free 2 think
free 2 think is a podcast hosted by Cody Davis and Jacob Cady, exploring faith, culture, politics, and the ideas shaping our world. Through thoughtful conversation, respectful disagreement, and a commitment to curiosity, we tackle hard topics without the outrage. Think deeply. Listen carefully. Stay free to think.
free 2 think
Ep. 8 | Special Guest, Greg Haitz. ELECTION INTEGRITY: What Trump gets Right & Wrong
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Special guest Greg Haitz joins us to talk elections. Greg is a local business owner, community leader, and candidate for Mesa County Treasurer—and he knows his way around the election process.
President Trump recently laid out his case for changes to America’s elections and election integrity. We break down his major points: where we agree, where we disagree, and where the three of us don’t necessarily see eye to eye.
Voter ID, mail ballots, voter rolls, federal involvement, election security, and the balance between accessibility and security—we get into all of it.
No talking points. No requirement to agree. Just a free discussion about how our elections work, where they can improve, and where the rhetoric doesn’t always match reality.
Free to think, I'm Cody. I'm Jacob. And we've got a special guest today with us. Um, Greg, Greg Heights. Welcome, man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you bet. Um, this is our first time with a guest, so we've got all the Yank camera angles fixed up, but hopefully it works. Um, Greg, tell us about yourself, man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so Greg Heights, I'm uh pretty much a local guy, doctor of chiropractic, so business owner for 23 years, and I'm also currently running for Mesa County Treasurer. So that's all of that's got me busy. Father, I've got three kids. Wife's a real estate agent, two oldest are in college, youngest, he's 10, and uh yeah, so that all keeps us busy.
SPEAKER_02What made you want to run for treasurer?
SPEAKER_03Uh sort of a long story, but I'll shorten it up real quick. Um, so I ran for city council a couple times, and uh nonpartisan races like that are very challenging, uh, but I learned a lot from it. And then I decided to take the inside Mesa County class. I know, Cody, I think you've taken that a couple times. So I took that twice. And in doing so, you learn basically about every county department and all the different uh functions of county government, which is phenomenal. If anyone has uh any interest at all, it's worth doing. It's a it's a free class. And so did that twice, got to talking to Sheila Reiner quite a bit after the last class. And I thought, you know, of all the county positions, um, electable positions, that one sparked my interest. I just I tend to be good with finance and numbers and you know, that sort of thing. And so her and I have been talking for a couple of years since then, and so yeah, it's just kind of evolved into me throwing my hat in the ring.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Right on. What's a it's an important job. Um, and it's a more of a technical position. And and it you run partisan, but it is really a nonpartisan position. You're you're serving everybody, and so is the commissioner. Um, we're more political than a treasurer is, but at the same time, we're providing services for the community in a nonpartisan way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, treasurer's not gonna advocate for policy, and we're not gonna be changing, you know, tax code or anything like that. So, yeah, basically a department head.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, we're right on well, um, that's not why we had you on today um to talk about treasure stuff, but rather election stuff. Yeah. And I don't know if you guys listened to Trump's speech a couple weeks ago um on elections, but it really was just sparking a lot of um thoughts and ideas, and I was like, who who could we talk to this about? And I know I've had a lot of conversations in the past with you about elections. You know, Mesa County has been through the ringer when it comes to elections, fraud, all that stuff. Like like we're like almost on the central hub of election talk. So um some people said tip of the spear, but tip of the spear is is good. There's a couple other counties that get mentioned when you talk about election conspiracies or or nonetheless, but I I just I actually find it really hard to talk about with people elections in an objective way, yeah, because they they kind of either take one of two sides, they they're on the the the Tina Peters bandwagon, and unless you think 2020 was absolutely stolen, they won't even talk to you. And then there's the other side who says if you're anywhere near or if you if you even mention election integrity, you're a nut. And it's like, why can't we just objectively in the middle talk about how we can improve our election system? Right. Because we can. You can always improve something, you can always talk about vulnerabilities, but um we just find ourselves in this weird space and time where we can't even talk about this stuff in a meaningful way. It is odd.
SPEAKER_00What say you? Oh, I just think it's uh it's it's interesting how it seems like there's an elephant in the room of in Mesa County specifically, right? The focus was on the Dominion voting machines when it seems like all the evidence points to just the voter rolls. And how, you know, if we took a careful look at the voter rolls, clean those up a bit, you know, it's kind of the 80-20 principle of there's gotta be something that we can do that's 20% effort that would fix 80% of the problem. And it seems like the voter rolls is that. So it's just ironic that in these conversations that you do have, they tend towards the those dominion voting machines are so evil. And it's like, well, okay, that's a talking point, yeah, but let's talk about the system of tabulating and and keeping records of all the um potential voters. And you know, if a high percentage of those people are just in there erroneously or for whatever reason they got in there when they shouldn't, let's clean that up, start there, and everything will be better from there on. So start at the source, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, let's let's talk about real vulnerabilities, right? I remember early on when um we're going through the whole Tina Peters debacle, and uh I said something in public hearing to the effect that like if we really want to focus on election integrity, let's start focusing on voter rolls. Because once the ballots actually get to the office and once they're actually verified, I mean the Dominion process is is pretty foolproof. And we also do a um an audit afterwards where we take a sampling of all the paper ballots, we read the paper ballots, we read what Dominion, how Dominion divined that paper ballot, and if it's not exact, they have to double, triple the sample. Um so, and I said something like the problem's not there, the problem's before before the ballot actually gets to the office, which is what we're talking about. We're talking about voter um verification. And you and I talked about this several months ago, but it was it seems like we're all on this spectrum. There's perfectly secure elections and there's perfectly accessible elections. And we're all on this continuum somewhere, right? Um, you know, conservatives lean more towards security. We want our our our elections to be perfectly secure so we can trust our elections. And it seems like the progressive left is more like we want it perfectly accessible. We don't care how secure it is, we want it perfectly accessible, which means there's gonna be fraud, which means people are gonna be voting that shouldn't be be voting. Um, so how can we talk about getting it as secure as we possibly can? Because I think we'd all, most people you talk to are gonna be like, yeah, we agree it should be secure. And then most people you talk to, they should say, yeah, and people should be able to access it if they're registered voters, right? Or if they're uh if they're citizens of the United States. Like there's this happy middle where I think most people are gonna agree that we want as much security as we can get and we want to make sure that we're not creating hurdles like they did with the Jim Crow laws, you know, for people to get in and vote. But we're just so hypersensitive about um these types of arguments. Um so I I guess um if you guys didn't have anything just to start with, I wanted to jump into some of the things that Trump said um in his speech. And that was, you know, China has obtained um US voter data um and they're targeting our elections. Um Trump's point is that China obtained voter information in huge numbers, and Greg, Greg, you'll know this. Um that type of information is actually quite accessible.
SPEAKER_03It is, and I don't and I don't know that anyone's really refuted that part of his claim. But that doesn't mean that votes were changed or elections were compromised. It just means China had access to a lot of our information, which a lot of it is publicly available. How they access that, I'm not sure. I don't know that he actually went into that or if the report did. Um I mean it's concerning, you know, that China's interested in our our voter roles and that information. But again, it doesn't mean that votes were switched or yeah, elections were fraudulent.
