Show #215 - Lennie Friedman On : The Forward Party, Ranked Choice Voting, and Election Reform

Peter Pappas: you Well, everybody, good afternoon and welcome to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm your host, Peter Pappas in studio with Mrs. Laura Mussler Wait, wait a minute. No, say beautiful co-hosts. Beautiful co-hosts. Thank you, thank you for the correction. Thank you. Thank you. And joining us today is Mr. Lennie Friedman of Forward Party, North Carolina, Well, welcome, Lennie, today. You know, we at the cabinet, we know this is the smartest hour of radio and our job is to give a voice to the conservatives of Fayetteville, Cumberland County and beyond. So today, today's guest, we had a pretty unique journey from the trenches of the NFL to the trenches of American politics. So lucky you, you played offensive line for the Duke blue devils before being drafted in the second round of the NFL draft by the Denver Broncos. And you went on to play for several teams across the league. These days you're no longer blocking defensive ends. trying to tackle something many Americans agree is broken our political system. You now serve as vice chair of North Carolina's chapter of the forward party of movement pushing election reforms like rank choice voting and open primaries aimed at breaking the gridlock of the traditional two party system. You're also involved with rank the vote advocating for changes to how Americans cast their ballots. So today we're going to talk about whether a third party movement can actually work in a state like North Carolina. and whether the political system really needs the kind of reform that the Forward party is pushing. So with that, welcome,

Lennie Friedman: Peter Laura I appreciate it. Thanks for having me here today. Looking forward to our conversation.

Peter Pappas: as we are. So tell us, that was pretty much the quick bio about you. ⁓ really long time football.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so came down to Duke in 95. So played for Fred Goldsmith down here at Duke. Married a Tar Heel who followed me ⁓ from New Jersey and from Duke. Traveled all over the country. Played 10 years, four different teams. A bit of a lunch pail player as I like to say. And then came back to North Carolina. Got involved in business and have been a business leader, ⁓ investor.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: And as you said, Vice Chair of North Carolina Forward Party since.

Peter Pappas: So, looks like you have a pretty professional studio right there. What is, what are we doing to pay the bills back there? What's all that? I see hydrogen peroxide sterilizer. What's all that about?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so I'm the COO and CFO of a med device company that was started here in Raleigh by a good friend and neighbor of mine. been here for about four years and we sell med devices into the veterinary space. So that's what you're seeing behind me. And it's a great studio and didn't want to miss the opportunity to take your call here.

Peter Pappas: Okay. ⁓ cool. So, so a lot of experience, you married a Tar Heel, so you're in the state. No, no choice about that. You're part, are North Carolinian now. So tell us about why you got involved with the Forward party.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, I'd be glad to. So, you know, my background in both sports and business, you have people that are on a team trying to make decisions that not everyone agrees on, but make decisions that are in the best faith of the team or the business, right? And that's what politics should be about. How do we move America, the state, our principles forward? And right now, as you guys have talked about and are aware, our politics are broken, right? We have two teams that are fighting against each other. They feel like they're not part of the same team, that they're competing, and that's not the way it should be. Democrats shouldn't be competing against Republicans. Republicans shouldn't be competing against Democrats. They should be working together for the best of our country. The forward party sees an opportunity to be that type of party. The type of party that is willing to grab a beer with a Democrat, grab a beer with a Republican, grab a beer with a Libertarian and say, what is best for the voters of North Carolina? And do I think that's possible in North Carolina? Absolutely. So if you look at how tight our Congress is in North Carolina, all it takes is a handful of people that are willing to work across the aisle, whether they're Republicans or Democrats or independents, and say, let's form a group of problem solvers and let's really move the needle.

Peter Pappas: Okay and so when you're talking about our legislature is very close here in North Carolina. Okay and if I'm not mistaken I think the Forward party one of your ⁓ pillars was that you're trying to start local. We're not trying to attack this on a national scale yet that you're trying to build it from the grassroots area more or is that not true?

