Ramon Perez & Dan Williams: Launching Digital Democracy in Florida's 11th

Ramon Perez, Executive Director of the Digital Democracy Project, returns to Bald Ambition six months after his first appearance, and this time he's joined by Dan Williams, a Democratic candidate for Florida's 11th Congressional District, who built his entire campaign around Ramon's technology.

Williams, a longtime Disney technologist and current mobile app instructor at Full Sail University, built his own direct democracy app before discovering the Digital Democracy Project already existed and had solved the hardest part: secure, verified mobile voting through Voatz, the same system used by military voters overseas. The two partnered up, and Williams built his entire platform, Ask America, around a genuinely unusual pledge. For every major bill, he will release a plain-facts educational video explaining both sides, hold a district-wide vote through the app, and then cast his official Congressional vote however the majority decides, regardless of his own personal opinion.

Perez and Williams walk through the mechanics in real detail: how voter identity gets verified against state voter files without the campaign ever storing personal data, how the votes get recorded on a blockchain using homomorphic encryption so no one, including Perez and Williams themselves, can see how any individual voted, and how AI now helps the Digital Democracy Project translate dense, deliberately confusing legislation (like an 1,100-page bill) into plain-language summaries with real pros and cons.

Underneath the mechanics, Perez and Williams make a bigger case: they've created a concrete answer to a problem most people only complain about. Perez traces today's dysfunction to gerrymandered districts and low-turnout primaries dominated by ideological extremes, leaving most Americans feeling unrepresented regardless of who wins. He argues that transparent, verified voter input at true scale hasn't existed since ancient Athens, since direct democracy never scaled past the city-state until now. Both point to corruption: a lobbyist can buy one undecided vote, but nobody can buy 800,000 constituents, so a representative bound to district results becomes structurally insulated from Washington's influence. The pitch answers two of the most common complaints in American politics at once: that money buys outcomes, and that nobody's really listening. 

The conversation also digs into the campaign realities of running this way: losing PAC support because Williams can't guarantee his vote to anyone, the challenge of explaining a genuinely new idea to voters used to picking a side, and why Williams believes a centrist, transparency-first platform gives him a real shot at winning a heavily Republican-leaning district that traditional Democratic campaigns have lost for thirty years straight.

The Guests

Ramon Perez is the Executive Director of the Digital Democracy Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses secure mobile voting technology to let verified constituents weigh in on active legislation, then compares that input against how their representatives actually vote.

Dan Williams is a Democratic candidate for Florida's 11th Congressional District. A technologist and educator with a 25-year background at Disney and current faculty at Full Sail University, he is running on a Direct Democracy platform built in partnership with the Digital Democracy Project. Florida's primary election is August 18th. 

Get out there and vote, and check out their tech: 

Learn more: https://digitaldemocracyproject.org
Follow the campaign: https://danwilliamsforcongress.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello and welcome to Bald Ambition. I'm your still very bald host, Mookie Spitz, and I've got a couple folks with tons of ambition. Back at the end of February. We dug in deep. And now you're making it happen with an actual candidate. With the election coming up, Florida's 11th district candidate on the Democrat side, Mr. Dan Williams. Welcome to the next one. Thanks for having us on. Yeah, thank you. This is exciting because I often get guests who have high-minded ideas. They've got a lot that they're thinking about. And what was refreshing, Ramon, is you're making it happen. And I'll let you describe the project and its unique approach to bringing transparency to the American election and legislative process. But you're not only making it happen that way, but you've got a candidate who's plugged in using the app. And as I understand it, Dan, you're already differentiating yourself in the primaries using this app and the technology to bring transparency to your constituents.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Yeah, absolutely. This is going to be a first time it's going to be tried at a federal level. I'll let Ramon explain it first and then I'll chime in a little bit later.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Mickey, good to see you again. You're even uh balder and more beautiful than the last time I saw you. So yeah, appreciate you. Appreciate you having me back here.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

You need to make the full move, Ramon. I I see I see a little peach fuzz going on underneath your headphones there.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I just I gotta I gotta commit to it, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

I just and Dan is here with a full buffant making us miss the memo, or else I would have shaved my head for the interview, but uh next time.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I've had this for a while. Uh it's it's your flavor saver. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Um everybody always tells me I look like Jimmy Kimmel with it. Uh nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

As a reminder for your audience for the last time we spoke, uh, Digital Democracy Project is a nonprofit organization, but we're using real election software. Uh it's mobile voting software produced by a company called Votes, V O A T Z. Um, was made for military voters overseas to vote by phone in areas where it's really difficult to get an absentee ballot through the mail. So it's been certified for real elections. It's being used in several states as well as Mexico and Canada. They've done about 150 elections with this mobile voting software. I happen to think voting by phone is the future. It's not even the future, it's already present. It's just that we're not a supervisor of elections, so we're not um doing binding elections. What we're doing is we are letting people weigh in on legislation that's actively being debated in Congress by tracking the bills that are that are moving um through the committee process that are gonna make it to the floor of the House, the ones that are high priority bills that look like they're getting uh talked about a lot and moving through the system, and then we put that into the mobile voting app so that verified registered voters who have verified in the same way that you would in an in the election process. You verify with the photo ID, it's gotta match your selfie scan, it's gotta match the where you're registered with the state on the voter file. We get the voter files for the state. So we know that these are real human beings, we know that they're not deep fakes or bots, we know that they are actually uh US citizens and that they reside in the specific congressional district. And so that way, when they weigh in on a bill that's being debated, we provide the aggregated results by congressional district live on our map, on our maps on our website. Um, and then congressmen can see what their district wants on every bill before they go and take a vote on the floor of the house. And so the value to the legislator is that they get real live input from their district that is verified, which is something they don't currently have because currently they're inundated with emails, which are increasingly AI generated. So they don't trust any of those. Um, and they get phone calls, but they don't know if these folks are actually in their district. So we're giving them some real valuable input, but the values of the voters is we also compare what the voters wanted in the app and what the legislator actually did on the floor in Congress. So every congressman gets a scorecard that says, here's what your people wanted, here's what you actually did. How often did you match that? So they're getting graded on democracy. We're not providing a scorecard like the NRA or the Sierra Club. We're providing a scorecard against your own district. So if you're in a red district or blue district, it's irrelevant to us. You're just being graded on, did you do what your voters wanted you to do? And I think it's worth uh Mookie probably doing me the standard throat clearing here, which is that we don't endorse any candidates or political parties or even take a position on any pos on any bill. We just provide the platform. And then uh Dan Williams um, you know, found found us and he's already a technologist himself, and he said, Well, you know what? I'm gonna run for office on this concept, so maybe I'll I'll uh kick it to you, Dan. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

