard, pretty good guy. We'll do that then. Just a few.