Systems Level Failure? Veterans for All Voters Takes on Polarizing Elections

Host Robert Pease: Eric Bronner Co-Founder and COO of Veterans for All Voters had an interest in politics from an early age.

Eric Bronner: I joke sometimes that my political career, uh, probably peaked at Badger Boys State my junior year of high school, the summer going into senior year.  I watched conventions for both parties from beginning to end. 

Host Robert Pease: That interest stayed with him right through his training and military service 

Eric Bronner: Uh, then I went to the Naval Academy for college. Didn’t really realize just how conservative of an institution it was. And when people found out who my parents had voted for, uh, President in, you know, 1992, they, I did get mocked a little bit…

Robert Pease: Generally, though, not much discussion of politics during Eric’s Naval service, both at home and abroad. And on active duty overseas it was  difficult to get news on US politics, even about major elections.

 Eric Bronner: I flew in a plane, a radar plane on and off of the aircraft carrier, the George Washington. So during that election, I was in the Persian Gulf in 2000 and, uh, the, it was satellite television. We did get CNN in our ready room, and the satellite feed would inevitably cut out at the worst possible time. And, um, that election of, as you know, was incredibly close and contested long after the election. But everyone came together, figured out a path forward.

Eric Bronner: uh, and, and, and figured out a way to move forward in a, in a way that served our country, right? Very, very different from from 2020. 

Robert Pease: For Eric Bronner, military service had been all about the mission at hand and patriotic commitment to national security.  After all, veterans take an oath to protect the Constitution not political parties. But now back in civilian life, he felt a disturbing lack of national cohesion because of those parties. And he began to consider different types of national service. 

Eric Bronner: Every time I talk to someone about maybe running for office, of course, the first thing they say is, Eric, you have to pick a team. And something didn’t sit right with me. And so the, the pump was primed, as my parents would say, for, for some kind of awakening. 

Robert Pease: That awakening came, oddly enough, on a podcast. 

Eric Bronner: And it really was a podcast, uh, on Freakonomics radio : in the fall of 2018 that set me on this new journey of it being an independent reformer.

Robert Pease: That journey  includes co-founding  a nationwide network of America’s most trusted citizens to advance non partisan elections reforms like opening primaries to independent voters, which includes the majority of US veterans.  And working to advance Final four or Five elections on the Alaska model as detailed by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter on that podcast and in their book, The Politics Industry, which soon followed. 

Eric’s organization is Veterans for All Voters. I’m Robert Pease and this is The Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of polarization,  sitting down with Eric Bronner to hear what veterans can do to depolarize these not so United States. Our discussion starts with the many strands of thought and experience that came together for  Eric  on hearing that Freakonomics episode

Interview Part 1

Eric Bronner: It was with Katherine Gehl and then Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter. Right? And, and they were presenting their early research about how the lack of competition is failing America, and as Americans who, generally speaking, love free markets and capitalism and, uh, competition, right? It absolutely doesn’t make sense in a, in a country of 330 million people and so many diverse viewpoints, why do we have to settle for Coke or Pepsi election cycle after election cycle?

Robert Pease: Right. So, so you’re hearing that, but you had, you, you, you had not yet read her, her book, or maybe the book was not out yet, right?

Eric Bronner: The book was not out yet. I have my copy here on, on, on, yeah. My desktop. Yeah. So that research be, the book came out in 2020. Right. But, um, but the research was so compelling, Rob, and really the solutions they proposed were so compelling to me. I was, I was desperate to get involved and be a part of making things better. And what many people are coming to the conclusion is that spending hundreds of millions of dollars reelecting the next political savior, has gotten us nowhere.

Eric Bronner: And the smart people are waking up that it’s a systems level problem. If, 63% of Americans do not want a rematch of 2020, and yet that’s where we’re heading, that’s a systems failure, and we, it requires systems level thinking, systems level solutions. And that’s what was proposed as you know, iin the Politics Industry book.

Robert Pease: Yeah. Well, let’s then hear directly from Katherine Gehl from our own interview about three  years ago.