SPEAKER_02Because if you run for office, you you already have not just because you're running off, anybody would have it, but you know, we're you have access just by making a small payment to voter data info. Yeah. Like you could know exactly what your neighbor thinks, um, whether they're Republican, Democrat, unaffiliated, whether they're an NRA member, whether they're a member of the Sierra Club. Like the amount of information you can get with just a subscription to an app is mind-boggling. Yep. Um, and and let's be honest, it's information we give out to private companies. Yeah. And so they're tracking your data, they're tracking who you are. Um, so I know exactly before I knock on a door, I know almost exactly who these people are gonna be. I know if they're gonna be hostile towards my my belief system. I know they're if they're gonna be right in line with my belief system. So the idea that China has access to voter data info is nothing new. We have always known that China is always gonna be trying to involve in our elections in some way, try to influence our elections. So I don't really think that claim was like mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_03It's not a big smoking gun in my mind. It's concerning that they're interested.
SPEAKER_02But so is Russia, so is every other country in the world. I mean, we are like at the top of the heap, and everybody's looking at us, trying to influence us in some way, shape, or form. That doesn't mean we rest on our laurels, but we got to get more focused and make sure that we're focused on the right things. Right.
SPEAKER_00So how do you think China would because obviously they're not gonna use like individual information on people to sway those people, they're gonna look at demographics and regions and see how things are distributed. So if China had, you know, a a region-wide sort of survey of all the political data for an area, how would they use that for uh manipulation if they if they wanted to? Which is the same thing.
SPEAKER_03I mean, maybe like Facebook did, right, with Zuckerberg, where if you know the political leanings of your platform users, now you can start to influence that by curating their feed and what they see. And maybe China would do something similar, right? Maybe they would start to run ads or just whatever, to start manipulating feeds to where certain individuals see certain information and propaganda, and that could potentially sway elections. I mean, I think Zuckerberg even said, you know, he's like, I I regret what I did. He's like, because I I think we actually we actually skewed some of those, some of those votes. And you look at YouTube too. I mean, YouTube, you know, if you watch this kind of video, now you're gonna see start to see more of those types of videos, and uh, it's very curated. And they do that by design to try to keep you on the platform. And this has been going on for a long time. We tend to not want to think about it because it's pretty creepy, just like to your point. You can take consumer data and match it with voter data, and knocking on someone's door, you know that, oh, this person shops at Cabela's, they shop at Sportsman's Warehouse, they're an NRA member. That's creepy. It is creepy, and it's all publicly available. You have to buy it. Yeah, you purchase that and then use AI or some other system to connect that to the voter rolls. And now you know a lot more about these people and their activities and and how they live their lives. It's creepy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, and you also know how people respond to certain inputs, right? And you're just slowly changing the dial, whether it's on TikTok or it's still a Chinese-owned company, right? Um, so you're just slowly changing the dial, the algorithm, whatnot, just to slowly in. So, yeah, we know there's influence on American voters. Like there's and you can't do anything about it. No. You'll never be able to do anything about it. Um, what type of influence and what type of influence they're having on the actual election? No, if they're in our election systems changing votes, that's a completely different conversation. Totally different conversation. Um, but having access to voter files, which is public data in America, means the entire world, the globe, the universe has access to the U.S. voter files. So, yeah, nothing groundbreaking there by any means.
SPEAKER_03So, what are your thoughts then on Trump administration and it was a hard meetdell, and she's been trying to get the unredacted voter rolls and voter information from all the states. I looked into it a little bit. It sounds like they're wanting voter data as well as driver's license information, you know, um partial social security numbers. I could see the concern from certain states. But again, you know, how much of that data is actually available? But then if that all goes into a big file with one administration, I I understand the concern. You know, if this was Biden or someone else that I didn't vote for, I don't know that I would be comfortable with that, them having this large, you know, federal database of all the state's voter data. But at the same time, when states like Colorado just absolutely refuse to turn anything over, even though some of that could just be a simple core request. Yeah. I I can see both sides of that argument. I don't know if you've given that much thought.
SPEAKER_02I do, and I I have I have mixed feelings. One of them is, yeah, I'm worried about the central state having all of this unredacted information. Right. Um, I like I like the the federalist system where we have we have 50 different states running these things. I see the value in it, and I think it's a bit ironic too, because Trump's talking about kind of this centralization of uh of election information or data on voters. Whereas when we were going through this back in 2020, 2021, um, the conservative side was very concerned about um an organization called ERIC, which is election registration information coalition or something like that. But basically what they did, they were a nonprofit run by government, but basically collated all the states that would cooperate. And I think there's only half the states that are cooperating, but they would collate that data and they would say, hey, Joe Schmoe is registered in California and Texas, and they would notify California and Texas that Joe Schmoe is dual registered on a different state. So they wouldn't let him to vote in either. Um so you had to be a participating state. Yep. Um, California didn't have access to Colorado's data. It was only from this nonprofit, government-run nonprofit. And I'm telling you what, conservatives had such an issue with that idea that there would be this centralized entity that had access to voter information and files and stuff like that. So it seems a bit ironic now that we're talking about centralized the voter information, you know? And it's like, well, we already did try to do that, and you guys fought it. Um, and now that now that you know Trump's in power, we want to do it. But what happens when the next administration is a Democrat is in power? Then we're gonna be like, no, we can't centralize this information. So I it there's just this seesaw back and forth, um, accordion. And uh so I think something like that is good because no, you shouldn't be able to vote in Colorado and in Texas, right? That I think that's just a fundamental belief in election integrity where people say, no, we we don't want people double voting. Um so how do you again provide access but still have a secure system where one person, one vote?
SPEAKER_03Because if you're a Colorado resident and you happen to be visiting family in Texas and you die there, Colorado doesn't know.
SPEAKER_02Correct.
SPEAKER_03And that would be a way for those states to then be able to communicate. There's a death certificate here, which is a voter roll there. Now we take them off the voter rolls. Otherwise, I have a neighbor two doors down, they've been getting their mother's ballot for I don't know how many election cycles now, which is interesting too, because at a certain point that she should become inactive, but you have to have returned election mail for that to happen, and there's all these you know checks and balances there, but she died in a different state. Yeah, and so I told him it's like you probably need to go down to the clerk's office and have a conversation. Um, at some point she'll be probably taken off the voter rolls or made inactive, but yeah, Colorado doesn't know that she's deceased.
SPEAKER_02Correct. And that's what Eric used to do. I don't know if we're still participating in Eric, it got pretty controversial for a while, but um, that's what Eric would do if if the state that she died in was an Eric state. Right, exactly. Then they would be able to collate that data, you make the match, and say, hey, Colorado, you got someone living or who was voting in your state who died in Texas or whatnot. But Texas was not an operating state within Erica. Right. Um, Eric was usually more liberal Democrat states at the time. So again, um it's kind of come full full circle, even with election um concerns about the uh Dominion system, right? Like before Trump got elected, like you've got these videos back in like 2012 of Kamala Harris saying we can't trust these um uh you know Dominion systems and stuff like that. And and it's just like it's so ironic. It it just keeps coming full circle. It does. So can we recognize where our actual vulnerabilities are and do something about it? Um the answer for me is no, because nobody wants to touch it. The Democrats don't want to touch anything like that with a 10-foot pole. Um, in fact, they made laws to make it even more difficult in some areas, and and again, I I think that's if we talk about like Tina Peters' net um contribution to the state of Colorado, it's actually made it worse because there's this knee-jerker action away from it. Um, and now local election officials actually have less power and less control over their own systems and stuff like that because of um what Tina did. So again, we can't have an honest, open, rational discussion about elections.
