in her book, she tells the story of a community of mariners who came to the rescue of thousands. >> the maritime evacuation that delivered nearly half a million people to safety is an incredible example of the goodness of people. that when you are given the opportunity to help, you have the tools, you have the availability, people, over and over again made the choice to put themselves in harm's way for the sake of fellow humans, and that is very instructive and something that we really need to continue to remember. >> jessica delong, sunday night on keep c-span q&a. you can also listen to q&a as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. >> we are back with rob richie,

president and ceo of fairvote. about right choice voting and election reform. guest: good morning. it is good to be in studio with you. host: exactly. remind us what fairvote is. what exactly is fairvote, where you get your funding and what is the group about? guest: i hope started back in 1992. people right remember -- people might remember the independent candidate for president, john anderson and had that spirit the rest of his life for independence. the focus of our work in the beginning or since that is better elections for all of us, that is our goal where we take a nonpartisan approach and work with people from across the spectrum. the core for what we try to do is to gather what we think are the structural roots of why elections can get off track and driving can have frustrations with representation, why elected

officials do not seem to be serving us all as well as they could, and there are electoral roles not baked in the constitution that states and cities can be laboratories of democracy, and we had a lot of progress and are starting to make some wind to get us to the national level of our station, which i think are at today. host: one of the changes you are pushing his ranked choice voting. explain to our audience what exactly rank choice voting is, and if they see it in their polling booths, what would be different about it was to mark -- what would be different about it? guest: up to 50 plus cities and states are doing it, new york city, 23 cities in utah, alaska, and the thing that looks different when you go to vote is rather than an x ballot where you just pick one, you can say, who are my full set of choices, who is my first, second and

third choice? what those other rankings are are backups to your vote. your vote is precious we think, and you go all in with your first choice, but if your first choice is not that strong a candidate, and there is no one who has a majority of the vote if you are electing one person, so it is 45, 30 or 15 and you support the candidate with 15, you get a backup. so we get a head-to-head comparison between the two strongest candidates and sometimes call that an instant runoff because it compares the top two. so the people whose first choice is the strong candidate, it stays with them, but if you back a candidate who is in last place, it goes to your second backup. at the end of the day, a lot more votes count, and you are free to relate vote without consideration of conventional wisdom with you has the most money. you can vote for whom you want. your vote is your voice. rank voting liberates you to express what you want.

host: so having never been in a rank choice ballot for election myself, how do you indicate on a rank choice ballot your first versus your backup pick? do you put numbers, x's, how do they know who it is question mark -- you it is? guest: you will still see this in countries overseas, augusta area, they use numbers they count by him -- like australia, they use numbers and they count them by hand. we use paper where you have bubbles and you mark the bubble next to your first choice, and then there will be a second column for your second choice and so on. like in the new york city mayoral race, we don't have all the data yet, but probably more than two thirds of people right three or more candidates and more than four out of five rank

at least a backup. that is something they could not do before. so that many people wanted to use the rankings because of that, a lot more votes ended up counting. host: we mentioned this earlier, but how many places in america can you see ranked choice voting in right now? is it statewide, citywide? where can you find it? guest: it started in the way american democracy generally looks at changes in this country. things bottoms up. get some cities and states starting to look at it and do it, and we are part of that trajectory. we had to do a lot of work to get the voting companies adapt their voting, but it is very simple picking rings candidates, but the voting companies had a laborious process for changing that and getting their technology in-line. so you started in cities where you have one equipment vendor to work with and so on. but it is in 50 cities or so,

and then we are up to alaska and maine, for u.s. senate, u.s. house, president. four states use it for president for primaries last year. the virginia republican party used it for their big nomination contest in the spring. the common thread is these are races where you have multiple candidates, there were seven running in virginia for governor in the republican side, and only voting for one person and was leaving a lot of that preference on the table. and the rain choice ballot begets fair outcomes in a more unified party more quickly, and it is a problem-solving tool in important ways and focused ways, like 6, 7 states have congressional primary runoff election. georgia has a general election, as we saw with the u.s. senate race. and overseas voters, it is hard to get a ballot back for a

runoff, so those six states sunday ranked choice ballot to overseas voters and the voters rank candidates on them. when it gets to a runoff, have already expressed their runoff references, and almost all of them have done so in a way that counts. it makes military voters overseas get a vote that counts. host: let me remind our viewers that we can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up regular lines. democrats, (202)-748-8000. republicans, (202)-748-8001. independents, you can call (202)-748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202)-748-8003. and we are always reading on social ed a on facebook -- social media on facebook .com/c-span and twitter, @cspanwj. you can follow us on instagram also at, @cspanwj.