So the cool part is is they don't endorse people, but candidates can endorse Digital Democracy Project. So it's kind of the other way around, so which keeps them impartial, which I think is a really important part of what they're actually doing. Now, my background is I'm a teacher and an engineer. So background in technology and education. And so when I first started thinking about running for this race, um I wanted to try something completely different because I live in a very red district. And so most of the people that represent me are Republicans, and I myself am a Democrat. And so when I had ideas or suggestions, there was no one for me to reach out to. Not even my local one or even my senators, because both my senators are Republican as well. So I started trying to figure out how people that don't match their elected officials' party are still heard. And I couldn't figure that out because I started actually reaching out to other representatives around my district, like Maxwell Frost. But the problem with other trying to get a hold of other representatives that aren't in your district is most of their forms are geolocked. Where if you don't live in their district, then you can't send them an email. And so I actually tried every single Democrat in the whole entire House of Representatives, and four people of them allowed me to send them an email. Of those three, I got back, thank you, but you're not in my district, and the one I never got a response to. So I started trying to figure out a better way of doing it. And that's when I came up with a direct democracy system, which I actually called Ask America because I think it sounded really good. And as a teacher, I actually teach computer programming for mobile apps and websites over at Full Sale University here in Winter Park. And I just started building it. And so I built the whole entire background of it, I built the framework of it, and then I put it out online as a video. And as soon as I put it out there, my competitor actually responded saying, This is not a new idea. They already do this, but I had already known the Digital Democracy Project because I did my research. And so I watched uh Ramon's TED Talk and I really loved what they were doing. But I never thought about partnering with them. And so it was great because Sadie, who's their 501c4 uh person, actually reached out and said, Hey, if you're doing this, have you seen our stuff and would you like to partner together on it? And I jumped at the chance because their voting technology is fantastic and it's already done. Their security is top-notch at military-level grade. So of course I wanted to be a part of that. And so I've been just trying to support them any way I can because I'm trying to give the power back to the people directly. So my plan of attack is to always vote with the majority every single time for every single vote, because I don't think it's right that one person should speak for 800,000 of us without ever asking our opinion. Like that made sense back when America was formed, because you would tell them your opinion, put them on a horse, and then they would ride to DC. Like we've come quite far since then, and it just doesn't make sense that we're not keeping up with the times.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

This sounds like a Reese's Buttercups podcast. Two two great tapes. You got peanut butter in my chocolate. So, Dan, in summary, you're you're a technologist and a teacher. I understand you've got a background in Disney doing some of their tech. You're in the 11th district, right outside Orlando.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Absolutely. So I worked for Disney for 25 years. So that's actually what got me down to Florida in the first place because I'm actually from Indiana originally. But I came down here on the college program two different summers, where I worked at the um Tower of Terror the first time as a freaky bellhop assistant. Quite fun. Then I came down as a character the next time, and then after that I finished my degree and then I moved down here permanently. And then I worked for Disney University, which is where everybody gets trained at for Disney. But my job was unique because it was for the building itself. So anything that had to do with the Disney University fell in our domain for my department. And so one day they would be like, hey, we need to read you this room. Can you make a 30-foot wall mural? And I was like, okay. So I have design skills as well. So I made a 30-foot wall mural. And then that got put up there. And then the next day they come over and were like, we need you to completely write a software from scratch for our procurement system that's going to keep track of everything that we buy. So I did that. And every other day it was bouncing back and forth. Um, and it was just a really fantastic opportunity. And while I was at Disney, I got involved in the theater group. So I actually became the uh marketing chair for Disney's community theater. And there I met somebody that was also adjunct teaching. And so I had just started teaching at Disney with um the Microsoft products, so like Excel and Access. And so he's like, why don't you go over and teach with my program? Because we're actually looking for someone with graphic skills that has a fashion background as well. Because I also am a sewer and I've been sewing for, oh God, like almost 30 years now. And I actually took all the design classes that they teach. And so I did. And so I became a fashion instructor for about six months until a position became available to actually lead the whole entire multimedia department. And so I auditioned for that, I got that job, and then I went part-time at Disney, and then I became a full-time educator, and then I did that for the last 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

And your educating is in mobile apps also, if I did my homework. You teach you teach gadgetry and gizmos, which fits into how you created your own app, and then you came to Ramon and said, I got an app and you got an app. Let's tap that app.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Absolutely. So I've taught a lot of different stuff over the years. Everything from video production to audio production to graphic design, illustrator, Photoshop. I taught web design. I can code and like see, I teach JavaScript, React, a lot of different stuff. Because I'm always a curious cat. And if I don't know how to do something, I learn how to do it because I'm one of those kind of people that I just I'm always curious about how to do things.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

So kind of lad me down the back. You need to come over. I bet you're a good cook, too.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

The funny thing is, I don't have to be. Luckily, my partner is a Michelin star chef.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Uh, and so then both you guys come over.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Yeah, exactly. I'll bring him.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