SPEAKER_03And it's really unfortunate because, like to your point, if you even mention election integrity or are there vulnerabilities, now all of a sudden, oh, that's Jim Crow 2.0.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just absurd.
SPEAKER_03It's just absurd.
SPEAKER_01ID. Yeah. Yeah. Show ID.
SPEAKER_00The ironic thing is, right? It's like what in uh I heard that in the state-run or city-run New York stores, right? You got a show ID, but you don't have show ID to vote.
SPEAKER_03And it's just ridiculous to me to ironic like you listen to that clip and she's like, in something kind of adjacent to uh library card, and then she moves on really quickly. It's like, wait a minute, is that is that an ID? Is that what you did?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so but it's ironic that you know you you're saying that in Colorado specifically, um, the sort of election has been consolidated to more of a Denver thing instead of a local thing. And here we're saying, well, if we consolidate it on the national level. But I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but the fact that people can just go to a different state so easily, right? You know, a hundred years ago, 250 years ago, people didn't really move around a lot, right? So it it made sense, and then the communication was so slow, so it made sense to organize the elections on a more local level, and then you can consolidate the results and you can move them to Denver, move them to Washington or whatever through the Pony Express. And just the fact that people and information are so mobile these days. And the the other thing is that uh, you know, in these voter rolls, I mean, that's federal elections that people are voting in too. So it there is a point to be made that there probably should be some national voter registry of people that are gonna vote in national elections, you know.
SPEAKER_03And I think that's the rub, right? And that's Trump's, you know, he's like, well, if you're considering federal elections, it seems like the Fed should have access to some of those voter rolls to see how secure they are for federal elections. Sure. But then we have federalism where states and state legislatures and secretaries of states run those elections and they and they set laws around those elections. And so that's the rub, right? It's like that balance between the state and the fed, and well, sometimes we vote in the federal election, but not always.
SPEAKER_02And which who's controlling all that? You're right. And you're not going to change your election process just for a federal election. So if if the feds do have some control on how those elections, it is gonna um monolithically even out how elections are run across the states, um, which I think is some of the fear um from states. Right. Now, again, if if if this was a Democrat administration, it would be the Republicans that were screaming about federalizing the elections, things like that. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um what uh department do you think all this information would go under in the federal government? Oh, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02We need an Orwellian name for elections at the federal level.
SPEAKER_00The the what is it, the Department of Approved Opinions? Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_03The Ministry of Election Truth.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. That's a good one. I like that. That should be on a shirt. Oh, yeah, I work for the ride on, I like it. So I'm just wondering because it's like, okay, so this all this information gets collected, collated, and sent to the federal government. I mean, the sort of like boots on the ground administration state probably looks the same, whether it's a Republican or Democrat in the federal government. So I I would imagine that the people actually, you know, running this operation and being tasked with managing all this information are gonna be the same people no matter what you know side of the aisle is in the White House.
SPEAKER_02I mean, is it Are you talking about the deep state?
SPEAKER_00I'm talking about just the massive administrative state of bureaucrats that just exist, no matter who's at the top, they just float along and those are the people that would probably be managing this whole operation.
SPEAKER_03I mean unelected and they just they're just government employees, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I mean, yeah, that's that's the administrative state, but that's why it's elected officials are so important.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I think you know, if if you're thinking that like the Trump administration, like the small Trump administration is gonna take this information and then just hang on to it in perpetuity for whatever reason, I I mean that doesn't seem like it's gonna be the actual case. It's gonna be more more of just a it goes into the bureaucracy and it's it's there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I don't wanna I don't wanna assume intention. Um I listened to Trump's entire speech. Um I know he's still sour about 2020. Um I don't want to assume intentions, but it's hard for me not to think the only reason um he's wanted to collate all this up front and get all the information from the states is to say, see, they cheated in 2020. Like that's that's the skeptic in me. Um I I I think he's genuinely interested in um election integrity, but getting all that information collating at the federal level, I don't think is the the the route forward. Um so some some of me still, again, the the critical side of me says uh he's just trying to prove 2020 is was stolen still. Um and that's why Democrat states are not giving them their election date and stuff like that. And it's turned it's turned into a tit for tat.
SPEAKER_03And knowing Trump, I would say that that's true. Yet I think he was really strategic in his speech because I think he only mentioned 2020 election maybe once. Yeah, yeah. And he didn't really spend any time on it. I'm like, that's but everybody's thinking it.
SPEAKER_02But everyone's thinking it, right? That's the first thing that comes to mind. But I I still think something like Eric is where we need to be. And you know, who s who who has accountability over Eric? It's a non profit. Um, but I I think something like that, um, away from the federal government, um, but still kind of government run, um, nonprofit who nobody has they're the only ones with the information. Um, it's kind of like the blockchain, right? Like you can't see the other side of the transaction, um, but it verifies who people are, kind of in a cryptic um way. And I I think as technology advances, we can do this. We can make it to where people are only voting once. We can make it more secure and accessible. Like, this is not a mountain we can't climb here in America. We're the most innovative country in the entire world. We we can do this. It's just politics gets in the way sometimes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And if we go to such lengths with the election judges to make sure that there is representation on both sides because both sides will keep the other side honest, right? I mean, I don't see any way that this couldn't be, you know, styled after that just to say we know that this is a hyperpartisan issue, so let's just stack the parties on both sides in equal measure to to look at this data to make sure that you know there's there's you know, sort of layered review and stuff like that, just to make sure that there's no funny business, because you know, in the end, if we if we go at it from the under the guise of we're gonna make sure it's non-partisan the whole way, well, everybody's partisan in their own opinion, right? But if you say, okay, we're just gonna assume human nature is what it is, and we're gonna put Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other side, they're both looking at the same data, and it has to correlate in the end, and then you can have those checks and balances. So, you know, there's there's already systems in place that in the election system itself that kind of seem like it might be able to accomplish this and keep everything the integrity of the whole data set, you know, intact.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so question. And I'm not speaking ideologically. I mean, I I have my the ideal way to vote in America. It's never gonna happen. So practically speaking, get rid of voting machines or not. I mean, ideally, the most secure election you're gonna have is in-person same day. I get it, like people are making that argument. But that is never gonna happen. In Mesa County, I think the last stat I saw was 97% of the people utilize mail-in um voting. Um so even though 30% of them are saying we need in-person same-day voting, they're using mail-in balloting because it's easy and convenient. And once you give the voters kind of that luxury, it's gonna be nearly it's it is impossible to pull it back.
SPEAKER_00Well, it seems like, I mean, let's talk about it. That is the area where there's the most vulnerability, right? Because you have the voter rolls and then the the physical paper ballots are made, manufactured, and then distributed through the mail based on who's in the voter rolls. So once that mail-in ballot, like between the time of when it leaves the Secretary of State's office or wherever they're manufactured.