when states and localities change to rank vote choice voting, our people catching on to it quickly? guest: when you see a range of the way districts do it, they have different resources and priorities. what we believe is the most important educational tool is the ballot itself. a good design, simple, clear instruction, voters are showing the ability to rank candidates. the important tool is to really make sure you feel comfortable, like why am i ranking candidates? is it a point system? mi given 10 points for my first choice and nine for the second? it is not that, it is all in for your first and then if your first choice loses, you go to your backup. you want to make people comfortable with expressing their preferences. new york city has had this big primary and 41 contests needed

for the instant outcome. you get invested in outcome and you want to know if it makes sense, and that kind of education is important. new york invested quite a lot in education. we have seen other jurisdictions hardly do anything. maine has not spent that much money, but it has worked out there well, too. host: one of our social media followers says that there was mixed news coming out of the new york experiment. steve writes a tweet, "during the process, the rank of choice voting in new york city seen the disaster, but afterwards, folks said it was relatively successful." can you explain what happened? guest: it is easy for television to focus on a couple of optics. there were two things they do as well as i wish they did.i think the fundamentals were excellent, they had the highest

turnout, the highest of rankings , and fascinating outcomes on the ballot. the city council had a lot of open seats. had never had more than 18, and on the council. they are going to have more than double what they have now. my wife except election methods and runs a group called represent women, to liberate voters from conventional wisdom to create a level playing field. a huge surge on young people of color on the council. they waited a week to run the first tally. then you have a close race for mayor and basically, you can push a button and it counts instantly when you do. you are left with first choices, and they want to make sure they

get it right, and here the second thing they didn't do. they do not get it right when they push the button. they had left 135,000 test ballots in their records. when they ran the first tally, there were unofficial results, but they included a lot of emmy ballots that were puzzling -- dummy ballots that were puzzling and not understood. that was the practical problem. it had no impact on results, but it impacted how people saw. the next day that error was corrected and the count was all done by now, and, again, fundamentals we think went really well, but the board of elections in new york, which has a history of patronage and is a big the rock christy and something that needs to be reformed -- and is a big bureaucracy and something that needs to be reformed. this was a good example of how to do it better. host: the bat optics had nothing to do with the actual rank choice voting, they just put

the wrong ballots into the count? guest: correct, so eric adams was going to be the democratic nominee for mayor. he got 31% of first choices. less than one third of a vote. if it had been a single choice election, he would've one, but -- he would have won, but there would have been some doubt on if you should have won and they were 13 candidates overall. they got down head-to-head between a woman named kathryn garcia, and it was 51 to 49. it was close, but he does win. he was the majority choice between those top candidates. i think that kind of helped confirm the outcome. in the history of new york city, there have been 109 mayors, 108 have been white men. host: let's let some of our

viewers take part in the conversation. let's start with karl, calling from arlington, virginia, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am african-american, and i do not have any faith anymore, not only in black men but black politicians. the choices are pretty much made for us. we go through most of the voting, but they cannot really help the poor. the black urban poor, even kamala harris, she said one time, you think i am going to do something specifically to help black people? no. then she turned around, helped asians. i really don't have any faith in black mayors or politicians in general because the white wealthy elite really control them. host: do you have any questions about rank choice voting? guest: yeah, it does not do

anything. it is not helpless as black people. that is my comment. -- caller: yeah, does not do anything. it does not help like people. that is my comment. guest: we will sue it happens in the new york november election, but i think he came out of the election tapping into the sentiments with support in the black community and new york is a reflection of we need to take our interests seriously, and i think that message resonated. obviously, we have politicians operating in a climate where a lot of things affect whether they can get the job done or not . everyone will be happy with what they do. i do think that to conclude, we need to have voting systems that at least of us the best chance

possible to say what we really think and what we want, and for our candidates to have incentives and rewards for listening, and for connecting with as many voters as possible, and give them their best shot. we cannot guarantee that they are going to do the job we want them to do. host: we have another question from a social media followers who basically wants to know, does this make voting harder? tim says rank choice or extinct choice voting is a terrible idea. why add players of complexity to an otherwise easy process? one system, one vote, and you can know who wins that day. what is your response to our viewers and followers who say rank choice voting makes it harder, why wouldn't i go and choose one person, whether they get enough votes or not, we know that day. guest: that is an option in a rank choice voting. they can just rank one person and be happy with what they have