He'll he's a much better renaissance guy of technology and it sounds like pedagogy and communication, which fits perfectly to Ramon and his program putting together this transparency initiative for the electorate. I do want to emphasize what what Ramon brought up, which is it's nonpartisan. Uh if you're on YouTube, you see me in my purple fuchsia-esque polo shirt that I wore for you guys. It's not blue, it's not red, it's purple or fuchsia, depending on your uh preference. I'll change mine to purple too. Now we need to. And that I think is very, very important. So it's nonpartisan. You though are running as a Democrat, and it's a tight playing field. You've got two competitors coming up for the 18. Yep. Royal Webster and Barbie Hansen, if I've got it right.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Uh no, actually it was Barbie Harden Hall, but she had to drop up for medical reasons. And so when she dropped out, a new guy jumped in named James Pericola. Um, and so he actually jumped in right two days before the deadline. And so it's actually Royal Webster and James Pericola are the other two. But luckily, yeah, our whole entire district is very red. And so District 11 is kind of like Central Florida. The villages. The villages, all about that way. It's like Mount Dora, it's Claremont, it's a lot of that. And um, right now we're about 40% Republican, 30% Democrat, and 30% independent. And the key thing about winning this seat in November, which is what we're looking forward to, not just the primary in, let's see, 12 days, but who's gonna be able to take that seat in November? And the secret is to not only get all the Democrats, but to get all of the nonpartisan people as well, right? Or no party affiliation. And I think my platform is positioned to do that more than anyone else's. Because I always like to say that my platform of direct democracy is squarely in the center. But me personally, my views are very left. So my idea for it is to make a video, an educational video for every bill that we're gonna be voting on. So every major law or bill, kind of like what Ramone said. And then I'm gonna explain exactly what happens to vote yes and no using only facts instead of any kind of political party messaging. Because I feel like a lot of time the party that puts the bill in always tells you the good stuff, and the opposing party always tells you the bad stuff. But the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, and people have to know both sides of it in order to judge what is best for themselves. And there's not a good place that can actually do that. And I would like to be that kind of truth source for those uh my district. And then at the end of the video, I will be giving my opinion, but it'll be clearly marked as opinion about what I think is best for our district. And then after that, we're gonna have a vote, and then we're gonna be using Ramon's platform of Digital Democracy Project, and whatever that majority opinion is becomes my vote up in DC. Now, the cool thing about it is it finally gives people a voice because right now, whatever the majority is, or whoever holds that seat, more than 50% of people feel disenfranchised. Because if a Republican takes it, then the 40% of Republicans are happy, but the rest of everybody's not. And so there's always gonna be that divide where it's usually about 50% of people aren't represented. And I'm trying to change that because if your platform is in the center, I value everyone's opinion because I think my opinion is just as valuable as yours and just as valuable as Ramon's. And I want to make sure that everybody feels like it's counted. And that's also the good thing about the system that Ramon built is when somebody votes, you can actually see that live tally also click up. So you know that your vote is counted and it's there. And I love that. And I think it's really gonna re-energize people to get back more into politics. So instead of paying attention every two years when we need your vote to get into that office, you're gonna be able to vote on any bill that is also important to you.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Ramon, how how does this shake out in terms of providing that differentiation to Dan, both in the primaries and hopefully in the general that'll be coming up? And how do you see this as a bridgehead opportunity for your project to become increasingly entrenched as a go-to?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

First of all, I think we're not necessarily building this so that our project can be entrenched, we're building this because there are fundamental and systemic problems in American democracy right now that need to be resolved. And I think it's gonna take a full-scale community effort to do that. The American people have to take back responsibility and agency in a process where they've been increasingly disenfranchised by the many, many layers of people that stand between us and our system of power. So the technology we believe enables this for the first time basically since ancient Athens. I mean, it's not a new concept. It's just that it, you know, we it it's very difficult to scale from a city-state to uh empire size republics, and that's why we gave up on direct democracy a long time ago, not because it was a bad idea, it's because it didn't scale. And so now technology gives us the capacity to do uh what hasn't been done in 3,000 years, and I think that's incredibly exciting. I think Dan will be the first of many. Um actually, our earliest uh supporters were Florida Republicans. Um so, like we say, it's not partisan. It is we've we've talked with uh Republicans, Democrats, independents, you know, forward party, working families party. I think there's a lot of people excited about this. There are also a lot of people who are scared of this. Dan can tell you how much resistance he's been getting from inside the party establishment. Um there is there is, you know, he's in a primary. I mean, people who vote in a primary are hardcore ideologues and are not necessarily interested in hearing everybody's opinions. And I think that um what's on the ballot August 18th is do people believe in democracy or do they believe in their own points of view? And that's what we're gonna find out. We're we're asking primary voters to um one, acknowledge the fact that no Democrat's gonna win the seat in November anyway, which is kind of hard for people sometimes. And two, um, to say, you know what, democracy is more important. We need to, we really need to reform the underlying system rather than continuing to do the same thing in every election cycle and hope for different results. Um, you know, it's been I always tell people that that's the definition of insanity.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

So I'm like, how many people are happy with our current party? And then no one raises their hands. And I'm like, then why are we voting for the same kind of people every single time, expecting a different outcome? That's the definition of insanity. And everybody stops and thinks about it, and they're like, oh, so we need new options, and I think this is sorry to interrupt, Roman.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

You need a non-traditional person to to run and win in this primary to take on um the incumbent party in the fall, because you're not gonna do it doing the same thing over and over again. So I do think that I do think that uh if Dan can be successful, it certainly imagine if Dan is successful and the next time we have an Iran War Powers resolution or deciding on a funding for ICE or deciding on the one big beautiful bill, if everybody in the country goes to their respective tribal corners and there's one district in America, Florida 11th, where the people get to decide. I mean, think about the think about the messaging uh and the narrative around that. There's one district in America that basically could break at a completely split Congress because that's the one place where people actually get a say, and in every other district, which are gerrymandered all to hell, there is no real competition anyway, and it's the parties deciding. Um, and and they just go to their entrenched positions.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