SPEAKER_02It's a private company in Arizona for Mesa County, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. When they leave Arizona to when they actually get read in the Dominion machine, that's the vulnerability, right? Because you because you have all these ballots that are just invalid, but they can get filled out and counted. And if we look at the example in New Jersey, right, the reason that they knew that there was 6,000 people that shouldn't have been on the voter rolls, and 400 of them had actually voted, is because those end parts are actually pretty secure and accurate and real, and then all the skullduggery happened in the middle, right? So, you know, they have all that data to say that, well, 400 people shouldn't have voted and they actually did vote. It's because their voting system, after it enters their equivalent of the county, you know, building is pretty secure and the data is good, but in the middle, that's when all the people that shouldn't have voted received ballots that had been made based on the voter rolls, and they're like, Well, I got a ballot, so I must be able to vote, right? You know, yeah. So they just send it in, and so that's the vulnerability.
SPEAKER_02That's a vulnerability. And and let me maybe defend Colorado's um process a little bit. I know I get in trouble for defending Colorado's process, and I think it can improve, but so someone gets a uh a uh ballot in the mail, um, they have to they vote it and then they have to sign it. Um and then when it gets back to the elections um center, it goes through this signature verification process. So Mesa County has on file signatures for Jacobs, signatures for Greg, and for me that I've used in the past. And if it doesn't match with a certain amount of accuracy, it pops it, and then you have to come and cure that ballot. So we had a couple years ago, we had a couple of US Postal Service workers who were thinking, we're gonna put this system to the test. Little did they know that this is a felony offense to try to put this to the test, but they took something like 15 ballots, they've each filled out half of them, and they just signed random signatures. And believe it or not, three of them actually made it through, and that's a whole nother story. And state law was circling around that issue last year. But three of them actually made it through, but the other 12 got kicked, and so they started an investigation and they found out these two ladies did it. Um, and at least one of them spent some time in jail for the lady who was the ringmaster, you know.
SPEAKER_00So is the felony the fraud, or is the felony the fact that they voted for the floor? The felony is the fraud. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and they identified three that squeak through. And the reason it squeaked through, um, we have a verification process um at um in in Mesa County. So um if a ballot gets kicked for signature, it goes to a review of two judges. And those two judge, I'm sorry, one judge. And if the judge is looking, because sometimes the computer can't quite get it, but if a judge can say yes, that's definitely their signature, and these are election judges. These election judges that single judge can pass that through. Now, we had an older lady who was doing it, she was getting tired, she'd been doing it all day long, and I think she just got to the point where she was just passing things through. Um, if she doesn't pass it through, then it goes to a judge of two people, and they look at it. I and I'm I've been making the argument that two need to be up front. And if they don't pass it, then it goes to the single. Um, but instead it's a single person who can push it through, and she pushed these through three through just probably out of exhaustion. And that's where, you know, um technology is far better at times than than a human eye, um, because it kicked it for a reason. Um in fact, it kicked all 15. The the single judge is the one that sent the three through. It wasn't the machine. The machine kicked all 15 um uh because of signature verification problems. The other thing, too, that's nice in Colorado, is the second you vote or the second someone votes for you, if you're signed up for an automatic notification, you get a notification. So if I get an email that says, Cody, you voted, and I haven't voted, I've got a problem. I'm go I'm walking down there and saying, I have not voted yet. Um so it's a it's a it's not the best system. Can it be better? It can absolutely better, but it's a it's a good system, it's a decent system given the amount of access we've decided to give the voters. Um and yes, I think Colorado legislature would like to see more access. And in fact, there's cities who said it it doesn't matter if you're legal or illegal in this country, we want you to vote in our municipality, and they've done that. It wouldn't surprise me if a couple states tried to um do that, but like some of the bigger cities have allowed because they're living in their community, you can vote in our in our elections.
SPEAKER_03And I think some of those checks and balances should be taken advantage of by conservatives. And I have a lot of conservative friends that are like, oh no, I vote on election day in person. And I get it, it's a little sacrosanct in their mind. Yeah, but they also feel like that that strengthens election integrity because then oh, then they they can't steal my vote. I would say the opposite's true. If you vote early, it gets counted, you get the notification. Now, if someone else tries to vote, it's gonna pop up immediately as fraudulent.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_03So vote early to stop that from happening, and that also helps the candidates if you're out chasing ballots. Because if all the conservatives wait till the day of to vote, now I'm out knocking doors the day before, trying to convince them to vote for me. And oh, I was gonna vote for you. I was just waiting till the day of. Well, if they would have voted two weeks ago, those systems automatically take those names out. So then I know I don't need to knock that door anymore and make that phone call because they've already cast their ballot. Yep. And so we're actually kind of getting in our own way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, the only nice thing about, and I say this from a partisan perspective, um, but the only thing nice about conservatives voting late is that that initial count on Tuesday night, yeah. You always know conservatives are gonna double that or something. Exactly. Because uh we could be down a thousand votes, but we know conservatives wait until the absolute last minute.
SPEAKER_03Until those same day ballots start getting counted, yeah. We'll pull ahead. That's true.
unknownThat's funny.
SPEAKER_00So uh I had a thought and then it flew away. But uh you're talking about what about this in California where they have I mean, in today's day and age, why does it take two weeks for all the ballots to get counted in California? Your thoughts.
SPEAKER_03I think, I mean, again, that's kind of a state-by-state thing, but a lot of that's gonna be you know overseas ballots, uh military ballots, military ballots, you know, you gotta wait and count some of those up. And I don't I don't think we'd ever want to differ disenfranchise, you know, that voter pool. Um, but at the same time, it's like, you know, we've got voter date, not voter month. Yeah, yeah. And that I think that continues to erode any idea of election integrity for some people. It does. It's like, well, let's just wait till the very end and you know, see how it comes out and then give it two more weeks, and especially when you get like lots of ballots coming in and they're just skewing one way. It's like is that possible? Sure. At a certain point, statistically, it's not. Um, but then that again further erodes, you know, any any conversation around election integrity for some people.
SPEAKER_00It seems to me like we should take advantage of statistical probability too, of just I mean, statistics, it's one of those, you know, it has set laws, it's a science, it's a mathematical discipline. So the process of voting should follow statistical processes pretty closely. And if it doesn't, okay, that triggers an investigation, right? Because it's like, okay, we know what the voter demographic is, and we know the kind of propensity of people to vote whenever. And if we apply statistics to that and something very strange happens, like a 10,000, 10,000 ballot dump at 2 a.m. that all skews in one direction, right? Then it's like, okay, there's very clearly something going on. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe the truck got stuck on the highway and they finally got it out, and then they brought all the ballots in. I don't know. But it seems like it's enough of an anomaly to trigger something. So why don't we just take the power of statistics and then apply that to the problem to at least identify anomalies?
SPEAKER_02Agreed. But also say there's there's nuance to process as well. Like, and I don't even know what you're referencing in the 10,000 ballot count drop, whatever.
SPEAKER_00But that's just like the the anecdotal evidence I've heard of just like, oh yeah, well, they very conveniently found 10,000 ballots at 2 a.m.