done and walk away. if they want to take that away from other people, i have a problem with that. an autocracy is easier still, let's not vote at all, and then we don't have to do anything, but if you're going to have a vote, which is a good thing, i think we want to have a chance to have a backup to that vote. so it is 35, 25, or whatever that result ip, it is not a representative outcome for sure if someone represents 65% of people with only 35%, and this is not a less rank thing. we are seeing republican parties use it in three state conventions last year because they cannot do in person voting because of covid. we saw democratic parties use it. it is something that i think is giving voters more power. i don't think a person who only wants to vote for one person say

they cannot have a backup. what i do want to emphasize is new york's delaying reporting there results was -- if you want quick results, rank choice voting can provide that. host: does moving to a rank choice voting system change the way politicians have to campaign? guest: it does, a good politician. they do not have to change it, and they are less likely to win. the fact that you have given voters more that they can do on their ballot, so now my first choice matters, my second, i backup with their choice might matter, as well. if i am a candidate trying to win and connect, like eric adams likely would have been ranked on more than 62% of ballots in the big field. he earned that, and he earned that by talking to more people and going outside of his

brooklyn borough and going to queens, and hatton, and maybe he did not get a first respect he could get a backup choice. the voters know that, too, and a fascinating part of it is they are saying, i settled on my first choice, but i will listen to this next debate because i will listen to my second -- because i need my second choice. so what is going to win, and you will more likely engage with them and connect with them. that gives them a better chance to be a good representative. host: does ranked choice voting lemonade the need for a runoff and a second election in most campaigns? and is that a good thing or a bad thing? guest: i think we kind of set things up in a binary way of one way is perfect and one way is terrible. there is a spectrum. one of the strongest reasons and one of the most compelling top-of-the-line reasons why cities have been going to ranked choice voting is to go one election, not two. the utah elections, they have a

two round system where you vote in august, in a nonpartisan field, to twice the number of candidates and seats in november. then they had the second election in november. or you do it faster, cheaper, better election in november without that august preliminary. 23 cities, salt lake city on down, decided that they preferred that faster, cheaper, better option. so when we look at some very important runoff elections, it gives people a second chance to look at the candidates. that is something that ranked choice voting does not do, but a lot of people do not participate again. we have looked at the last 200 congressional runoffs. the average drop in turnout is almost 40%, so the number of people that come back is usually a lot less. it costs a lot of money for taxpayers, for the candidates who have to go to donors to raise more money for a second election. these are some of the arguments that make ranked choice voting a

great alternative. host: that's go to bill, calling from northbrook, illinois. bill, good morning. caller: good morning. to recap a couple of things. obviously, in new york, it was delayed over many days until we found out the answer. two, the fact that there are multiple counts increases the ability for fraud. but the point that i make is that when you list your ranked choice, and there is a name for this, if you do not list any other choices beyond your first one, you are basically completely deluded, your ballot. you should be allowed to say,

one -- i want joe smith, list them on all five choices because that is the person that you want, and that you should not have to list four other people below joe smith. the other thing is is in new york, it seems that the run-up to the election, there was a lot of jockeying between the candidates to try to, between the andrew yang and garcia, to try to get themselves positioned on the ballots into the second choice. this created a lot of distortion. so the idea that this is better, whatever better means, ok, as opposed to just we are going to vote, and this is the individual that i want, i think that what happened in new york is an

example of all the things of why this is an idea whose time is wet. host: go ahead and respond, rob. guest: clearly you have done some reading on why you don't like ranked choice wording -- voting, but i can address them. the timing was a reflection of certain choices that u.s. -- new york state policymakers made. we have major cities that get elections that are done that night, and that can be done with ranked choice voting. it is a technical decision about how to handle things. i should say that without sin to laws we have now, -- with the absentee voting laws we have now, the delay is necessary. when kamala harris won statewide for attorney general in california, it took weeks to learn. absentee ballot laws make it that it takes a while to get final outcomes.