I want to add on to that real quick because that's actually my ultimate goal as well. So my goal is the same as Ramon's, where I think I am gonna be the first and prove that it exists and it can work. And then after that, I want to partner with other potential candidates that are gonna be wanting to do the same exact thing. And that's where I don't mind training them and making sure that they have all the tools that I had to make them succeed as well. Because ultimately, I would love to have that swing majority in the middle, where the left people are always gonna vote left, the right people always vote right. But if that swing part in the center can actually make those decisions for us, and if that comes directly from the American people, that is huge for our democracy.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Allow me to quote Uncle Ben from Spider-Man with great power comes great responsibility. Ramon, you and I spoke about this when you were on the pod six months ago, and that is the onus that we're placing ostensibly on the electorate by empowering them with this tool. So you got to download the app, then you gotta check the app. The app does a wonderful job cross-referencing bills with votes, but it demands much more active participation than once every two or four years showing up at a polling booth and maybe doom scrolling the day's headlines. So within your district specifically, Dan, the 11th, the villages community, it's mostly, frankly, white, fairly affluent. It's got the highest percentage of homeownership in the state and arguably across most of the country. So you've got this bedrock of Republican, mostly conservatives, right? You do have a lot of independence to your point. But what would motivate people to use a tool which could provide all these benefits? It's on-the-end user, right? So what part of the campaign and what part of the digital democracy program focuses on this kind of onboarding, which is participate, dive in, spend more time and energy, vested in this process that's so vital to maintaining freedom and democracy in the country.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Love that you actually started with an Uncle Ben quote because one quick fun fact um Stanley, the guy that wrote that, uh, I was actually on a TV show with him on the sci-fi channel. It was 20 years ago where we were superheroes, and it was called Who Wants to be a Superhero, where I was um on that as part of I remember that show. Yep. So I was actually on that with him, and so uh I have a big uh spot in my heart for Stan and Spider-Man, of course, because I'm a I'm a total comic book nerd. Now, back to your actual question. Uh, the reason that people will try to use this more and more is the educational aspect of it. So, kind of like you were saying, where a lot of people just read the headlines and that's it, or they're very checked out from what politics is, because up until this point, we have these bills that aren't easy to understand, and they're written that way on purpose because people don't know if they're voting against their best interests or not. And when we actually go out and talk to people, uh, we agree on a ton of different stuff. So there's a um a pack out there, not a pack, but an actual like um group of people called the American People's Compact. And what they do is they do research based on political leanings and different policies and topics. And so they actually endorsed me because every one of their topics that they've researched has 80% or more um agreement across all Americans. And so that's the kind of stuff that we're trying to get at. And so a lot of people are scared because they think that the minority might take over it, right? And they think, oh, well, MAGA can kind of intercept because there's 40% MAGA. So what's to stop them from controlling how you vote? But that's not a majority, right? A majority is 51%, not 40%. And so a lot of people kind of hear the news and they think that all Republicans are voting the same. They all have hard lines on all these kind of topics, and that's not true. So I've been out at the events talking to everyone across the board, including Republicans. And we actually agree on a lot more stuff than you would think. Because the people that kind of you hear all the time, that's about all of the really far right, right? That is a very small minority, and a lot of people just don't agree with it. And so when politicians say that they have a mandate to do something, I plan on proving that we have a mandate of doing something. Instead of actually just saying it, I will show you the data about how many people call in, how many people want this to happen or want me to block it. And I think that transparency is what people start to want right now, because transparency across all levels of government should be a given. And right now it's not. And especially in Congress, you can actually do a FOIA request, because usually a FOIA request is a Freedom of Information Act, which you can actually use as a transparency tool to get information from the government. And a lot of reporters tend to do it. But I was actually trying to get the call logs of uh Daniel Webster, who currently sits in the CD 11 seat. And the the actual like House of Representatives and Senate are not bound by FOIA. So I could not have any of their call-in data to prove that they had a mandate for voting that they wanted to do. So I think the transparency and education of being able to break down these complex bills into actual simple things that people can understand and then vote on is a huge win across the board, no matter what party you are.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

So you're saying basically that the structure of the app and simplifying complex bills and empowering people is an incentive in and of itself to engage with the technology.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

It's not only that that, but it's the ability to know that your voice is heard because a lot of times you're going to call into your senator and then they just go, okay, it's noted. And then what happens with that? There's no follow-up. And that follow-up is extremely important as well. So one of the other aspects I would like to do is make a follow-up video after the vote explaining how many people voted their way and explain why they voted that way, or what I've been hearing about the comments about why people chose to vote one way or another. I know Ramon was going to say something too. You want to chime in?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah, I was going to say as part of as part of our product design, we try to make the bills easy to understand and approach. Well, I think AI has been incredibly powerful in this because at the beginning of our project, um, I hired a Republican and a Democrat who had um Capitol Hill experience to read the legislation and write summaries in plain language because these are esoteric legal documents, they're very difficult to understand. Most of the legislators don't read them because they don't understand them. Uh they actually, this is one of the reasons why lobbyists basically write everything, is because the legislators don't understand them themselves and uh they're incredibly dense. The One Big Beautiful bill is like 1100 pages. So on purpose. Well, yeah, and a lot of sections that hide important things that are that are, you know, and journalists are trying to dig through this at you know at the 11th hour to before a vote. It's it's a mess right now. So what AI has done is incredibly um powerful because it has sped up our ability to rapidly read and dissect the key aspects of a bill and put that on the screen for people to say, here's uh not only a summary of the bill, but here are uh some pros and cons in a nonpartisan way of what this bill would do for people who support it or people who oppose it. Um here's the impact if you vote yes or no. These are the following things that would happen. And also here are a list of organizations that we found on the on the web that have put out a press release or a public statement saying they support or oppose this bill. So you can get a sense of which organizations are kind of behind it, supporting it, pushing it forward, which ones aren't. And and it just gives as much information as we can find. I think AI is incredibly powerful for scanning across the whole internet and trying to bring those insights to the right moment at the right time to make the right decision. Um, so yeah, we have incredible tools now that just would not have been possible before.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yep. How have you plugged in this differentiation into your campaign, Dan? So it's it's one step at a time. You got to defeat your Democrat rivals to get to the general. And then once you get to the general, then it's a whole different playing field up against your Republican rival. So, as I understand it, you're you're driving with your partnership here the idea of transparency, active participation. You're the candidate who will ensure that the 11th district of Florida gets their voice heard. Yep. How's that playing out creatively and in terms of messaging for your campaign?