SPEAKER_02and but but I know like our system, they they count it up and then they'll do a drop. So a 10,000 ballot drop is not unheard of, you know. Um maybe two in the morning, maybe a bit suspect, um, as as you say. But um, yes, I believe we should use statistics. I think that's incredibly valuable, but I also think it's nuanced by just process. And I think the the taking a month to count it is state law and state process that is mucking it up. Like I think it they require certain things to happen before you can uh announce. I mean, Mesa County at 7.02 usually um we're getting out probably 90-95% of the vote. It's just that that hour, that hour from like three to seven that hasn't been counted yet. So they could get it out a lot early. Why they don't, I think is due to probably state law and and and people probably spend narratives from it. Like, you know, why is it taking so long with modern technology? We could have hand counted these things quicker, things like that, which I agree with them. Like you could probably hand count in a week. Yeah. Um, whereas this is taking months um to actually get a final vote tally.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I just look at the difference between like Florida and California, obviously, two immensely different administrative sort of ways of doing things, but well, like in California, I think Spencer Pratt maybe would be a good example, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, it's like he's winning on election night, but then we have to wait a week later to find out that he lost. Yeah. It's like, are there really that many outstanding ballots that skewed the other way that you can you can be the winner on election night? Not that they call him a winner, right? But just like it looks like he's he's out ahead, but then two weeks later he can end up losing the election. That just feels isn't that ranked choice voting? That is ranked choice voting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, and that's and that's and that's part of it too, right? That's part of it too.
SPEAKER_03And it makes it much more complicated. And I my stance has always been like, let's not make elections more complicated, let's make them less complicated. Because if the average person can't even explain what ranked choice voting is, you've got these runoffs, it's just super complicated, it's expensive. And then, like Bobby Gross said, there's that much more opportunity for fraud as well. Because now you've got custody of ballots, and then now we got to send out more ballots, and you're gonna vote again for your next choice, and it just it compounds the issues.
SPEAKER_00I mean, we've all been in those meetings where we have kind of a runoff and it we have to do a ballot five or six times, and then it's like by the end, people are just like, Oh my gosh, what are we doing? What are we doing? It's like an hour-long meeting comes becomes five hours, and it's like, oh, this is not good. So that's ranked choice voting, just uh overall.
SPEAKER_02I mean, ideologically, philosophically, like I can make the case for ranked choice voting. I I actually, if you if you if you think deeply about it, I really like the concept of it. On paper. On paper. However, when you try to go and implement it, you confuse the living snot out of people and they don't trust it. And if you have if you don't have a system that people understand and that they trust, you have no system at all. And for that reason, and for that reason, probably alone, I just ranked choice voting is just not in the cards for me right now. Um in the state of Colorado, municipalities have the ability to change to ranked choice voting. For a while now. Yeah, and City of Grand Junction has flirted with the idea, but I think they keep coming to the point where our clerk is saying, okay, we're gonna have half the ballot that's ranked choice and half the ballot that's not, so please don't do that. And they haven't done it to this point yet. But um, yeah, again, in theory, I like the idea, but I just don't think it's implementable. You look at Alaska, they they implemented it, and the year later they voted it out because nobody trusted the election, right? And love, hate Sarah Palin. It was like she was ahead and then she was behind. Um, same thing with Spencer Pratt. It was like he was ahead, then he's behind because of ranked choice voting. And if you look at the mechanics of it, you're like, I get it, I understand it, blah, blah, blah. But still, but still, yeah, yeah. He was ahead, now he's not. Who's manipulating the system? Right, right.
SPEAKER_00So plus it does remove a checks and balance. I mean, look at the extreme nature of California of just okay. And here in Colorado, too, to some extent, it's like we need the, and of course, I'm benefiting myself because as a conservative, it's like I don't want the liberal voice to be the only voice, but we need the checks and balance in the viewpoints, and ranked choice voting just allows that checks and balance viewpoint to just be eroded, right? Because if you have, you know, four four of the same political party all in the top tiers of your ranked choice vote, then it's like, where's the opposition voice? There's it's not even represented. So if you have, you know, people malign the two-party system, but at least the two-party system, there's a clear checks and balance and opposition. Yeah. So, and it's it is much simpler, right? It's just like, you know, there's nuances for what political parties stand for, but it's still you're kind of on one side or the other, or you're being torn apart in the middle, and right. At least it's a lot simpler that way.
SPEAKER_02Well, if I was a Batman, I'd say we'd Colorado's probably gonna be there in the next decade or two.
SPEAKER_03There's definitely a strong push. I mean, got local groups like Restore the Balance, they're really advocating for it. We've got Ford Party. Ford Party, Courageous Colorado, which one of our council members is on their board of directors now, and they're doing a speaking tour on the state. They're really pushing for ranked choice voting.
SPEAKER_00Did you say courageous Colorado?
SPEAKER_03Courageous Colorado, yeah. A newer nonprofit that started up in Boulder. Um, Boulder. Yeah. But they're nonpartisan. Um, but yeah, there's definitely a push for it. Nonpartisan from Boulder. Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_02And again, I I get it, I understand it. Yeah. Um, but I don't think it's right. I mean, the electorate has to trust the system.
SPEAKER_03And on paper, like, look at the Colorado House in the last 10 years, we would have picked up a decent amount of seats just because of the libertarian vote. Yep. You know, it would have cleaned up the libertarian vote. And now there's the little bit of a gentleman's handshake between the Republicans and libertarians, not to be spoilers in our races. Correct. Um, but we would have picked up a lot more house seats. With ranked choice voting. With ranked choice voting in Colorado. So on paper, I can make the argument it's actually it'd be a net positive for us in a lot of races as Republicans. Yet it's complicated. I think it disenfranchises voters.
SPEAKER_01So you're taking the principle approach. Yeah. Imagine that. Man, principle costs costs something, doesn't it? It does.
SPEAKER_00Everybody has their price. Two bucks up front.
SPEAKER_02So I wanted to touch on this the save act too, because um, I know the progressive side likes to demonize the Save Act, but I went through the Save Act this week and I'm like, what's the problem here? Like, and I think most Americans um if they if they understand what the Save Act actually says, I mean, it's pretty simple. It's prove that you're an American, you know, with some photo ID for elections. And there's always the Jim Crow argument, you're trying to create the the burder, the the hurdle to entry is too high. You're trying to keep out poor people. But within the Save Act, they're like they have they have uh release mechanisms. Like if you just if you can't do it, we'll figure out a way. And they provide uh several other means by which you can prove that you're a citizen, to the point where at some point you're signing an affidavit saying I'm a citizen. Right. So the Save Act just wants you to prove that you're a citizen, and it's it's gonna remove every hurdle if you absolutely can't pass it. But like you said, even to get into a grocery store in New York now, you have to show some form of ID. I mean, the idea that showing ID is somehow a gem crow. Maybe back in the day when you had to take a test to get an ID, or you had to pr you had to clear some hurdle. But right now, you don't have to clear any hurdle just to get an ID.