Lennie Friedman: Absolutely. That's right. we're North. That's right. We're the North Carolina Forward Party. So we're here focused on North Carolina. And to give you an example, you guys have a forward aligned independent April Montgomery that should be running in 2026. That's District 51 part of Lee County, not far from you guys. And she's forward aligned, right? She's a business person. She's coming in as an independent. She wants to work with Democrats and Republicans. We've got a forward aligned Republican mayor of Concord.

Peter Pappas: Okay. you Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: We've got in the same city a forward-aligned councilwoman who's a Democrat. So you have Republicans and Democrats that are saying, we don't care about party labels, how do we work together? So that's part of our grassroots.

Peter Pappas: Okay. So in the ⁓ aligned, as you say it, that is more your, your principles and your, your guiding mission that we want you to work with other people. That it's, it's not like they got to be the Forward party. just, they can be a Republican or Democrat with the Forward party platform alignment. That's what you're looking to do. Okay. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: Correct. Absolutely. And that's a great comment. There's a flip side of that too, though. So we are working to get ballot access. So right now we don't have ballot access. We're working to get ballot access. We expect that in 2027 and running candidates in 2020 and 2028.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay. Okay. So that still is a concern of you guys. ⁓ Well, let me a question here. You say you want to get ballot access. So that would be a third party ⁓ and you would support both Republicans and Democrats or ⁓ like, let's say we have somebody that ⁓ is a Republican pretend for a ⁓ We live in a fake world where April Montgomery, ⁓ because you mentioned her is a Republican, but she is a, what did say? Forward, forward align. forward aligned. Are you saying that she would be your candidate also? Or a third additional person?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, great question. So right now we don't have ballot access, so you can't be a forward party candidate. You can be forward aligned. ⁓ Once we get ⁓ ballot access, then we can run our own candidates, and someone like April would become a forward party candidate. ⁓ But even if people don't run under the banner of the forward party, we are looking for people that want to work across the aisle, that care more for the voters than their party. So even if they're a Republican that wants to stay a Republican, doesn't want to join the forward party, if they say, you know what, we are willing to work across the aisle and we will support forward-aligned candidate, that's great. We don't care about party leaders. We care about solving problems.

Peter Pappas: basically the Forward party, it's primarily about election reform ⁓ or the ballot access more ⁓ primary goal for you right now? Like are you, are you trying to be that third party or are you more, are you happier with just having more people aligned with your platform on either side of the aisle?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, great comments. No, we're definitely trying to get ballot access and be a third party. So there's no question there. And Laura, we don't have ballot access yet, so we can't officially run candidates. So that's why people are willing to sign up and say they're forward along. ⁓ But go ahead.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay. To be fair, I know a lot of candidates. And I have yet to find a candidate that says, I don't want to work with the other side. Now, nationally and ⁓ I would say the media makes a lot bigger divide. And I will say that a lot of the times on the big issues, nationally, they vote along party lines. However, comma, locally, I disagree. I think the Republicans and the Democrats along the people and the candidates are agreeing to work together. So I'm perplexed. That's why we need the forward party alignment.

