This year alone, lawmakers in more than two dozen states have introduced or passed legislation in favor of ranked choice voting systems, where voters rank candidates in order of preference on their ballot.
Advocates sing the praises of ranked-choice elections, claiming it could be an antidote to the United States’ extreme political polarization. Others say switching to a new voting system would be too complicated for voters.
On the show today, Maresa Strano, deputy director of political reform at New America, unpacks ranked choice voting: what it does well, where it falls short, and what our voting systems have to do with the broader economy.
Then, a new strategy for wiping out medical debt is catching the attention of some local governments. And we’ll get into why mixed signals about the U.S. economy are complicating things for the Biden campaign.
Later, a listener shares how they learned the difficulty of farm work firsthand. Plus, this week’s answer to the Make Me Smart Question comes from sci-fi writer Andy Weir, author of “The Martian.”
Here’s everything we talked about today:
We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. You can reach us at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.
Why the Fed won’t hop on the rate-cutting bandwagon just yet
What summer heat waves mean for prisons
The good, the bad and the ugly of election polling
A shadow looms over the Fed
The long game of high interest rates
The growing troubles at OpenAI
A Trump-Musk bromance
How Big Food changed the way we eat
Biden doubling down on tariffs
How the Palestinian financial system is tied up in Israel
Private equity, endless shrimp and Red Lobster’s decline
Neoliberalism’s sleight of hand
Getting deep about deepfakes
The price tag on friendship
Whaddya wanna know about key inflation measures?
The great Bumble fumble
From “Million Bazillion”: What are labor unions?
The value of “third places”
What grocery aisle gossip can tell us about the economy
The lowdown on joint fundraising committees
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