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Yeah. And so that kind of one distinguishing factor is huge in a race like this. Because usually, when you're running on a primary, a lot of us have the same ideals, right? We're all for Medicare, we're all for Social Security, we're all for affordability. But you need something that puts you apart from everybody else, right? And so the other two people in my race, uh, one is a lobbyist and a lawyer, and the other one is a teacher and vet. And so, but there are more traditional Democrats. And so they're gonna be fighting with each other all the time, where I'm kind of over here because my platform is completely different. But the downside of that is you have to explain that to everybody. So I am everywhere. I'm at every single event that I can possibly book a table at, I'm at every Dem meeting, but I'm at everywhere that people are. So, for example, I was always at farmers markets, just out there with my clipboard, trying to pass out my postcards to literally anyone that would stop and talk to me. And the thing that I found is when you're not in a democratic or political meeting, people are normal. And you know what? When you tell them, hey, I want your opinion and I'm gonna value that opinion, people stop and listen because it's something different and new. And so a lot of kind of what Ramon was saying before, I'm having trouble with like the established Dems because they're like, well, if you're not gonna vote my way, then why are you even a Democrat? And I'm like, because my ideals are a Democrat. My my personal opinions are left, my my platform is centered where it should be, because we need to make sure that no matter what representative is in there, they represent the whole entire district. And I think we need something like this in order to do it. And when you start explaining it like that, people start coming around. But the main thing is education, which luckily I like, right? And my background is also video production. And so I make a ton of educational videos across the board because that's what I do right now at work at full sale. So I've made 72 videos about JavaScript, which I'll tell you right now, not that fun and interesting at first. So you have to make that come on, man. Vibecode that stuff, right? Uh so you need to make sure that it's educational but still entertaining. And so I use my Disney background of edutainment, which is educational, but it's still entertaining, and that's kind of the key secret for it. So if you make something actually watchable, people will watch it, and they might happen to learn along the way.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

And are you you learning some of the tips of the trade, Ramon, in terms of uh making the technology sexier and more enticing from Dan? You guys comparing notes. How's the symbiotic relationship shaking out since you guys partnered up?

SPEAKER_02 31:10

Yeah, I would hear this too.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

I will say that you know, having a college professor as a super user, it puts a lot of pressure on me. You guys are great. I gotta get it right. I gotta keep pushing, keep pushing code. In fact, like I need to hang up with you guys early and ship some code. So I um, but yeah, it's uh I think actually he's given us tremendous, um, really valuable input into how people respond and like what we don't do well, what we do do well, how we can, how we can smooth over rough edges. I think the number one barrier to entry is that we do require a photo ID that matches a selfie and finds you on the voter file. And that's tough for people because they don't want to give up that information. They if they feel icky about it, and I 100% understand that. Um that of course the the premise is that if we can't guarantee the security and the veracity of the voter, we cannot trust the data that comes out of the other end of it. So that's the key trade-off. So what we try to do is also provide lots of other educational components on our website about the bills, like I was saying before, um, the vote records of all the legislators, which a lot of people actually it actually is very hard to find. Nobody wants to scan through Congress.gov to figure out was this a motion on the recommit to the Judiciary Committee, or was this a motion on the passage of the bill on an up or down floor vote, or was this you know, was this a closure vote? Like there's a lot that we actually do to even figure out which motions matter for the final passage of a bill, which you would think would be a super clear and obvious thing, to just get how did your legislators vote on it on this bill? That's something journalists actually spend a lot of time digging through. And unfortunately, um most of the newsrooms have been gutted, so you just don't have a lot of beat reporters in Tallahassee anymore. There's still plenty in Washington, but you don't have a lot of beat reporters who are actually covering political journalism like you did, you used to be able to do. So you don't get as much in-depth analysis about particular pieces of legislation. It's usually the top five most salacious bills, and everything else gets ignored. And we're trying to actually do in a lot of ways a public service of bringing some kind of citizen journalism back to even understanding what is your legislator doing in your name.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