Lennie Friedman: No, I appreciate the question. ⁓ no. So Laura, I appreciate the question. So more than just what people say, what do they do? Right. So more than people saying, I am willing to work across party lines. What do they do? Right. And if you look at the most recent midterm, the primaries we just had, you had four Democrats that were willing to support ⁓ the override of Governor Josh Stein's vetoes. Right. All four of those Democrats were essentially blackballed by the Democratic Party and lost their primaries. So that's showing where people who do work across the aisle on some big issues, they get excommunicated from their party. And that's a problem, right? We don't want that. We want parties that want their candidates to be for the voters. And we don't want to punish candidates that are for the voters, but don't vote with their party all the time. And I'll give you some examples of where I don't see some cross-party alignment. If you ask people, Laura, to your point, and you ask politicians, who's for term limits? Something that the forward party is very for and something that Democrats say they're for, Republicans say they're for, yet term limits never pass. Why is that? If they really wanted to work across the aisle, if they were really there to support the voters, why does something that has such broad support not ever pass? That's an example of election reform that we would support.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Well, wouldn't it that you? OK. Wouldn't you look at people that ⁓ support the Convention of States because that's for term limits and ⁓ balancing the budget and kinds of things. ⁓ I'm actually a member of of States is actually they're petitioning to get ⁓ access or to have a Convention of States like they did way back when ⁓ to address some issues the budget. can't spend more than the country brings in. So we stop operating in a deficit. term limits, but each state has to get people to vote for that. And there are local officials that have voted for it. And there's one local official that I know for a fact has voted against it. So I am for term limits too, because I'm a member of the convention of states. So, Lennie, does the Forward party have like a loftier platform for not just North Carolina, but, nationwide, like, are they looking at these things like balancing the budget, stuff like that? I mean, is that part of what you guys do?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, it's a great comment. So there is a national forward party. We are the North Carolina arm of the national forward party. What the national forward party does focus on big picture is going to be a lot of the election reform. I don't believe they have a stance on balanced budget, although Laura, I personally am very supportive of that as well. The states do it. Why doesn't the federal government do it? All for it. ⁓ You would have carve outs for time of war and stuff like that when you do have to spend above your intake.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: But I agree with that. I'd be all for it if the states can do it, why can't the national government do it? But we are an individual arm of the federal forward party, so we are focused here in North Carolina.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. So. Okay, so let's talk about the rank choice voting. I've got a whole segment here devoted to all that. just correct me if I'm wrong. So voters are going to rank the candidates first, second, third. If no candidate wins the majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and votes are redistributed until someone reaches 50%. Is that where we're at?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah. It's a good opener. So not necessarily ranked candidates one, two, three, can rank as many as you want. So if there's six candidates, seven candidates, you can go down the entire process. redistribution of the votes is something that I would phrase a little bit differently. And the way I like talking through it is let's talk about a traditional runoff election, right? So in Georgia, they've had two big Senate elections where neither candidate reached 50 % and there was three or four candidates run. So what did they do?

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: They had a runoff election. So three, four months down the line, they run a whole other election. And what happens? People come back and they vote again. If their first choice was still in, they're going to vote for their first choice again. If their first choice is not in, then they re-vote. That's what ranked choice voting is. It's also known as instant runoff. It's the same thing. So Laura, I see the head nod. I'd love to talk about it. This is great. So if you think about it, go ahead.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. OK. Go ahead, Lennie, no, finish your thought.

Lennie Friedman: So you rank your candidates, right? Let's put it in terms of college teams, right? Duke University, University of North Carolina, East Carolina University, NC State, Fayetteville State, whatever. You rank your teams, right? My first choice as a Duke guy is gonna be Duke, right? My second choice is gonna be anyone but UNC. So I'll put Fayetteville State up there, okay?

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: This vote goes to everybody. Everybody gets to rank. So my first choice is Duke, second choice is Fayetteville State. Now in the election, Duke doesn't win 50%, nobody wins 50%. But Duke is dropped out because they had the lowest vote getters, right? Now in a real runoff, I would go back, or in a formal runoff, I would go back and I'd vote for Fayetteville State. Duke's out, Fayetteville State's my second choice. So in an instant runoff election, same thing happens. If your number one choice drops out,

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: your second choice then gets elevated. Everyone still gets a vote. There is no redistribution, right? If your first choice, Laura, was UNC, UNC is still there. Your vote counts again. So I don't love the term redistribution of votes. It's the same thing as a runoff.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, Lennie, I'm going to surprise you because what I'm going to do is I'm going to put on screen the recent primary we had, and I'm going to let you choose our county commissioners based the way you would do it. How about that? ⁓ So ⁓ I already, ⁓ let's see here. I pulled this stuff up ⁓ and we are here. Sorry. can that. You cannot see that. Okay. ⁓ I have old people Well,

Lennie Friedman: Okay, let's do it. I can see it. I can see it.