SPEAKER_03Used to have to own land. Yeah. Used to have to, you know, make a pledge of your faith, at least on a state level. Um, a lot of states ran that way. Um, all that's gone. So there's not really those those hurdles that we used to have. You know, you you watch all those videos, I'm sure they're all curated to a certain extent, but the man on the street, you know, it's like, oh, what do you think about, you know, migrants voting, you know, illegal aliens or non-documented, you know, individuals voting in our elections. Oh, you know, I think it's fine because they're here and they need to have a vote. All right, well, what if we went to Mexico or Venezuela? Do you think it's cool if we vote in their elections? Well, no. Do you see the problem? And then and most people are like, yeah, you're you're making a good point. Like, we can't just go to England or some other country, walk across their border and vote in their elections. That just makes no sense at all. But yet, you know, we we want to allow that here. And I know some municipalities, I think New York and others have allowed undocumented individuals to vote in their municipal elections, obviously can't on federal elections. But I I think, you know, after the New Jersey debacle, we're starting to realize like some of these individuals are actually ended up on the voter rolls, and some of them, not the majority, but some of them voted. We even have the same issues with people moving from other states into Colorado, and we have open primaries. I talked to Bobby Gross. We had was it 450 individuals cast both ballots as an independent voter, you know, Republican and Democrat ballot, and they both get nullified and then you know their vote's not even counted. And it's not because they're being nefarious. Maybe a few people think they get confusing. But it's confusing. And she said it was predominantly people that had moved here within the last couple of years from another state. Yeah, they didn't understand that you can't just cast two ballots. Yep. And you can't blame them. Yeah, you know, so maybe some voter education needs to happen, but that's just you know, when you go from state to state, there can be those variations. But some states you see more of those illegals on the voter voter rolls, and it's concerning. And so, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It always comes back to those voter rolls. Yes. I mean, every every conversation sort of starts at the system level and then it ends at the voter rolls. So, you know, as Nav, you know, it might give you a little bit of the ick to know that the federal government has control or not control, but at least access to all voter information. Like, okay, if we can use it to clean it up, I mean that that sounds good to me. Because who who was the guy that ran for Secretary of State a couple years ago? And he had done that. He had he had gotten the Colorado voter rolls and he had just like put them in an Excel sheet. Remember. It was like an Irish or Scottish guy. Yeah, yeah. And he said, Yeah, I've in like two hours, I I noticed just a ton of anomalies, right? The anomalous, it's like, why are there 20 people getting ballots at this one like business location? Right. You know, and and just stuff like that. Or like a lot. Yeah, and it's like if he can uncover that in a couple hours, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard, you know. And if it's I I know it's politics, but they would probably say it's too much money, you know, there's not enough money for us to go and put the manpower behind purging the voter rolls and then re-registering people.
SPEAKER_03It's like well, and you look at Colorado in a lot of states. I mean, the Secretary of State, it's it's a partisan position, you know, they're Republican or Democrat or whatever. And I don't like how much control the Secretary of State has over the voter rolls. Like that is concerning to me. Um, so if they have an appetite for cleaning those up, and most voter rolls are bloated by design, because we have motor voting. So, you know, my my kiddos, when they're 16, they go down to get their driver's license and then they're automatically registered to vote. Pre-registered. Pre-registered, right? They can't vote yet, but they're pre registered. And um, depending on which DMV individual you're talking to, they might ask them if they want to align with a party or not. I've talked to individuals where that question's been posed. And when it hasn't, okay. If it's not or if they don't answer, they're automatically registered as an independent. That's I think one of the reasons we have so many unaffiliated in Colorado. Um With motor voting, it's like everyone gets registered to vote, whether they really want to vote or not. So now you've got people that are disinterested in elections and voting that are registered. They're going to get a ballot when they're 18. Yep. Again, a dis fairly disinterested voter. And then it's all these steps you have to go through to then take someone off the road rolls. So that's where oftentimes you hear those arguments. Oh, we've got more people registered to vote in this county than actual citizens per the census. Well, some of that is just because everyone gets registered to vote, but it's hard to take people off the roll. So then you end up with 110%, you know, of the locals are registered to vote, but we don't even have that many people here. And so then you've got these ballots floating around in the mail, and you know, these are the images that people, you know, conjure up. It's like you know, they're stacking up in apartment complexes and anyone can just grab a ballot. Um I I appreciate some of those concerns, but it's just the nuance of that is like it's super easy to register to vote. The the you know, the threshold to entry is really low, but then to get someone off, you know, much more difficult. It's much more difficult.
SPEAKER_02It's maybe the state of Colorado actually makes it quite hard to remove somebody from the voter rolls.
SPEAKER_03And if you have a secretary of state that's disinterested in cleaning those up and removing some of those, that's a lot of power consolidated to one person.
SPEAKER_02And the rational person goes, why wouldn't you want clean voter rolls? Right. And if there's any pushback to that question, you start thinking nefarious thoughts. Yep. Like, what are they doing? Right. So I mean, it it doesn't help when we don't want to clean up our voter rolls. Access or not. Right. By the way, that his name was Mike O'Donnell. There you go. Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I think he had a very impassioned speech.
SPEAKER_03And he's still putting out information. He still pulls the voter list, which they're always changing, right? So I think he pulls them once a month and he pays for the state level, which I don't know how much that costs. Mesa County's like fifty bucks. State level is probably more, but and then he goes through and analyzes, and so he continues to report out. He's a very analytical guy, which I I I appreciate, but uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02The other candidate that year was Tina Peters. You know, she didn't even we win Mesa County. No Pam Anderson Peter in Mesa County.
SPEAKER_00You know, on that note, it's it's just supremely disappointing to me when I have like commentators that I respect very, very highly. And then they'll they'll they'll go to bat for Tina Peters and they'll just they'll they'll just land on that side of the issue. And in my mind, it's like they're so disconnected. Like on the one hand, you know, it it it's disappointing because they have this podcast where they're talking about truth and absolute reality, and then they're they're going to bat for Tina Peters, and it's like, what why wouldn't you have like um Dan Rubinstein on or Cody Davis, right? It's like at least entertain someone who was there who was local, right? Because you know, this particular podcaster's uh in New York, I think, and it's like you're so far removed, you've just taken people's word at face value and not looked at the hard data, the hard information, the actual uh series of events, you know.
SPEAKER_03Well, there's so much nuance, and I think I'm a nuanced guy. I think you are too, Cody. And uh, you know, because I was caught up in that 2021 election because even Tina said the grand junction one, yeah. Yeah, Tina said the 2020 election was was clean, was great, she administered it, and then after the fact, obviously people started to want to question it. I still think Mesa County, I mean, we went we went for Trump, but then the 2021 city council election, it's like, oh, you guys should have won. You're like well-known local conservatives, not really understanding how nonpartisan municipal races go. Um, so then that that created all the consternation. Um, but there's so much nuance there. It's like, what did Tina actually do? What was she trying to accomplish? What were some of the concerns? Um, because we went back and observed um the 2021 city council ballots. It wasn't an official hand recount, but we went in and counted all those ballots in the clerk's office, uh, the city clerk, and we were off by a couple of votes. So it was a clean election. I legitimately lost that election. I can tell some of my friends that to their face, and they just won't believe me. I was there hand counting myself and they don't believe me. They can't believe me because they've because the narrative is so strong on one side or the other, but the nuance is all there in the middle. Because I think I think Tina had some good intentions early on, and I think the thing ran away from her, and I think a bunch of people got behind her. They were actually asking her to do a lot more nefarious things than she did.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, they wanted to go in, break into the vault, and steal the machines and get them out of the Mesa County so that Mike Lindell and his team could go analyze and some of the stuff that was thrown around during that time. Um, and I was around for a lot of it. I I heard a lot of that chit-chat and that conversation going on. And so it could have actually gone a lot worse than it did. Um, but there's so much nuance in the middle there. So for someone in New York that's just like, oh, I heard this story yesterday, so let's bring someone on and talk about it. Even Heidi Gnall, I like Heidi, but she kind of got caught up in that too. It's like, you weren't here, you don't have all the facts, you don't understand the nuance, and now you're just making some political capital out of it.