I want to kind of chime in on that too, real quick. So the thing about what Ramon is saying is when you're getting verified, right? You do have to scan your information. But Ramon, can you talk a little bit about what happens on the blockchain about how we kind of delete that information? Because I think that's an important part that I want people to know about.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah, votes as not only policy, but by design, they don't keep the identities. They use the identity, they they they use they match the face against your selfie and do like a liveness check to make sure you're not a deep fake. Um, there's a barcode scanner on the back of IDs where they can actually pull that data and match that against the voter file. So it's an automated process and then it deletes the image. If it doesn't match, people move, they don't change their voter registration. Sometimes that happens. Um then it goes into a manual queue where one of their staff has to look at it and try to find it on the voter file. But otherwise, it's it's the same process they use for real elections where they've been state ramp certified in all the states where they operate it. So we're relying on their uh verification system and we never actually see any of that information. The other thing is when you when you cast your ballot, you get a you basically when you identify yourself, you're given a cryptographic token that allows you to place a ballot onto a blockchain. And so the blockchain works by having several immutable copies of the blockchain so that no one individual or super admin can manipulate the vote records. That's how you guarantee that a vote that's cast is a vote that's counted, and um and so there are independent auditors who have copies of the blockchain for that reason. And that also um it's encrypted, so it uses a system called homomorphic encryption, which allows them to have an encrypted record on the blockchain uh where you can still add votes together, but you can't see that Mookie voted yes and Ramon voted no and Dan you know abstained. So we again we can't see how individuals vote either. So we have no way to know that one of us supports the Iran War Powers resolution and the other one doesn't. Um, that's not available to us. It's actually not, it's it's it's not visible uh because of the way encryption works. All we know is that each of us is verified and is confirmed to live in our districts, and that's all we need to know.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Yeah, I would agree with that because I always explain it like you have to verify yourself once, and then they basically give you a card, like it's called the token, but picture like a credit card that says, Hey, I'm a voter in this district, and you don't need to know anything else about me, but you know that I am a voter in your district, and then they can vote using that, and so we know where it's coming from, but we don't know who it is, right? The other great thing about um the Digital Democracy Project is a ton of it, like 90% of that whole entire website, you don't have to log in for. So if you just want to go research things, you can do it. You can click on your bills, you can click on the scorecards and see the representatives and just scroll through and find that information. You can also see the live polls and live tallies without ever logging in. So a lot of people that kind of might be scared at first to kind of do that selfie thing can get used to it before you do anything else. So you know exactly what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Link in the description below, folks. Send everyone there. Digital democracy project. So you guys plug into the blockchain, but it's decentralized, it's anonymized, and yet it's redundant and authoritative. So it's got all the hallmarks of, frankly, crypto and all the benefits at the same time. And it's a way where you can guarantee that participants are legit, they are who they say they are. You're creating transparency between the legislator and the electorate, and yet you're keeping participants, their voting, their personal information completely separate and anonymous.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

I gotta say, you nailed it. You nailed it.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

I got one big question for you, Dan, which I think listeners and viewers are probably thinking about. You're bringing transparency. So let's say you win. Yep. Let's definitely say that. I see your portrait there hanging on the wall. Yep. And uh, you're in a sense guaranteeing transparency, and you made the statement that you're gonna have every voter in the 11th district have their voice heard, you're gonna be accountable. It's not your opinion, but it's the opinion of the electorate. Now, you describe yourself as a centrist in ways, and in other ways, you are more Democrat on certain policy issues. What about that disconnect between you representing your Democrat base and then what would be arguably considered a majority Republican or right-leaning bloc in your own district? How do you reconcile transparency with accountability with representation? And you might be bringing transparency, but you obviously can't fulfill everyone's need all the time. You're you're a Democrat.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Yeah, absolutely. So the main thing that's gonna be different from everybody else is normally when you get up there, you vote on party lines all the time. And so very rarely does anyone not, right? Um, but what happens is is that becomes like a rubber stamp then. And I don't want to be that type of rep uh representative. And honestly, there's always good and bad parts of every bill, and a lot of people just don't talk about it that way. And I'm not sure why, right? Because as like a normal concerned citizen, I would like to understand the bill, not just hear the good parts, not just hear the bad parts. And so by being a centrist on my platform, I want to make sure that everyone knows that all opinions are valid. Because once you start discounting people, then you're not representing them. And I find that to be a huge flaw in our system right now across the country, right? So that by itself is already disenfranchising half the population right off the bat, right? And so I'm trying to change that to make sure that I am accountable and that I am an actual representative of our people. And I get that we have a 40% Republican base. But the thing is, is a lot of people vote against their best interests because they don't understand what's going on, right? Or they vote for someone based on one issue, but when another issue comes up, they have no idea how they're going to be based on that. For example, how many people would have asked their representative about a war in Iran before a war in Iran ever broke out? Zero, right? So how would you ever know how that person felt about that? You wouldn't. You're voting on the person's vibes more than their actual opinions on things. And what this does is it says, hey, whatever we're doing, you still get a say on every major topic. And I think that's huge for people. And so I get that it's gonna be very right and left. And the first person to ask me that was my own nephew. He when I told him my plan, he's like, wait, how are you gonna vote against you or what what you personally believe? And I'm like, why do you think that my vote should count more than yours? And then he's like, hmm, I don't have a good explanation for that. And I'm like, that's because it doesn't. What I believe and you believe we're both valid. We're coming at it for different things. And the problem is, is with a with a constituency of 800,000 people, which is about what we have in every single district here in Florida, we're gonna have so many differences in race, religion, uh, sex, different topics, like everything you can possibly think of. And you're never gonna find someone that matches every single one of your interests. It's impossible because you can't do it. And so we need someone that kind of separates their personal being from how they vote. And I think that's really important to have that separation because I plan on voting in the center, right? Because I'll vote with the majority. Me personally, all my opinions are very left. Like I am very progressive in my nature, but I will give those opinions in my videos. But ultimately, I will give you also facts so you can make up your own mind because it's not for me to make up your mind for you.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah, I want to add to that too, which is that I I'm as we've seen the data, you know, we've carried like 900 or so bills so far. We've been doing this for uh this is this was our fourth legislative session in Florida, and then we went to federal bills, uh, you know, we've done like two 118th and 119th Congress. So as we're seeing kind of data come in, I think what we find is there's no such thing as left and right. I think that is an entirely artificial construct that is foisted upon us by a two-party system and a media apparatus that sort of gloms on to that two-party system and tries to put every single topic that comes up into that framing. It is, it is honestly just sort of a lazy framing, and most people simply do not exist in that world. If you talk to, I mean, there is no better example of this right now than Israel-Gaza and their war on Iran. It splits both parties, right? That you could have an entire uh, in fact, in the this is really interesting. In the election on Tuesday, um, the Michigan primary, a bunch of MAGA voters, this is an open primary in Michigan, right? A bunch of MAGA voters ended up voting for Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary because they agree with his position on Israel and the war in Iran, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Or they wanted him to win because he's a more extreme candidate and has less likelihood of success in the general.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