Peter Pappas: You can see it. Okay. That's what's important. If the guests can see it. ⁓ we had, let's just stick with the County commissioners at large. ⁓ cause that seemed to be, I think they had more people than the district one. see. Three, four, five. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they did. So to me, you know, this is when you talk about rank choice, this is where I would this come into play and how would this have shook out?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so if I'm looking at just ⁓ that first dark blue section, it's a good Duke University color. I see Charles Evans, Veronica Jones, Tony Stewart. Let's just stick with them. Nobody won 50%, right? So let's take, it looks like six candidates. No one won 50%, right? And let's say that Laura voted and her first choice was William Tunk Wesley, okay? And her second choice,

Peter Pappas: There you go. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: was Veronica Jones. In this scenario, the person with the lowest votes was William Toonk Wedgley. So they would be dropped out in the instant runoff. ⁓ For those who voted for Charles first, their vote still counts. They voted for Charles first. For those that voted for Veronica first, their vote still counts. They voted for Veronica first. The only impact is on William Wesley.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: If your second choice is Veronica, then in the instant runoff, just like what happened in real life, the instant runoff, your vote now would go to Veronica because your number one candidate, William, is no longer in. And that happens until someone wins 50%. So in this scenario, even if every single one of those votes went to Charles Evans, they still wouldn't be at 50%.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Do you have an example ballot or something to share with us? like the Iowa caucus. Yeah, I'm trying to see how this would work. go in a room and everybody stands behind their candidate. And then they're like, okay, let's vote. Now there's the lowest person in the room. Let's say it was Joe Bloschmo. And Joe Bloschmo only has five people and everybody else has eight. Nobody has 50%. So now all of these candidates go over to Joe Bloschmo's corner and be like,

Lennie Friedman: ⁓ Yep.

Peter Pappas: Come over to our corner, come over to our corner. And they move to their, somebody else's corner. Then they count again. Nobody has 50%. So then Tom, whatever, is like the lowest. So he leaves. So all those things, come over to our corner, come over. Until they hit that they hit 50%. So I would say that instead of actually being in a, thank you, instead of actually being in the room, I would say, well, my first choice is Joe Bloshmo. And if he doesn't get through, I'm in this corner and I have to go to somebody else's corner. Then I'm going to go to Tom's corner or whatever. so on and so forth. see, you're in the room making that conscious choice. We're trying to get voters to understand. It's very difficult to do that on a ballot. that's I was going all go in a big room like they do in Iowa. I love the Iowa caucuses. They've got cheerleaders and all kinds of stuff. I would just love the turnout. That'd be a lot of fun, I think. I think it would make it the turnout even more if we could do it that way. If we can. Yeah. Thank you.

Lennie Friedman: I love that description, Laura. You nailed it. That's fantastic.

Peter Pappas: She has, see she's got the good ideas. I just the technical stuff going on here. ⁓ Well, Leni, I was going to ask you, do you have a sample ballot or is there one like on your website that would show? California does rain coding. That would show like what this ballot would look like as an example?

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so we, don't know if we have it on our website. I can certainly get you them. ⁓ And it has been right now, ⁓ instant runoffs are done by about 16 to 20 million people in America already. So it is not an uncommon thing and what people, a great little plug for our awesome state in Kinston, North Carolina, you have the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center that helps municipalities all over the country set up their ballots.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: analyze their software to make sure they can do it with their systems. So we have a great resource in Kinston right now to help about design and all those types of things you're talking about. I do want to go back to what Laura said though, because she did a great, she did a really good job of helping visualize that. But now let's talk about how that happens in practice, right? So let's go back to those caucuses. And if you know there's a chance that you're not going to win 50 %

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: and you're gonna have to convince supporters of other candidates that, if your candidate doesn't win 50 % and they're kinda dropped out from the race, come vote with us, right? We might not agree with everything your candidate says, but we agree with it a lot. Let me agree with a lot of what they say. Let me explain where we have similarities. Think about how that changes politics and advertising and the discussion because no longer, if I'm Charles Evans,

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: Am I going to be telling the William Wesley supporters that William Wesley is immoral? I'm going to say, look, you might like William better than me.

Peter Pappas: What? Wait a minute. if he is a whore? Were you listening to some of the rumors about our campaigns? did you know? Charles Evans is a good candidate and got, you know, no, he's not like that. But anyway, go ahead, Lennie.