K Gehl: You know, that song, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. If I could sing, I would sing that, which is, in a sense, we’re looking for a fix to our politics in all the wrong places. The real place to look is at the incentives that are driving the behavior, and therefore the results that we’re getting, or in most cases, not getting out of, for example, Congress.

Robert Pease: I wonder, when you heard that Freakonomics episode what were your first steps then? Who did you reach out to? What other conversations did you have?

Eric Bronner: So in that podcast, Catherine and or Michael mentioned a couple of organizations nationally who were working to implement reforms, structural reforms such as Unite America, Represent Us. And so I, I looked up all the organizations they mentioned, and then do they have chapters in Missouri? That search led me to Show Me Integrity as a partner of United America or Represent Us here in Missouri. And then I just, just got involved. Rob,  you know, there’s this huge need for citizens to engage, to engage in politics in a nonpartisan way, right? The last thing we need is more polarization. The last thing we need is more partisanship. We can have differences of opinion, right? But the system itself is broken. That’s what everyone agrees on. The system is broken. 

Robert Pease: Take us then to the point where you decide to create a national network of veterans.  Was that a long gestation period or being a veteran yourself, did that come to you fair quickly?

Eric Bronner: I’m a, I’m a pretty slow mover, Rob, with big life decisions. And, um, I was ready for a new career calling, right?  Uh, I was serving as a board member with Show Me Integrity. I helped them launch their 501 C3 Education Fund. We passed non-partisan primary elections and approval voting in St. Louis City in 2020. And it was shortly after 2020 that, uh, a veteran heard my passion for this work. And actually he was the one who planted the seed and said, you should do something to get more veterans involved in the reform movement.  And my first step was calling a few veterans, some really outstanding, uh, you know, a couple of classmates of mine from the Naval Academy, a couple West Point grads who had run for office, kind of put together a national kitchen cabinet of veterans.

Is there a need for another veterans organization? There’s 40,000 of them. and then is, is there anyone doing this specific non-partisan reform work that we are animated by? And the answer was no. There was truly a white space between the 40,000 or more veterans organizations and the 10,000 or so reform, you know,  civic health,  pro-democracy organizations. So that’s why we launched in the fall of 2021, we launched Veterans for All Voters.

Out to Narration

Robert Pease: We’re speaking with Eric Bronner Co-Founder and COO for Veterans for All Voters, which is a nationwide network of veterans working to strengthen American democracy through open primaries and ranked choice voting. Eric was energized by the reform blueprint layed out in the book, The Politics Industry, co-authored by  Katherine Gehl, interviewed in our season two

K Gehl: So we legitimately have a proposal that is not partisan, and it’s also a proposal about healthy competition. I often call it free market politics which, you know, delivers innovation, results and accountability the way free markets do in well-functioning private industry.

Robert Pease: A few years before developing the final five voting  blueprint Katherine Gehl came across a similar source of inspiration

K Gehl: And finally, candidly, not even through my own, uh, you know, Eureka, it was Mickey Edwards, former Republican Congressmen, uh, from Oklahoma who had written a book called The Parties Versus The People. 

Mickey Edwards : What we’ve created is a system where in order to get elected you have to get through a pary primary dominated by the people who are the most ideological, the most partisan…

K Ghel: And in it, he says, it’s the system. And I’ve always been a systems thinker. I think it’s fascinating that I took years and needed someone else to tell me that in politics, it’s also the system. And then once I knew that that opened the way for later, when I was doing my strategy project, cause it was about 2010, maybe that Eureka of the system, it opened the way towards my, uh, being able to see it as an industry.