You could argue this there's a strategic, there's a strategic as well, uh, but the the reality is that people have very wide experiences in their own lives, their own communities, their own beliefs about the world, their religion, their their you know, their race, their demographics, whatever. And nobody fits neatly into these buckets, and we continue to try to pretend that that's true, and we and we now have a mechanism to actually prove it with real data. So I think that's what's most exciting.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Yeah, another segment where you have this kind of fracturing and perceived chaos is the Latin community. Especially in Florida, you've got a lot of short circuiting of policy and uh and opinion between left and right. Right between social issues and economic ones, between foreign policy and domestic. And I find that very, very interesting too. And Ramon, you and I were talking about this disconnect that exists also between the social media reality of all the misinformation and bloviation, creating this perception of opinion and what people actually believe when they're given the opportunity to match up those beliefs with legislation. So that's what you were hinting at, Dan, which is uh if you can open up the door to that, then you've got transparency that'll ensure that people's voices are heard and you as a legislator could better represent them.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Yeah. So I have been dealing with all of the candidates for CD 11 right now. So we actually have a couple different events where all the Republicans, the Libertarian, and the Democrats all get together in a room. And the funny thing is, is we get along with everybody. And then once the cameras start rolling, that's when everybody's like, President Trump, or I'm super against that. But when you're talking to people, people are people and they're always going to vote with the other people in the group. And that's always something that I think is strange because I would agree that social media does a really good job of making that little majorities sound like, or minorities, I mean, little minorities sound like the majority opinion. But that's not the case. So when you actually start doing research like the American People's Compact, that falls apart really fast. And out there in the in the actual like fields, because I've been out there in the farmers' markets and the swap meets and the flea markets with booths, people don't do that. Like there is always extreme people, but normal people will sit there and have a conversation with you and be like, this is what I think. What do you think? And then we have an actual conversation. And I think that's missing right now in politics. And I would like to get back to that. Like it fell apart 30 years ago, but I'm old enough where I remember where you can actually have a conversation and disagree with somebody in a healthy way, instead of drawing that hard line in the sand and be like, you're wrong, I'm right next. And I hate that part of it. So I want to be able to have conversations with people. And Roma, were you gonna say something too?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

No, uh, you're spot on. I think our entire this is a systemic problem with our system of elections where we gerrymandered all the districts, so there are no real competitions anymore in a November election. Everything is decided in a primary, and in the primary, eight to ten percent of people are voting, and those are the most extreme ideologues in either party. By the time November comes around, it's already a de facto decision based on which safe red or safe blue district you're in. And that's why we find ourselves with a system in Congress where there's no capacity for dialogue or deliberation or consensus making because um they have been sent to Congress under the most uh extreme ideological printends. So that has got to be resolved. There's gonna be there are many problems with our current system of elections. There are going to be many ways to solve it. We hope that what we're providing with with a technology framework is one of the key ingredients, but it's not gonna be the only solution.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

Yeah, and I would actually agree with that as well, because when I'm out there talking to Republicans, they actually say that they will vote for me in November because they are ready for something new, because they feel like I'm not left or right. And the fact that I'm not super far left or right for them in their mind makes me a viable option for them. And so not only am I going to be getting all the Democrats on independents, I'm actually stealing Republicans right now. And the fact that if we had open primaries, I would have a much better chance because of that. And right now in Florida, we have closed primaries, which means we don't get the NPAs to be able to vote in our elections. So one of my big things is I'm trying to remind Democrats about we need to win in November. Who is going to be able to get those independents and steal those Republican votes? And a traditional Democrat has proven that it can't work. And so we need something different. And so this is something different.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

The Twitter Audi is one problem, just like you mentioned, the extremes they make the most noise.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Uh, there's an old saying, too, that the empty cart going up the street is the loudest, right? So blah, blah, blah, shifts the noise to messaging that we sometimes assume is more common, more prevalent than it is. Another disproportionate force in American politics is, of course, the money. So when you introduce transparency, you mentioned that you're upsetting certain establishment folks because you're introducing this unprecedented level of transparency when they're used to uncomfortable with it being more opaque. How does the money factor in and the packs and the conversation?

SPEAKER_02 48:49

So I'm actually almost exclusively funding my own campaign. Um, I've had a few small dollar donations, but PACs don't want to deal with me right off the bat because I could never guarantee my vote for them. I can't because my vote That's where I'm getting at. Yeah, my vote is not my own, because my vote is my people's and I can't control them. So even with PACs that I agree with, I up front tell them that. I'm like, I love what you're doing and you have my opinion for it, but you can never have my vote. And a lot of those people are like, okay, thanks, bye. And that is it. Because, but honestly, I kind of wear that as a badge because I understand the current system, but I don't like the current system. I don't like the big money, I don't like the lobbyists, and I wanted a way around it. And honestly, it's costing me money because of that same reason. But honestly, I believe in this idea so much that I don't mind spending my own money on this kind of stuff. And I think that's one of the big things that is hard for people to understand because a couple of my opponents are getting all the endorsements, but they're from the traditional Democratic groups where they know how they're gonna be voting and they feel secure with that. But the problem is, is that hasn't won the race. Our district has been red for 30 years, right? And we've already proven that that's not gonna work. And so we need people to understand that that's gonna have to be different in the future, right? And uh, but honestly, I'm okay with it. So the groups that have supported me are the independent groups. So American People's Compact is a great example of it because they know that I will vote with the majority. Their whole thing is that 80% of Americans agree on most of the issues. And so they're like, perfect. If you're gonna vote for the majority, then you're gonna vote against big money. And I'm like, absolutely. You're gonna vote against Citizens United, absolutely. You're gonna vote for term limits. Yes, I will, right? I want term limits. I want no congressional stock trading. I want all of those popular ideas. And the thing is, is since they're such popular ideas, they will have my vote because the majority of American people believe in it. And I won't have the option to get away. So a traditional like a representative up there in DC usually has to deal with lobbyists. And lobbyists exist because they have to convince one person, however they want to do that, taking them out to fancy dinners, paying them off, whatever you want to say, right? To get everybody's vote in my district. So for me, that won't work. So lobbyists in general exact won't just won't happen because what they have to do is they'll have to convince 800,000 people to believe in it in order to get my one vote. And I can't picture them ever doing that, spending money on that kind of stuff. Because then they're gonna have to focus only on one district. And do you know how many districts there are inside of America? They're just not gonna be able to do it, right? And so automatically I am against corruption because at my core being that that is one of my core things that I want to work on in the Congress, is fighting corruption. And so I'm starting with me. So I can't be corrupted because my vote is never for sale, and that's gonna be huge for American people.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Same rules apply to you, Ramon, right? With uh digital democracy.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