Lennie Friedman: So look, if I'm running in an instant runoff election and there are people that I flat out disagree, if I'm a Republican running an instant runoff Republican election and there's other Republicans that I flat out disagree and can't stand being around, and I don't like any of their policies, then sure, I'm not gonna say I agree with lot of what this person does. But that's not the case. Most of the time, there are policies that people can agree with, can align with. And unless you really have a toxic relationship, you're to say, look, I might not be your first choice. You like this person, this candidate. But let me tell you about where we agree on things. Instead of doing the scorched earth, which we currently do with our politics, Look at what happened. ⁓ I mean, just look in North Carolina. ⁓ There's been some pretty hotly contested primaries, right? Where people are saying some pretty negative things about people within their own party.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: because they've got to win at all costs. If it's more like instant runoffs, more like the caucus that Laura described, you want to convince supporters of other candidates that, I'm pretty close to what you like. If your candidate drops out, come and support me. And that changes the entire dialogue, the vitriol, the type of marketing you get, which is just a huge impact.

Peter Pappas: ⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So anything that California does though, I just disagree with. I do have a problem with that. Yeah. I don't want to identify with California in any shape or form. ⁓ So.

Lennie Friedman: Would you identify with the US military in the south because they do instant runoffs for overseas ballots?

Peter Pappas: Yeah, I can, I can go along with that one a lot better being from Fort Bragg and all we can agree with that. But, ⁓ so rank choice voting is because Laura mentioned the caucuses and all that sounds like an event to be seen, but is that something is rank choice voting something that we've gotten away from or something that was just only used sparingly throughout the country and now you see the need. was it used previously more widespread? And, and, and what are the negatives? Because I, We're speaking to you and you're for it. So you're going to give us the best, the highlights. Tell me about the negatives of Ranked Choice.

Lennie Friedman: Sure, always a great question. I'll answer and I'll answer both the questions. ⁓ It is not something that's really gone away from. It is something that is gaining steam in America. It's been around for over 100 years. Other countries use it. We use it every in everyday life. ⁓ There was a and I want to we got to follow on to that Peter that I'll get to in a second. I do want to answer Laura quite Laura's questions. ⁓ So some of the negatives that people claim that I don't you know, I'll give you a negative and I'll tell you that I disagree with.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Lennie Friedman: One negative is it's too complicated for voters to understand. Right? They don't understand, you know, how to rank people. I think that's a terrible comment. Right? 16 to 20 million Americans do it now. Go ahead.

Peter Pappas: Kind of like they can't get an ID. Same Yeah. OK, that's not one.

Lennie Friedman: We're making too big of something that's there, right? And I'm supportive of voter ID, no issue. We need it to fly a plane, we need to drive a car, we need it to get a gun, we can get it to vote,

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Now is that Lennie supporting it or is the forward party supporting the voter ID? Just to be clear.

Lennie Friedman: I can speak to the Forward Party in North Carolina. It's already in North Carolina. We have no issue with it. I can't speak to national. I can speak to North Carolina. So a North Carolina Forward Party candidate would not be trying to repeal voter ID. How about that? And yes, Lennie Friedman supports it. ⁓ So yeah, one comment is it's just too complicated, right? And we can't explain to people how to rank candidates. That's ridiculous.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay. Okay. Excellent. Okay, fair enough.

Lennie Friedman: We can rank what we want for dinner, pizza, burgers, burrito. It's not very hard. ⁓ The other negative that people talk about is it complicates ballots. I don't disagree with that. The ballot becomes bigger, right? Because you have to have selections for first, second, third, fourth, and fifth, so on and so forth. But as I mentioned, in Kingston, North Carolina, we've got a group that is dedicated to supporting ballot build-outs, explaining it. That's your second negative. Third is that you do need software to be able to handle the count. That's not a complicated count, but like any computer, you need that application on it. So we would have to update some of the software, is just software. You just update ⁓ your systems in North Carolina. Those are the three issues that people will talk

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, so the last, I think it was our pre-election show from last Monday, the second before the primary, uh, we brought up the fact there was a local article that went out regarding the, I believe it's ESS machines, the, uh, the tabulators, I think the ES 200 or 400, whatever the number is, um, that there was a software update and immediately all the conspiracy theorists just lost their minds. But the software update had happened in November of 2025. So it wasn't like right before our election, but it was misconstrued. Would you, would this be capable on the machines and stuff that we already kind of own? Or are we looking at another additional? Because it is time for our board to start buying new equipment. I was told that. So is there equipment out there now that handles this and it's just a software thing? Or are we looking at a new investment?