that is not due to ranked choice voting but other issues. the idea of what they call exhaustive or inactive ballots, that the voters did not rank one of the final two candidates. a new york, there were 13 candidates and it came down to kathryn garcia and eric adams. they are relatively, they are sort of similar on the ideological spectrum. may have some differences, but there were not the most conservative or progressive candidates. some people really do not have a preference between those two. it turned out that 86% of people had a preference between those two, and that was a lot more than what you saw in the first round were only 50% voted. so you have a lot of people getting their way in, but we do not mandate voting in this country or rankings. if you only want to vote for one, that is fine. the last lift out from that is this idea of fraud. there is a great instructive example from new york. one of the city council races on

the republican side in staten island where the winner was favored in november, we do not know if there was fraud but there are allegations from a candidate who surprised everyone by finishing first and the first choices. i got to that point by -- they say they got to that point by fraud, and we will see that settled, but he lost in the runoff because more votes counted. so when you only need 34% to win or whatever it might be, a bit of fraud helps you if you have to get to 50%. so the more votes to count, the harder it is to do fraud. i think these other issues are ones where we have to make a choice. do we want to handle crowded fields by allowing people to finish top of heat with 20%? we have had people get elected to congress after winning a congressional primary with less than 20% of the votes in the last year. maybe they are going to do a good job, but we should confirm

that they are the most representative candidate and we think ranked choice voting does a great job of doing that. host: i want to read a criticism of ranked choice voting in a "wall street journal" editorial, and this is what harvey mansfield said, "by ranking choices, a voter is required to divide his vote between a favorite candidate and some merely acceptable ones. the first race is what the voter privately wills, the representative who suits them best, this choice is not directed at the common good, which requires that voters. consider what others want in a free country, voters should require a common good superior to the wishes of private vigils to prevail. ranked choice voting makes the common good inferior to each person's private first choice." what would be your response? guest: i would say he turned reality on its head. right now, you only get one

choice. you are not necessarily thinking about the common good with that. you are just voting for one person, right? and someone could win with 28% representing 100%. and the idea of needing to have connected with more voters and assembling the majority and connecting with people in a crowd sourcing definition of what the common good is, kind of a bottoms up way of saying, this is what the common good and ranked choice voting is doing that directly. i found his op-ed, i will be honest, incomprehensible from the way ranked choice voting really works. and he was using arguments against it that in some ways i think are the strongest arguments for it, and that is a good example. host: let's go to grace, calling from the bronx, new york, on the democratic nine. grace, good morning -- democratic line. grace, good morning. turn your television down for us first. go ahead.

caller: good morning, how are you? hello, can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: i am calling about i do not like the ranked choice voting. i believe it is a scam. i am very involved in the political process in the bronx in new york, and first of all, ranked choice voting, when you vote, it should be one vote per person. ranked choice voting gives people more than one vote. for example, if you vote for your second choice and the fourth choice, ok, let's say first choice and forth choice, your fourth choice person does not make the 50% they have to move up. then that vote goes up to either one or two. it is double dipping. you are -- they are getting two

votes from the same person. do you understand? guest: thank you for your call. york from a respected pollster about people's attitude. 77% said they liked ranked better than the previous way. grace is not alone in that view but the majority of people prefer it. the key point about one person, one vote is that in each round -- so you have a first round where you only count first choices. then the second round almost everyone one counts again because the candidate is still in the race. the only voter who doesn't is something who backed the candidate in last place. in the second round they are getting a vote counted for the second choice.

in that round it is a one person, one vote system. in a runoff election that happens weeks or months after he might vote for someone different than you did the first round because your first choice is no longer running. it is not like you are getting more votes. you are just having to settle on a backup and that is the idea of ranked choice voting. as people adapted to it the pattern we have seen -- the support keeps going up and up and up. you get used to a new system and realize it is doing something for you, getting something more powerful, you adjust. your candidate will not always win but that is the pattern we have seen. the more it is used, the more it is appreciated and the more voters settle into it. that first election grace experienced was highly charged and you might not like aspects of it. i hope people give it time.

rear adm. cruz: let me ask basic questions -- host: let me ask you what you would see in ranked choice voting. they still win if they get majority. guest: yes. host: and the rest of the votes don't matter. guest: i'm glad you brought that up. if you win in the first round, you were done. two candidates cannot get majority. only if the 41 primaries, like the bronx where presidential race -- in each one there was no first round majority winner so the second round kicked in but only because there was no first round majority. host: so, a caller brought this up earlier. if you have a favorite candidate, can you rank them first, second, third, fourth?

