So what's a refresher about that? I always find that pretty fascinating.

Yeah.

So what's interesting is if you went back 20 or 30 years, the vote by mail was largely Republican.

Republicans would request the vote by mail ballot.

They in many counties had to request that ballot every election cycle.

If you missed an election, they would take you off of off of the permanent vote by mail lists.

So it used to be something that was really the domain of older homeowner Republicans.

Are there parallels or any kind of like interesting differences you're seeing between California and national trends?

Um, what is it you think election officials should be doing, then, in order to try to cons- control this, uh, this spin around the conspiracy theories? Is there anything that they can do?

Well, I mean, I think it is tough, and I think just to, to, to think about it this way, that a lot of the people who are pushing these conspiracies, I believe they're doing it disingenuously and, um, you know, oftentimes I'll talk to somebody and once you get past the hurdle of saying, okay...

They'll say, "Oh, okay, it makes sense now.

I understand it's probably not a conspiracy, but you should change the law anyway because you're inviting conspiracies." And it's kinda like, well, at what point are we trying to make changes to our election system to appease people who aren't being, you know, that are, that are being disingenuous? So there are things that they could do, but it's all really marginal.

If- unless we want to start throwing away legitimate ballots, we're gonna, we're gonna keep a system that allows people, if their signature's bad, to fix it.

We're gonna allow people to drop off ballots on Election Day or mail them on Election Day and have the signature verification go on for several days.

I mean, it's, it's almost like a what, where do you want to disenfranchise voters in the name of stopping people who have conspiracies from tweeting things on, online that aren't true?

I mean, a- aren't there fair concerns about that practice?

Did two wrongs make a right?

In this instance, I think it was important to kind of put the foot down and push back on what was happening in Texas.

But I do share with you some of the consternation over this ever happening period and what's happened since as a result of it.

It's been talked about in the media a little bit in some of my conversations I've had with reporters that before this thing actually happened, I was opposed to even doing any of this.

I was telling members of Congress, I was telling members of the governor's staff, that they couldn't do this, that I have been a huge advocate for the Independent Redistricting Commission.

I believe in nonpartisan redistricting.

I have literally never done a partisan redistricting in my life, but I've done over a hundred nonpartisan redistrictings, including where you live and where most people in California who are listening to this, where they live.

I wanna ask you first, Paul, do you have friends who've left California in the recent years? Is this touch your friend group? De-camp somewhere else to Texas, Florida, you know, gosh, Coeur d'Alene, all these other places.

What do you mean by trying to figure out the right way to vote in this governor's race, Paul?

Well, it's very interesting.

Folks who have been listening to Forum and watching the news have seen a lot of discussion about this fear among Democrats that the top two in the governor's race would be Republicans, essentially boxing out Democrats from the general election.

That risk has, I think, been abated a lot recently, and we can talk about why, but voters still are very keyed into it.

I did a poll, and it showed that 75% of Democratic voters are afraid that two Republicans might make the runoff.

And the people who have voted cite things like, I voted for the candidate who was highest in the polls, or I voted for the candidate who I thought could make sure that two Republicans don't make the runoff.

That This is this prevailing sentiment of we can't afford to get it wrong.

Tell us why you initially or others initially thought that this was a strong possibility and where things seem to stand right now.

Because [laughs] we've certainly seen a lot of them, especially for Becerra recently, but there were a lot for Tom Steyer as well against his past investments in private prisons and so on that were definitely on the airwaves.

Yeah, so, uh, first off, just to pivot off of what was said about this Becerra surge, it really was, in my view, super organic.

Uh, he had good favorables, uh, better favorables than anybody else, uh, but he was sitting there, like, 3 to 7% or something like that, really low in the polls.

Uh, when Swalwell left, I was one of the people saying, "Well, you know, Porter and Steyer are gonna benefit." Didn't expect him to come up through the middle, but when he did, it was, I think, a combination of lucky spending they were doing right at that time and his favorables.

And then Sacramento kicked in.

The Sacramento folks that I talked to had said, like, "Well, we were gonna support him, but he was nowhere in the polls, so that's why we didn't support him.

So now that he's doing well, I guess we're gonna go all in for him." And so that kind of was the second piece to drop.

And I think you asked some questions about, you know, how they feel about the top two system now.

Can you just tell us what to expect and what might change?

Well, I think the California's maps are intended to create partisan gain for Democrats.

It's the idea of confronting what is happening in Texas.

They say they're going to pick up five Republican seats.

Well, then if you're going to do that, we'll draw a map that'll pick up five Democratic seats.

I think a lot of what people are thinking they're going to see is, you know, some crazy lines going down freeways and like, you know, creating districts like they're doing in Texas.

They want districts that are built on what the commission already did, that protect the Voting Rights Act, that protect communities of interest.

Like, what is that?

Can you just tell us what to expect and what might change?

Well, I think, you know, the California's maps are intended to create partisan gain for Democrats.

It's the idea of confronting what is happening in Texas.

They say they're going to pick up five Republican seats.

Well, then if you're going to do that, we'll draw a map that'll pick up five Democratic seats.

I think a lot of what people are thinking they're going to see is, you know, some crazy lines going down freeways and like, you know, creating districts like they're doing in Texas.

They want districts that are built on what the commission already did, that protect the Voting Rights Act, that protect communities of interest.

So how rare is it you've been working in this field for a while for the president to encourage and get involved with this redistricting effort?