Lennie Friedman: So my understanding, and I am not an expert, but I have had lots of conversations on this, yeah, it should just be a simple software update. You have to buy the software, you have to install it. But then, and rightly so, I have no issues with this, then the North Carolina Board of Elections is gonna have to do testing, make sure that they've confirmed it. It's already used throughout the country, but North Carolina's gonna wanna do their own confirmation.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, so we're not starting from scratch. There are solutions out there and hopefully we can just reprogram our slow machines. How long will it take to count? Will it increase the time that it takes to count ballots? As far as ballot results and things like that.

Lennie Friedman: Correct. You have to wait for all the ballots to get in, but it's a computer program. The computer program itself doesn't take time. What takes time is every vote counts. So if you think about what's going on now with Page and Berger, you're talking about a two vote, 30 vote, every vote counts. So you got to wait for the votes to get in because if there isn't a

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: 50 % winner, then have to go through the instant runoff process.

Peter Pappas: I think Laura, what did you have the other day? 23 votes that separated now the burger and page thing. Yes. 23. We talked about it Monday. It was up to 23. So it's definitely, definitely less than 1 % in that race. And the thing about that is how you mentioned the messaging and the, the, ⁓ the vitriol of some of these campaigns. mean, burger spent quite a bit of money on his election. wouldn't be too difficult to do, ⁓ a line of your first choices.

Lennie Friedman: Yep.

Peter Pappas: line of your second choices, the line of your third choices so that the computer just sees the first Well, and I went and peeped the North Carolina Forward party page and it didn't have anything there. So I'm to tell living to get a top choice, Mark, you we would need to make sure that the software, all the computers were air gapped, obviously, and then the software was approved by both parties or all 10 parties or Green Party, Libertarian Party. Each party would have to be given a copy of the software. to make sure there's no back doors or, ⁓ know. Look, right now in North Carolina, and I'm not sure if every county uses our, so I always say, look, speak to what I know, which is Cumberland County, and you know, our machines are, there is no internet. There's not a way to plug it in. It's a thumb drive. You have to walk it to That doesn't mean that the computer program itself couldn't be corrupted. True. It's, listen, I always said that you can probably cheat in election. but we're not like Arizona here and to do it here, I think you need at least four or five people complicit per precinct. Right. If you want to really... As long as we have paper ballots, I'm good. When we start doing the only electronic, I'm out. Well, and I think some counties are still using those electronic. We got rid of them here in Cumberland County, but I think some of them still use. ⁓ and as I think about it, think Lennie's right. It's a software thing. Okay. I'm pretty sure these scanners can just scan something else, but I wonder... Who do we talk to to add something to the Forward party platform? I want to add just one thing. I want to have the ballots flipped. I want my local races first on down to the popular. Make people invest more in learning about who the hell is in their pocketbook seven days a week with property tax, sales tax, vehicle tax, all the stuff that actually impacts us. I always tell people federal government's up in my pocket once year.

Lennie Friedman: Okay. Interesting. Yep.

Peter Pappas: As a parliamentarian, I second that motion. You second that motion? I do. good night.

Lennie Friedman: I like it too, it's a great idea, right? It's nudging people to have to look at their local candidates first. I like it.

Peter Pappas: Mm Well, it just so you know, you can have that one for free, but pass it up the chain if you don't mind. That's really a having run for local offices. I think Laura and I would agree that that would help out a little bit. If only a 41 more people would have voted. Yeah, only five was like 179 away. So that's 41. So yeah, even better. So what other questions we got for Lennie? I mean, this has been been informative. I thought he was just going to choose me a new county commissioner. That's why I put him on the spot. I was like, you know, here. Well, we don't know what you do with this, don't know how we would have ⁓ that guy would have fallen off and then we don't know how they would have voted. well, of the things for the Forward party, you guys want open primaries. In other words, right now, I don't like that. I'm ⁓ down. I'm Republican, so I get a Republican ballot. If I'm unaffiliated, I get to choose. So are you advocating for basically they're just one ballot like it would be in a general election?