or do you have to choose another person? guest: the key point is the caller may not realize the ballot only goes to the first choice and the second choices lost. it is like going into an ice cream store and saying, i want butter pecan. the person says we do not have butter pecan today. well i want butter pecan. we don't have butter pecan. you are not going to get butter pecan ice cream. your ballot is going to the second choice is a backup. if your backup is nothing, walk out without ice cream. if you like strawberry, say, strawberries my second choice. you are not getting to i scream cones, just a backup. host: amazing you came up with that example. that happened to me. [laughter] i had to choose strawberry. let's talk to george calling from st. louis, missouri on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning.

i am in st. louis and we had approval voting for the first time in a primary. a friend of mine said approval voting was better than ranked choice voting and i don't understand that. maybe he could comment on the differences and why some of these scientists don't like ranked choice voting. guest: that is interesting. st. louis did use a different method where they kept the runoff but they had a first round to get it down to two where you could get one vote for one candidate, another vote to another candidate, as many as you wanted. then the two with the most approval would advance to the november election. the key thing is that if you have a compromise, if you have a

second or third choice and you decide to vote for that person, it is giving equal weight with the first so you are having more than one vote count. some scientists have liked that because it makes more votes count at the same time. but psychologically i think they are missing the psychology of how we feel about things. if your first choice is what you really want, pretty hard to cancel out that vote with your second choice at the same time. what you tend to see is more people stop doing it. they just vote for one. but it is a reflection of the fact we can have these conversations in jurisdictions across the country. james madison, the framers did not dictate voting methods. they were quite adventurous themselves and how to think about changes and experiments. our whole history is what the slogan is, "a more perfect union." trying to make things better and

our goal is better elections. i think, you know, we don't need to settle with what we have. the factors did not want us to. they wanted us to have these conversations in st. louis had that conversation. most places go to ranked choice voting and we think that is the best way to go. host: does it cost money to change to ranked choice voting? how much and since you are arguing about whether it is because to make the change? guest: we have done a lot it fairvote. redistricting, but registration, trying to think about core ways to make things better. we would be further along if the voting equipment companies were ready, they did not have to be paid to adapt their systems, and jurisdictions had a policy choice without the administrative and cost issues. which at this point it is much easier.

most jurisdictions have a relatively straightforward path using ranked choice voting. it will still cost transition money. you are dealing with private companies that will charge you for any change. it is like a car dealer saying, i would like a radio. we will charge you for it. you have the right to have the music system but you have to pay for it. you will see jurisdictions making different choices. i am always pro voter education so if policymakers are ready, that's great. but it is up to the jurisdiction on that one. once it settles in, these one-time transition costs, they are certainly much cheaper than having a runoff election over time. host: this social media follower wants to know about the elimination of the winnowing of a field. they say voting is a choice, not a preference list.

my second choice may change depending on who is remaining in the field. support may go up because the propaganda supporting it but that still doesn't make it a sensible system. ranked choice voting does eliminate runoff which would winnow the field down and make your choices starker. what do you say to people who say, i want the field to winnow down? guest: we usually don't. we don't have runoff elections and almost no general elections. we allow people to win with an unrepresented vote total because runoffs are tricky. the new voting laws we have about trying to access -- like new york went to more absentee and early voting. they used to do a runoff to were three weeks after the primary. they cannot do that today. the runoff period would have to

be two months to work with the current laws. it is slower, it costs money. yes you have a clearfield but here's the thing, your second choice is your second choice. i do not think it is dependent. the ice cream example, you had to settle on strawberry. if they had chocolate and you really want to chocolate as your second choice, then just ask for chocolate instead of strawberry. it is not contingent -- just ask for what flavors are presented. some people go into rabbit holes thinking about things that are dead ends. it is the sensible way to vote. do with the ballot asks you to do. what is your favorite, second favorite, third favorite, and if you don't care, stop. we say it is as easy as 1, 2, 3 and i think it is. yes, that is in fact making our

precious right to vote matter more and that engagement changes and you get more representative outcomes. that is why i really believe this is how we are going to vote in 10 years almost everywhere if not everywhere. once you sort of recognize what it is doing -- we have seen whole countries do that top to bottom in election cycles like australia and ireland. we will see if we have the conversation, but it is not partisan. it is just better for voters and democracy. host: let's talk to edward calling from fort collins, colorado on the republican line. edward, good morning. caller: good morning. i guess i am finding out if i support the fourth-ranked guy, my vote ends up not counting for that guy. so the guy who i voted for, he gets zero votes looks like to me. he doesn't even know where he stands.