SPEAKER_00But because even me here in Mesa County, it's like I'm learning stuff in this conversation that's like, okay, it's not changing what I think of it, but at least it's adding more information. Yeah. And it's like, how can somebody, no matter how prominent their platform is, how can they pretend to have all that nuance without at least entertaining the idea of, well, you know, maybe I should look at both sides of this. But it's always just, nope, we're gonna, we're gonna put this up, we're gonna put the poster up and we're gonna believe it, and we're not gonna entertain any sort of dissent.
SPEAKER_02It's the nature of audience capture these days, too. Oh, yeah. Like this this side of the argument isn't winning me anything. But when I post this or say this, holy cow, my numbers go way up. They spike. So then you play into that narrative. And unfortunately, it's human nature. Right. But we're we're playing into that, and you see it with podcasters. Like podcasters will start out strong and they'll start with something. I'm I really like this person, they're objective, they look at both sides, and then a year or two into their podcasting, they're their bent is stronger and stronger and stronger towards something because they've been captured by that audience. So those podcasters who are able to resist that, I just I have a ton of respect for. Are we gonna resist that? That's that's the goal. Free to think, right? Oh, good. Let's resist it, let's have different ideas. I don't I don't want to get captured by an audience. We don't have much of an audience yet, but that's okay. We don't even have any sponsors.
SPEAKER_03But to look at Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Oh my goodness. I used to like Candace Owens. I thought she did some really good work, I thought she was really up and coming. I'm with you. She's gone off the rails completely. And every time she says something crazy, she makes 200 grand on YouTube, you know, on all the clicks and all the the reactions. No matter what it is. So, of course, she's gonna continue to lean into crazy because it pays really well. But I don't trust anything she says now. I mean, she's legit crazy, and then she needs to slow down a little bit and actually pronounce her words right too. That would be helpful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That money and power seems like it uh has a very corrupting ability. Yeah. I wonder if there's also sponsorship capture of this like, hey, I'm gonna sponsor your podcast. But I'm sure there is. I want you to say certain things and certain issues and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02I think it probably happens um after the contest presented or something, you know, like hey, I didn't like what you said today. You need to modify your content or something like that, or else we're gonna play.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, keep keep talking about that, and suddenly you're not gonna be on our goodwill anymore. Yeah. We're we're gonna try to get sponsored by Taco Bell, but probably after the after the whole lettuce outbreak stuff the Cyclops disease or whatever it is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um we we were talking earlier about um when presented with new information. And Greg, this is one of the reasons I just have a ton of respect for you. Um, because in 2020, 21, you were really interested in what was going on, um but you weren't married to a certain position. And when you were introduced with new information, you saw the new information and you were able to pivot pivot with what you believed. And I that's a that's a rare characteristic. Um because most people they they believe something, they're married to it, and the second they're presented with new information, it doesn't jive with what they already believe, and so they just reject it, and they just they stay in their algorithm, they stay in their narrative, and they look for things that just kind of um push that narrative. And so, anyways, I just I appreciate that there are several people within that election movement have who have done that. I don't want to name them, but um, you were one of them who was just like and I'd like to think that's true of myself. Like if I see new information, um, I'd adapt my perspective or my view on it. Um, because that's sorely lacking um in today's public discourse is being presented with good information, new information, um, and reconciling with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you walk outside the silo and you see the light, it's like wow, it can be a painful experience, right?
SPEAKER_02It's a super painful experience. And can be kind of lonely too. It can. Yeah. But we need more people like it. And I I glom onto people who are like that. Even if, even if I don't fully agree with them, yeah, I like that they're walking outside the silo. One of the guys I actually like to listen to is Bill Maher because he's not attached to anybody. Right. I disagree with half the stuff the guy says. Absolutely. I mean, he's crazy on some stuff, but there's times when I'm like, okay, he he's he's right on, and he's not living in a silo, he's not like living in an echo chamber, and and at some level he's reasonable about new information that he receives.
SPEAKER_03And he just cannot get a mainstream Democrat to come onto a show. Yeah. They do not want to have these conversations. No way. Yeah. It's too rational. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Do you think there's an opportunity now? Because it seems like the Democratic Party has been so captured by the Democratic Socialists that there's going to be a big swath of like, okay, the reasonable Democrats will finally be like, okay, we need to start having in the middle conversations and not in the silo conversations. I mean, it seems like we're we're primed for that a little more than we have been in years past.
SPEAKER_03There's an opportunity for it, whether that'll happen or not. I I've always felt like the Democrats are much more of the fall in line party than Republicans, you know, we're the pull yourself up by the bootstraps, we're mavericks, we're individuals, you know, we're rugged and we're gonna make up our own minds, even within our party. Man, we circle the wagons and shoot inwards. We do all the time. Whereas the Democrats oftentimes you just see they've got the one candidate, they don't run people against each other, and then they just all fall in line. Not always march along that line. Rule of thumb. That's that's been my observation. I could be completely wrong in that. I think in this, we're we're still seeing some of that. We're seeing some of the the more traditional, you know, classical, you know, liberals in the in the Democrat movement kind of falling in line behind the Democrat Socialists, but then you got people like Bill Maher and others that are just like, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02I ain't going there.
SPEAKER_03I ain't going there. This is not what I signed up for. You know, I actually like the Senate. I I like that we have an actual presidency. I like that we have the constitution is a good thing. This constitution thing has been working pretty good for 250 years. Um, so I think he's a voice of reason. I disagree with a lot of what he has to say, but every once in a while, he you know, he'll say something and he'll he'll challenge someone on his show, and it's like, that's what a lot of us are thinking. You're just saying it out loud.
SPEAKER_00I think it's happening in Hollywood too, is you see a lot of these, they're now labeled as sort of conservative Hollywood types, but they were the pure liberal back in the 90s, yeah, and then the party left them behind. Right. So it seems like there's so many fronts where it's it's fracturing. It might be a good time to like, okay, let's get rid of the fringe lunatics on both sides and just come back to the middle.
SPEAKER_02The problem is people are are are stuck between extreme binaries. Yes. Right? They've got the extreme candidate on the right and the extreme candidate on the left. So then they're then they're in their mind, they're choosing between the lesser of two evils. You know, who's who's worse, mon Montami um on the left or a, and I can't think of a good one, but a Victor Marx on the right who's seen as like a weird exorcist candidate for governor. Um again, that's even nuanced in and of itself. But I mean, who who do I who do I who am I going with, right? Right. And these extreme positions, and I'm not, and I'm not I'm not clamoring for just compromise and moderation in the middle, but I think we could do a lot with a candidate who's more right of center than extreme right.