It sometimes it takes my breath away, actually, when to hear Dan talk. I mean, it's it's it's a completely different imagining of American democracy. And I think that um Yeah, sorry, I get I get a little bit I get a little bit emotional because it's a you know to me it's exciting because we've sort of just accepted this problem for a long time and everybody's like, ah, nothing can be done about it. Well, now something can be done about it. And uh, and and that's super that's super fun for all of us who have been working really, really hard in the trenches on democracy reform. It's it's exciting to see that now we can actually put technology for public good. We can actually deliver on that. We have been um led to believe that you know the the sort of the Silicon Valley model of technology for shareholder value is the only way to go. And it turns out there's actually a completely different model. Um, we're a nonprofit organization with all volunteers, and there's a a different model that we can we can build technology for public good, and we can actually deliver a a reimagined version of American democracy that our children and grandchildren will inherit. And that that makes me very excited.

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Yep. I would completely agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

You mentioned how there's a machine learning intelligence that you bring to super complicated bills to simplify them, put them in in human speed, and there's AI opportunities in terms of chugging through all the data, slicing it, dicing it, and resharing it as well. And I love how you bring up that the most of us are under the crunch. You got CapEx spending in the billions and trillions, you got Ebit dot 3040 in the case of SpaceX, 80 times company value. And people in the middle are lost. Affordability for both parties is the number one issue. And let's bring technology back to the people. I would agree. And I personally find that thrilling.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

I find it thrilling as well, because right now we always hear about the tech bros, right? So we always think of the major tech players that control a ton of the different money that pass through a lot of legislation. But the thing that nobody ever thinks about is how technically skilled actually the House of Representatives is. Because out of the 435 members, there are five people with any kind of tech degree up there. So those five people are trying to legislate AI, data centers, cryptocurrency, stable coins, digital privacy rights. And they can't do it. Because if you're not, if you don't understand technology, when you get in these hearings and you're asking questions, you don't know the question that you're asking. You don't know what they're actually saying in order to follow up on it. And the main problem is once you start dealing with more technical people, they tend to be introverts, right? And so they don't want to be in the public spotlight. They don't want to be on TV, they don't want to be that person that's going to be asking those questions. Uh for me personally, uh, I'm I know I'm the outlier because I have a background at Disney and theater and all of that kind of stuff. So I'm a super extroverted technological person with an educational background that can help simplify it, right? And I understand that I'm the unicorn, but I think we need more unicorns up there because we need more tech people. We need more engineers up there. And I've actually met a couple engineers running here in Florida as well. Uh, one is George Haas that's running for a county commissioner position. Uh, and he has the same kind of thing where he's coming at it with a technological perspective, but he's having trouble communicating technical specs to normal people. Because once you are used to talking in technical language, it's very hard to kind of switch and make it so people can actually understand it. But my job at Disney actually set me up perfectly for this because I worked in a department where I was the techie person there. And so anytime that my bosses had to go to a meeting where we were going to be dealing with this kind of stuff, they would take me along and I would translate, like a normal translator from a foreign language, of the technical stuff coming in, and then I would explain it in a simple way to them, and I would go back and forth. And I'm like, this is what they want. They want you to build a React front end with the back end of things. And then the person's like, oh, okay, but what do they want for this? And I ask them the different question, and I was always the go-between. And having done that for seven and a half years, like it made me very good at explaining complex topics and simplifying them for most people. So I'm extremely lucky with my background.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

I feel like we could close we could close out this conversation and and on a unicorns for Congress. Uh I think that's gotta be your new campaign logo.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

I like it. I'll just wear like a little horn on my head and I'll be like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

We we need more unicorns, unicorns in Congress.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Yep. Unicorns for Congress through uh Reese's buttercup campaign situation with uh Dan Williams, Democrat candidate, 11th District of Florida, with Ramon Perez and his digital democracy project. Two great tastes coming together and actually putting uh policy and principle into practice by plugging a real candidate in the real world running in a real election. Hopefully the first of many brings an unprecedented level of transparency to the legislative process. Thank you guys both for being on both editions, like, comment, share, go to the links in the description below. If you're on YouTube, you're on Spotify, you're on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast, and check out the Digital Democracy Project. Go check out Dan Williams' campaign, and let's keep our fingers crossed for August 18th that you become the Democrat candidate. And regardless of what happens in the general, you guys are setting an amazing precedent for being transformative where all the Venn diagrams come together. Technology, to your point, Dan, communication, education, and empowerment, and politics, which frankly everyone agrees is broken. Let's bring trillions of dollars of technology to the people to make it happen and to operationalize this great idea that started two hundred and fifty years ago, which is giving people the power to to make their own destiny. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 58:31

Thank you.