Lennie Friedman: ⁓ So right now in North Carolina, we have semi-closed primaries, right? So if you're an independent, you can choose to go for Republican ticket or you can choose to go to the Democratic ticket, you can't go to both. ⁓ Open primaries is certainly, think a, and I'm trying to choose my words carefully here, a bigger push on the national level. You know, the North Carolina Forward Party focuses more on term limits, anti-gerrymandering, and instant runoff.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay.

Lennie Friedman: Those are what I would say the big three are. What an open primary, the theory behind an open primary is that it forces people to have to vote for the, it forces politicians to have to communicate to all voters instead of just the voters in their party because it's the general. Longer debate, it's not something that I personally push for in North Carolina. I will talk to you all day long about instant runoffs.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lennie Friedman: ⁓ I'm pretty happy with the semi-closed primaries. I wouldn't want closed primaries because then you block out 40 % of the electorate in North Carolina because the independents couldn't vote. But I'm okay with the semi-closed primaries.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. I don't believe in open. I think that you belong to a party for a reason. And I think you should be able to elect your own representatives. I don't, I'm not a huge big fan of the semi-closed ones either. If you want to be an independent, I respect that you can vote for whomever you would please, but you pick a pick a side. ⁓ Yeah. but that's, I think that's kind of that binary thinking that the four parties trying to combat. If I'm not, I mean, is that fair to say that, you know, that's. There are benefits to having a there's a benefit to having being a member of a party, and you should be able to reap some of those benefits. And we together work towards principles. And the principles of the Republican Party are very ⁓ conservative. Conservative. So to have somebody that is. ⁓

Lennie Friedman: So, yeah, so it is, and Laura.

Peter Pappas: an independent or whatever, pull a Republican ballot in order to affect the Republican representatives. I disagree. I don't want somebody that is ⁓ pro something that I'm absolutely against, like boys and girls sports. And they're like, I'm an independent. And I know that Tom is running for office. even though he's a Republican, he's OK with boys and girls sports. So I'm going to ⁓ fix the numbers so that Tom gets to win as opposed to me as a Republican is against boys and girls sports, a thousand and twelve million percent if that's even a percentage. But yes, I don't like that. going back to my question, you know, if it was an open primary, it would the ballot would resemble that of a general election. You would have all parties on that one ballot in an open primary, right? And the Democrats have an edge over that because there are more Democrats than there are Republican.

Lennie Friedman: That was correct.

Peter Pappas: So they would have an edge and I am against. Well, in our particular situation here, know, Lennie, we have a and fifty thousand Democrat non-affiliated versus fifty thousand Republicans in Carmelite County. are the Democrats would pick our and we would not as Republicans. We would not get our they would run the table. That's exactly right. Yeah, I'm against that. That's that's why the Democrats can't win in California. ⁓

Lennie Friedman: So yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so I'm not. So I'm not. ⁓ That's why the Democrats can't win in California?

Peter Pappas: That why the Republicans can't wait to come on. There you apologize.

Lennie Friedman: got it. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go back on that. So I have a question there. And again, I'm not expert in open primaries. But ⁓ in an open primary, why do you think who wins between, I guess, if your statement was, I'm trying to understand your statement, because let's say you don't have open primaries, and you have a Republican candidate and Democratic candidate. But based on your math, if it's true that Democrats, there's more Democrats than Republicans, then the Democrat would still win in the general. So I don't know that conversation, that comment didn't make sense.

Peter Pappas: Not necessarily, but the Democrats would always win the primaries because there's more of them. And you can persuade people and independents.

Lennie Friedman: But an open primary just makes a general essentially. Sorry, Laura. It just is a general. It's not more a primary. So if your argument, if the way you described it was accurate, then regardless of having a primary, Democrats would always win based on those numbers. So it just goes right to a general. That's all an open primary is. You're just going to a general. And if the Republicans win in the general now, they would likely still win in an open primary.