Robert Pease: And historically, that is how reform movements gain traction and momentum. Over many years of effort. Mickey Edwards inspires Katherine Gehl who inspires many groups and individuals including  Eric Bronner who recruits hundreds of veterans volunteering around the country to take on some serious national security threats right at home:  Our polarizing primary elections, our uncompetitive general elections, and our gridlock in Washington. One of these veterans is New York-based  Glomani Bravo Lopez  

Glomani Lopez:  I was in the Marines. I was in the infantry deployed twice to Iraq. And the interesting thing with the military lens is that you have people from all backgrounds that come together. That’s a beautiful thing.  I mean, you have,, a city boy like me, like New York city boy. And then you have, somebody from,  Georgia,  w  Like, you, you see that there’s more that unites us than that separates us.  And through, historical, like military lens, especially in recent conflicts, the idea of a United States,  it doesn’t seem that united. And I think as veterans, that’s a  really frustrating part

Robert Pease: Like Eric, Glomani  had a political reawakening soon after returning home from active duty

Glomani Lopez:   Served in the Marine Corps for 4 years after getting out of the Marine Corps returning to  civilian life. WhenI reached out to Eric Bronner and said, look, I’m interested in getting involved withVveterans for all voters. Then it was veterans  for political innovation.

And that name called to me, I said, yes. We need innovation with, within our political system definitely need to look at things differently because what we’re doing, does not seem to be working. And I think  we can hold on to our values and beliefs, but at the same time work together. 

Robert Pease: Another volunteer  is Crystal Wellington, an Army vet now based in Florida

Crystal Ellington: Um, so for me, I am a combat veteran, so I served in the Special Operations Aviation Regiment while I was in the Army. Um, entered in 2017, got out in 2021, so still very recently separated from the military.

Robert Pease: Like Eric, Glomani and others, Crystal returned to civilian life but still wanted to serve the nation in important ways.

Crystal Ellington: And so initiatives like that have been near and dear to my heart  when I came across, uh, Veterans for All Voters and their interest in ranked choice voting, uh, and Final Five Voting, I was on fire about it. And so once I heard what their mission was and what they were trying to achieve, I just knew I had to get involved as a veteran.

Robert Pease:  Crystal now has a two pronged mission.. 

Crystal Ellington: So we’ve partnered with Florida Open Primaries and their belief is that no American should be required to join a political party to exercise the right to vote. We’re also partnering with  Rank My Vote Florida. So we’re trying to get ranked choice voting and also trying to open up these  a lot of these initiatives and amendments that are happening right now in Florida. We’re trying to make sure that every voter has the opportunity to really exercise that vote. . 

Robert Pease: Opening primaries is perhaps the primary or at least initial objective for Eric Bronner and  Veterans for All Voters. According to Ballotpedia, there are 15 states with at least one closed primary election shutting out all indy voters and another 14 states with at least one semi closed primary which requires party registration. 

That’s a lot of states. And over half  of our veterans are registered as unaffiliated or independent. That means a huge number of vets who put themselves in harm’s way for American values cannot participate in US primary elections.  We asked Eric if educating veterans and everyday Americans about this fact is part of the mission . 

Interview Part Two 

Eric Bronner: Absolutely. Education is the biggest part of our mission. And raising awareness, uh, again, regarding real structural solutions versus kind of the false gaslighting we get over and over again from candidates, from the parties, things that just absolutely don’t change anything, right? And, and so big problems, whether it’s immigration reform or healthcare reform or education reform, big problems are not being solved because, as Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter point out, problem solving itself is not rewarded by the system, right? Because of the terrible incentives created by partisan primary elections.  And so people show up in November in higher numbers, but they don’t realize that 85% of the races have already been decided when we show up in November. And that’s the primary problem that we’re trying to solve.

Robert Pease: Let me ask then, Eric, what do you hope to accomplish with your group? Do you, do you work on states like Alaska, Nevada that are pretty far along in that process? Or are you looking to sort of seed efforts in other states?