it is just wrong. i do not like it. it is very liberal type of thinking. this is really bad. you have got to get on this and stop this. guest: i will say it sounds like the liberal-conservative perspective. the six southern states that use this for military voters, they offered them ranked choice ballots. it makes more votes count in a practical way and that is a good thing. georgia lawmakers added it to the state laws just this year. the utah conversation is like cities saying, hey, do we want one election or two? that is faster, cheaper, better. these are very conservative cities. the virginia republican party used ranked choice voting

because they have a crowded field and they wanted to get a stronger nominee. this parliamentary guide to associations recommends ranked choice voting as alternatives if you cannot vote in person repeatedly. that is the first choice but if you cannot do that, use ranked choice voting and many associations use it to get representative winners. this is not an ideological issue. it is one that is about a practical way to make more votes count. host: virginia is calling from georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. this is my first time calling in an thank you c-span for what you do to give everyone a voice to speak their opinions on subjects and titles. i am more interested in the fair voting side of where possibly the voting can be a holiday where everyone can come and vote

on that particular day and they don't have to be rushing around trying to get to the polls, and they have freedom voting on the day. i have been doing research where the united states ranks last at voter turnout among the chief seven countries. other countries like france and germany and thailand and russia and japan have a higher turnout of voting when they have voting on weekends. also, other countries have compulsory voting where the person is automatically registered to vote. they do not have to worry about going online or in person to register to vote. the question is why don't the united states of america -- i know this has probably been talked about before in other administrations -- but why doesn't the united states of america have compulsory or

weekend voting, or make voting a holiday so everyone can have the time to go vote and not be rushing and so busy that they don't have the time to vote? that is my question. thank you for taking my call. guest: thank you. one of the things i believed throughout my time at fairvote's american democracy works best when we allow people access. we want every eligible voter to have access. you do not want ineligible voters to have access and there are practical ways to do that. we have a conversation about election and making it a holiday. with that cover local elections, primary elections? the alternative is to allow early voting. virginia has weeks and weeks where people can go in and vote early and that is there alternative to all of us voting on the one holiday.

puerto rico, part of the united states, has a holiday. that is a choice a state could make right now. here is what i would say about fair voting in general. i want to acknowledge a point about what we believe which is ranked choice voting can be used in different ways. the way we believe is the most empowering is the way something don buyer introduced as the fair representation act. this adds to ranked choice voting a really important feature which is to allow people more than one representative. in today's binary, polarized politics most of the country is divided into republican majority or democratic majority. the general elections are essentially rubberstamps. the fair representation act would open up districts to be bigger but have more representation. you rank the candidates like we have been talking about, but now

the goal is to have as many as possible elect someone in a proportional way. if it is five seats, about 20% of the vote makes it possible for one candidate to win, and then you end up with the spectrum being represented. your neighbors might have different views and they can have their own representative. when i think about incentives for lawmakers to represent us well we think the fair representation act is the big goal. it is a longer topic how to make it work but as we go into the gerrymandered season and the next year, which is this awful process of lawmakers choosing constituents before the constituents choose them, the fair representation act would give that power always to us and allow us to choose our representatives in an authentic way. that is our long-term goal and something we think would create

a culture of higher participation. host: we would like to thank rob richie, president and ceo of fairvote for coming this morning and talking to us about ranked choice voting and election reform. thank you for being with us. guest: true pleasure. fun to be in the >> c-span's washington journal. every day we take your calls live on the air on the news on the day and discussed policy issues that impact you. sunday morning, we will talk about conservatorship and guardianship reform efforts. also, we look at the current political unrest in cuba and haiti and how it could affect u.s. policy. watch washington journal live at 7:00 turn sunday morning and join the discussion with your phone calls, face comments, texts and tweets.

♪ >> sunday night on q&a, a chief engineer of the historic fire about john jay harvey on september 11, and called back into service following the attacks on the twin towers. in her book, she tells the story of the community of mariners that came to the rescue of thousands. >> the maritime evacuation that delivered nearly half a million people to safety is an incredible example of the goodness of people, that when you are given the opportunity to help, you have the tools, you have the skill set, you have the availability that people over and over again eight the choice to put themselves in harm's way for the sake of fellow humans. that is very instructive and something we really need to continue to remember. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m.

eastern on c-span's q&a. you can also listen as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> arkansas senator tom cotton, i possible presidential candidate, spoke at an event hosted by the rocking ham county, new hampshire republican party. he talked about the coronavirus, immigration and the u.s. southern order, and critical race theory. [applause]