SPEAKER_03Um and I think maybe it's just because we're in the podcast era and we're in the era of social media that I think we get excited about those fringe personalities and candidates. Because those are the viral candidates. They go viral, they get all the clicks, you know, the Spencer Pratt's, the Victor Marks, the Lauren Boeberts, you know. Um, oftentimes it doesn't go well for them, but um, sometimes it does. But, you know, I I heard the term coined, you know, the the horseshoe right. And I think when you look at the the real radical left and the radical right, they're getting really close together. That horseshoe right, they love some central control. They want Trump to coalesce all power to himself. It's like, wait a minute, that's not what our party's about.
SPEAKER_00The Grupers, are they in the horseshoe right? Would you the Nick Fuentes types?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I guess he's on that spectrum somewhere. Yeah, he's so far away from like what I consider a true conservative, but um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. It's just it's it's weird that there's the democratic socialists on the left that seem to be on the ascendancy, and on the right, it's like the griper class of just disaffected uh, you know, Gen Z.
SPEAKER_02Seems like right there at the uh the center of the horseshoe is like anti-Semitism, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that seems to be what they coalesce around. It's just like, you know, the meme where they're shaking hands, the Arnold Schwarzenegger meme. We talked about this. Yeah, we didn't. Did you watch that movie? I didn't.
SPEAKER_03Well, there's a lot, a lot on the right now, too, that are all about you know censoring speech, and yeah um it's a it's an attractive proposition when you're in power and hey, let's go ahead and just censor all that speech because we don't like it. Um but I know I know personally people here in Mesa County that when certain things are done at the library or elsewhere, oh no, we we shouldn't allow them there and they shouldn't be able to say those sorts of things. It's like I mean, free speech goes both ways, and that's the part of that horseshoe right and that horseshoe left. They're just they're coming to that place where they both sides want to stifle speech and they want to have you know coalesce the power all in their one party, and that's dangerous.
SPEAKER_02Well, and if we if we're not protecting the most vile of speech out there, yeah, then we're not protecting our own speech, right?
SPEAKER_00See, that's that's the problem I have with gun control, is just like it doesn't boil down to whether I'm okay with relinquishing my guns to the government. Am I okay with disarming my neighbor? Right. And that's what I'm not okay with. I'm just saying, my neighbor, he's a good guy. I trust him, I live next to him, I have no problems with him. I don't feel it's appropriate for me to say no, he needs to disarm himself. So, and it's the same argument with free speech of just like, yeah, I'm gonna protect your guys' rights, and then when I need to speak and say something, I can be confident that I'll be heard just because that right has been protected.
SPEAKER_03Right, like Elon Musk said, you know, free speech isn't about speech you like, it's about speech you don't like. Otherwise, we don't need free speech laws. Yeah. You know, if it's just all the speech we like to hear, yeah, no one cares then. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because coming out of that silo again, just like if you listen to the speech that you don't want to hear, that's what can pull you out of the silo, and suddenly, or you Plato's cave, I guess, is another good analogy, right? And then you see just more information and you're saying, okay, the situation, the reality is not what I thought it was. Um, but it was painful in that moment, right? The cognitive dissonance, you can either like do the confirmation bias thing, or you can re-al, you know, realign your worldview a little bit. And it's a painful thing, that's probably why people just don't do it. It is painful. It is.
SPEAKER_03But that's where are you gonna emerge out of that with a new perspective, or are you just gonna stay in your priors? And I think it's much more comfortable to stay in your priors and avoid that cognitive dissonance. Yeah. Um, and sometimes you end up in kind of out in the desert by yourself for a while when you when you make those decisions.
SPEAKER_00But it seems like all that just applies to voting here too, right? Because we have just the extremities and people are siloed up in them. Yeah, and let's try to get into the if we get enough people into the wilderness, then it won't be the wilderness anymore. It'll be our little civilization.
SPEAKER_03And that's where conversation and free speech happens and platforms like this. Yeah. And being able to just speak freely and openly and maybe disagree on a few things. Like we would probably disagree on a few of the Tina Peters case you know, nuances. Yeah. Um, but we're gonna agree on a lot of other stuff. And at the end of the day, like I'm I'm a Reagan Republican. If we agree on 80%, we're friends and we're allies. 100%. The other 20%, uh, it's just it's important stuff, but it used to be 80-20, now it's like 99.9, yeah, point one.
SPEAKER_02Yep. If I disagree with you on point one, then I can be your friend and and an ally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like that window is shrunk down. Shrunk big time. Which is the I think it's the way the Democrats think, right? Is there more of like the 99? Everybody has to agree on 99% of everything. Right. Fall in line, get in line. So yeah, but Reagan was before Cody's time, so he he doesn't know what kind of religion was.
SPEAKER_02He was president when I was born, so no, he wasn't.
SPEAKER_00Okay, but just a little bit before.
SPEAKER_021985. He was right in the middle of his presidency. Oh man, how old are you? Forty old. I'm old. Well, anything else, guys? I think we covered that. I think we've covered a lot and wrap this thing up. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I I had a question for you, Greg. Just like uh if you could just like pin one thing, if you say, I want to be treasurer because of this certain thing that I think I can fix, what would that be?
SPEAKER_03I think we're fortunate in our situation that there's not a lot to fix. And so I want to continue on with the legacy of our last, I'd say, three um treasures. I think before that we had someone in office that was not term-limited, so she was in there for 30 years. Um, but uh yeah, so our last three treasures, they did a great job. Um, Sheila's done really good work. She's I think she's modernized the department to a certain extent. She's found ways to allow for individuals that uh are in a fixed income that own their house outright. So their only bill is their tax bill to allow them to make monthly payments instead of once or twice a year, because that can be a pretty big bill. So she's done really good work. Um and none of the none of those treasures came out of you know banking or a financial background. Um, they came from kind of a secretarial background, but they got in, they learned the job, they did a really good job. So I look forward to jumping in, kind of taking off where they left off. Um, we have Tyler Technologies coming online next year. That's gonna be a really big software upgrade. I'm super excited about it. I love that stuff. I love how it's gonna integrate with the assessor's office. And so I can't wait to get my hands on that software. I even called the company. I was like, can I look look at some training videos? We're like, this is proprietary. That's cute. You're a candidate. Uh, once you're in there, we've got a contract with the county, we'll get you all the training you need. I'm like, all right. I just keep going. I thought there's like a YouTube video I could watch. No, it doesn't work that way. But uh so mostly just to to springboard off of the good work that's been done. Maybe there's some more opportunity for for modernization and and just streamlining, but just keep really good customer service. You know, you hear complaints about how government's inefficient and how customer service is terrible. You don't hear that much from from Mesa County. I think I think Team Mesa's done a really good job. Um, finances are a little bit tight, you know, budgets are tight, and so I think we're gonna have to get a little bit more creative with with what we have and maybe you know stretch things a little bit. I've done that for 23 years in business. That is you know no mystery to me at all. And so, so yeah, look forward to getting in there and getting my so you're one of them you're you're one of them capitalists.
SPEAKER_00Yes, sir. Okay, all right. I like capitalism too. That's good. Yeah. Well, that's good, awesome. You know, I have noticed, I've been surprised. I I don't have a you know a big overlap with the county, but whenever I go into the county central services, it's always like, huh, well, that was pleasantly quick and a friendly service. And so I can echo that in my own capacity of just yeah, let's continue that because it seems like it's on a good path.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a good outside perspective. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Well, cool. Greg, thanks for being with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're welcome. As we always say, as we always say.