Eric Bronner: It’s, it’s both and.  So going from that kitchen cabinet of about 10 veterans, two of them became my co-founders, uh, Todd Conner, a fellow Navy veteran from Chicago, and Dan Bigga, a Marine Corps veteran from Chicago, who had, uh, Todd Conner had previously started a national organization called Bunker Labs. Chapters in all 50 states. Very active to help anyone who’s military connected start new businesses. So Todd had had experience with building a national network. And in two years now, we’re up to close to 300 veteran leaders in 47 states supporting 20 or more active reform campaigns. Some will happen in 2024, some won’t happen until 2026. But Rob, we’re very involved in an Alaska, Alaska, the Alaska election model is what we are most excited about. As you know, it has two parts, right? You gotta get rid of partisan primaries, and then we have to move away from plurality voting, right? The first pass the vote, uh, post voting system we have that allows some candidates to win with 20 or 30% support. We need to get true majority winners, and we need to let everyone fully participate in every public election. And that’s what we’re fighting for in about 10 states, uh, for in 2024 alone.

Robert Pease: So, which of those states, uh, should we keep an eye on as being fairly far along in their effort? Fairly well organized and funded?

Eric Bronner: Right, so you mentioned, uh, Alaska and Nevada. Nevada is gonna have a ballot campaign for Final Five voting in, in this November. We have to pass it a second time. It’s an idiosyncrasy with the Nevada Constitution. Oregon, uh, the state of Oregon, Oregon is gonna vote on using rank choice voting statewide for all elections. You have Idaho. We have, uh, veterans in Idaho, and this amazing former Republican leader, Jim Jones, who got over 100 former Republicans in Idaho to sign on as supporters for a ballot campaign to bring the Alaska election model, Final Four Voting,  to Idaho. Colorado is gonna launch a ballot campaign here soon. Arizona has a ballot campaign for a slightly different policy, but same, same idea. South Dakota has a ballot campaign, And  then there’s legislative efforts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and a ballot campaign in Washington DC for open primaries and rank choice voting. So this is, we like to say, Rob, we’re part of an ecosystem of effort that’s working to build an independent reform movement, a nonpartisan reform movement. And this is really happening. It’s not pie in the sky, uh, in spite of opposition, fierce opposition from both parties we’re making tremendous progress. 

Robert Pease: Tell us then about some of your colleagues kind of in the front lines, at the state level. You know, perhaps some of the conversations you’ve had with them, the backgrounds they’re coming from.

Eric Bronner: Yeah, thanks. so a couple examples of, of veterans who’ve stepped up in really heroic ways. Um, Marine Corps veteran Mike Escobar in Nevada,

Mike Escobar:  Throughout my life. I voted for candidates from both political parties and from, you know, independent and third parties. But just over time, I could realize, okay, there’s , a lot of promises and a lot of, like, platforming from both of the main parties. But it doesn’t matter like whether it’s Democrat or Republican, who’s in office like deficits go up debts go up, the same problems and the same sort of polarities and controversies just persist.

Eric Bronner:  His significant other had read The Politics Industry. She recommended the book to him. And then after reading it, he was inspired, he found us. 

Mike Escobar:  Back in, 2022, when the, um, Ballot QuestionTthree, the open primaries and Final Five Voting was up for the first time as a ballot initiative in Nevada then they contacted me and they’re like, hey. you put your name as a volunteer here. Are you still interested? And then after some conversation, they invited me to Las Vegas to shoot a promo spot in favor of question three. And it was crazy. I felt like a little Hollywood star for a day. Cause they’re like putting on makeup on you and. They bought me like a shirt and clothes and they had like a set built. And, and then I became kind of like the face of Question Three in Nevada. 

Eric Bronner: And through a number of conversations and some training, we onboard all our volunteers with some really great resources, he was able to, uh, the campaign, the successful ballot campaign in 2020 in, sorry, 2022 in Nevada. He recorded the number one most viewed 15 second commercial for the, the successful Yes  On Question Three campaign in both English and Spanish.

Eric Bronner: Uh, I also mentioned Jim Jones, who is a Vietnam Army veteran former, uh, Attorney General of Idaho, former Supreme Court Justice of Idaho. He reached out via a link on our website that says, take action. He clicked on it, filled out the form, and I’m talking to Jim Jones in Idaho, and I’m going, before I met, I’m, I’m thinking certainly this can’t be the former attorney general, but it was, he’s a humble servant leader .

