Lulu is creating a coalition to maintain the integrity of elections. If a bunch of smart people work together, can our elections work better for us? And more importantly, is that cool? 

“If all of us work together, then we can really make this a hot button topic the way that other issues have really risen to the top of our national consciousness.”  Learn more at smartelections.us and follow Lulu’s coalition on Twitter. 

They’re hosting free virtual workshops every week as part of an Election Protection Series that advocated to #CountTheVote before Election Day and is continuing to educate long beyond.

Listen to Lulu’s submission featured in Episode 72 of How Cool Is This? and read a transcript of the full episode below:

Lulu: Hi, I'm Lulu Friesdat. I'm the Executive Director of SMART Election, and our mission statement is elevating election reform to an urgent national priority. I'm an election security journalist who covered election security issues for over 10 years and had about 4 million views on different investigations that I did. 

I found some very disturbing things in voting machines and voting systems, and so about a year and a half ago, I, with some colleagues in the election security community, formed SMART Elections. And our reason for forming SMART Elections is to bring in as many people as possible from the public and from other election reform groups and get them activated around the issue of election reform.

There's a lot of different communities working on election reform, whether it's gerrymandering or the electoral college or voter suppression. If all of us work together, then we can really make this a hot button topic the way that other issues have really risen to the top of our national consciousness. We need for election reform to be that same type of issue with national urgency.

If you want to know more about that, you can go to our website, which is smartelections.us

Leave us a voicemail @ 848-863-9917

to submit your idea to How Cool Is This?

Nick: Brian, how cool is creating a coalition to advocate for election reform?

Brian: This is kind of cool. It's not like Lulu should have to be running around in circles and like screaming from the mountain tops to allow people to be represented. 

Nick: It seems like a no brainer. Like, why wouldn't you care about one of the most essential functions of democracy working?  And I guess, like I'm guilty of that too. I don't think about election reform all the time.  I just assume they're going to work. 

Brian: Yeah, I think we take for granted how this functions. You've got 300 million people who are just thinking, “Oh, I guess this is how it works.”

Nick: Elections have been treated like the bystander effect, like, somebody else is going to take care of it… it's not my responsibility to make sure that elections are accurate.

Brian: Lulu is taking care of it. So, thanks, Lulu.

Nick: It does sound like SMART Elections work better when more people are involved. And that's why she's working hard to get more people invested in the cause.

Brian: Yeah, it's cool to think about it from a higher strategic level than simply like, ‘Oh, let's fix gerrymandering.’

Nick: Maybe it is better to kind of attack it from multiple angles instead of trying to focus in on one specific thing. Taking this broad approach will both help people understand what's going on and how they can fix it.

Brian: How cool is it that this started as, I guess, a news investigation? It sounds like she was a journalist beforehand and then has now turned into more of an activist.

Nick: I think that's cool. I'm honestly surprised that doesn't happen more often. It almost sounds like Lulu kept finding out more and more and more about how elections weren't working properly, and then just decided like, screw it. I can't just report on this anymore. I have to do something about it.

Brian: It's tough because in theory, journalism is objective and about getting the story. But I think we found in the last five years that there is more of an angle to it than we want to admit.

Nick: Yeah, but is that wrong? I guess you could argue that in this specific instance taking an angle that advocates for better elections isn't objective, but it doesn't seem wrong to me. 

Brian: No, I don't think so either. And in general, I feel like most of the activism you see from journalists is on the right side of history. 

Nick: Brian, now that you've heard about this organization, do you feel more compelled to personally get involved with one of these sorts of things? 

Brian: Yeah, I think it's something that if I lived in an area that was more contentious, I would probably do more. If I were listening from a place where, you know, I wouldn't be able to necessarily trust the results as easily, because it would be so close then, yeah, definitely.

Nick: I would honestly love to get to the point where I don't have to think about elections anymore. Like, they just happen. The results are respected and accurate.  Maybe it's on all of us to put in a little bit more effort to get to that place where elections can be trusted again.

We’re running daily episodes featuring your ideas about voting, democracy, and politics until the US presidential election is decided. To get your idea on the show, leave us a voicemail at (848) 863-9917. 

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