Peter Pappas: Pretty much, Yeah, yeah. It will be so. I think the fear is being, you know, some people argue about the electoral college and things like that because we have safeguards built into our system such as the electoral college, but because you don't want the heavily populated, you know, urban centers of New York and Miami and LA determining for the rest of middle America, you know, so we have that college system so we prevent that. ⁓ But having an open primary would

Lennie Friedman: Yep, and I'm not anti that at all.

Peter Pappas: Essentially, like I said, we're about, I don't want to call an affiliated group with the Democrats, but I don't, you don't know how they're going to vote. So I'm just putting 50,000 Republicans against 150,000 of everybody else. And I think that would push the everybody else's to the, to the November races in an open primary. And just here in this specific use case, I think it would be detrimental to anything conservative based.

Lennie Friedman: Yeah, so let's. Yeah, so first, when you were talking about open primaries on a national level, because you brought up the Electoral College, that's a whole different argument, right? Like that is a completely different thing. And if you look at the North Carolina Forward Party and even the National Forward Party, they don't mention anything about getting rid of the Electoral College. That's not a discussion, right? And we certainly don't have it here.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. you... I'm just using it as a safeguard in our system that's been built in. Let me put it for an example like this. Okay, you have 100,000 Democrats and you have 50,000 Republicans. Okay? You're making it possibly so that a Republican can't even select a Republican because that 150,000 Democrats will pick their first choice as a Democrat and their second choice as a Democrat. And the Republicans...

Lennie Friedman: Yep. Okay.

Peter Pappas: can't even get to the 50 % and we never get a chance to even go up against the Democrat because those hundred thousand will pick their first choice and their second choice and they will get to 50 % prior to the Republican. We take care of ours, you take care of yours and we meet in the middle of the general. Just a thought.

Lennie Friedman: No, I appreciate that. I guess, and this is where I'm not an advocate for open primaries, so I could be explaining it wrong. But to me, an open primary, you're getting rid of primaries. It's just a general, right? Like you just have a flat out general. So there is no second. It's just the general, right? We're not going to have primaries. We're just going to have a general election. And by that definition, Laura, if you were right, by those numbers, the Republican would never win. And in North Carolina, they do, right? They win strongly.

Peter Pappas: Yeah. Yeah.

Lennie Friedman: So I'm not here to advocate for open primaries. I haven't talked about open primaries, but my understanding with open primary is it's it's just a general

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay. Well, I'm going to leave you with this. I'm going to ask you. So a lot of Americans, they say they're frustrated with major parties, but frustration alone does not build a movement. We've seen it. What would you say to a North Carolina voter who likes the idea of a political reform, but they're still worried that supporting a third party candidate could be throwing away their vote? How do you respond to that?

Lennie Friedman: That's why we need instant runoffs because with instant runoffs, you don't throw away your vote. That's the whole point. And by having a actionable third party, especially on the local levels, right? So it's one thing to talk about, you know, winning the governorship or winning a state senator. But if you want to vote for someone to be mayor of Concord or Fayetteville or Holly Springs,

Peter Pappas: OK. Mm-hmm. Sure.

Lennie Friedman: then a third party has a really good chance and they're the ones that are going to impact your day to day. ⁓ So by having a forward party on the ballot and in local elections, you really have a chance to make a dent and then you start building and then the party starts building momentum and has the ability to make more statewide change.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, I think it's about that time. We've, been chatting for about 40 minutes now. We did pretty good. Lennie. ⁓ was nice having you. So Mr. Lennie Friedman of the North Carolina Forward party. ⁓ we appreciate you joining us today. Mrs. Laura Mussel. Thank you for fighting the sickness and illness and being here today. My pleasure. ⁓ to everybody watching, please go to the Carolina cabinet.com for all of our episodes and links. We'll be returning Monday evening at 6 PM. See you then. See you then. Have a good evening.

Lennie Friedman: Great, great. Great, thanks guys.