Eric Bronner: These folks are, are testifying at hearings. They’re giving presentations, they’re attending veterans events and recruiting new, new leaders. And, and this movement’s really growing thanks to all of them. 

Robert Pease: It’s still early in the 2024 cycle, so perhaps it’s hard to say. But what, what do you think the biggest challenges are for your organization to making an impact this year?

Eric Bronner: So we’re focused on structural reforms and a lot of people who pay are paying attention to politics or Eric, we don’t have time for that. You know, this is the, the, the ship of is sinking. It’s all hands on deck. We don’t have time to change the rules and structural reforms. And here’s the problem with that, Rob, is both parties love to use that argument over and over again. We don’t have time to change things. You just, just reelect us and we’ll fix everything and nothing gets fixed. So at what point do the American people say, well, wait a minute. I’ve tried voting for certain candidates and I’ve here big promises over and over again, and maybe I’ve sent in a hundred dollars or $50 and nothing has changed. Right? So our, our biggest challenge is just getting people to pay attention long enough to say, look, the parties are not gonna shoot you straight. They don’t want the system to be more competitive. They don’t want open primaries and real competition in every race in November ‘cause they’ll have to work harder to maintain their power and control. 

Robert Pease: We see a lot of reference to the fact that veterans, uh, are among the most respected Americans. So, um, have you been able to, you know, utilize that respect positively? Or is there sometimes some pushback because people thought, well, I thought veterans weren’t supposed to be political?

Eric Bronner: It’s a great question. We, we do get, I do get pushback sometimes from other veterans organizations. Sometimes they ask, well, what are you doing for veterans? And I say, well, how do you think our Congress is working right now for healthcare outcomes for veterans? How do you think services are going at the Department of Veterans Affairs  for veterans?  And  so getting people to understand there’s the, the primary problem, the structural problems are underneath everything else. And then to your other question, Rob, there are a lot of veterans who do not want to be politically engaged. But people who are willing to do the research into Veterans for All Voters and look at our membership, which is one third Republican, one third independent, and one third Democrat, uh, roughly. And then there’s members of minor parties as well. And, and that our reforms are truly nonpartisan and that they are opposed by both parties. So you can trust that they are nonpartisan. They’re more willing to engage. ’cause they realize, wait a minute, you know, if, if both parties are against this and I want to be part of the solution, then maybe this organization actually is a platform for me to be a part of the solution.

Robert Pease: That’s Eric Bronner, former Naval Flight Officer on a new mission as  co-founder and COO of Veterans for All Voters. That’s a nationwide network of vets working to depolarize our politics, and particularly, our elections this 2024 cycle and beyond. 

Eric emphasizes this mission feels like  part of a broad if informal national movement gaining strength in recent years  as hyperpartisanship, polarization and gridlock become apparent to so many Americans, but especially our veterans. We’ll be checking back with Eric periodically throughout the 2024 election year for updates on Veterans for All Voters.  Many thanks to Eric and his fellow vets for speaking with us on this topic. 

Next up on The Purple Principle, a bonus episode featuring Nick Troiano, Director of Unite America, one of the seminal groups working to bridge the divide in our politics. Nick’s new book is The Primary Problem. It details how we got to this dangerous point where more and more extreme candidates get elected and re-elected by our polarizing primary election process. We’ll  hear from Nick how this unfortunate trend has also energized democracy reform efforts throughout  the country:

Nick Troiano:

…as the problem gets worse, more and more people are coming off the sidelines to do something about it.  Yes, leaders matter, but so do incentives and a lot more people are paying attention to those incentives and how to change it, which is what this election reform movement is really all about.

We hope you’ll join us then, share us on social media and review us on Apple Podcasts. This production  is  very much a  team effort. Our Senior Audio Engineer is Kevin A. Kline, Associate Producer Alex Couraud, research and fact checking by Sara Kim, Digital Strategy from Trevor Prophet.  The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production. Original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.