In this episode, I sit down with the CEO of Legacy Media, an election technology company that focuses on early voting and election analytics. We talk about how they got started, why they re doing what they do, and how they plan to impact the 2020 election.
00:00:30.000Where to start with what's unique about the election?
00:00:32.000The first one that I did, election livestream, was 2016.
00:00:36.000It was in his house, in his den, essentially, with kind of a makeshift setup with curtains and a TV screen that was over kind of Stephen's shoulder over here.
00:00:45.000And he basically was just trying to give people an alternative.
00:00:48.000Like, instead of having to tune into mainstream media, here's an alternative, we'll talk to you about what's going on.
00:00:56.000Then in 2020, we tried to step things up a little bit.
00:01:00.000We added a lot of comedic elements to it.
00:01:01.000We added all kinds of fun kind of little bits that we would do.
00:01:23.000That's great, and we can kind of just do the same thing, but we want to be the single source for information that people need to go to for an election.
00:01:55.000Fox News decision desk is calling Arizona for Joe Biden.
00:01:58.000What this is about is providing the tools, not only here, but to all alternative streams so that we don't have to rely on the old guards ever again.
00:02:11.000Guys, we're getting ready for election season, obviously.
00:02:13.000Now looking at early voting coming out of the key swing states.
00:02:16.000We're utilizing the same resources, the same data, the same information that the quote-unquote mainstream media outlets utilize.
00:02:25.000CNN, NBC News, ABC, you know, with a fraction of the employees and a fraction of the budget.
00:02:31.000So that's really taking a lot of focus, time, dedication.
00:02:35.000I think this is the most important election of my lifetime, certainly.
00:02:39.000I don't think the stakes have ever been higher, and I think we're putting everything we got into this.
00:03:20.000I don't know what they're about to ask me.
00:03:22.000When you're charged with essentially building a professional election desk and you've never done it before, you kind of have to learn as you do.
00:03:29.000It's not a straight line from A to B, but yet the results have to be perfect.
00:03:33.000Working with large companies like Reuters to figure out how we can use their data.
00:03:37.000I think the highlight of what we're kind of putting together is this election integrity map.
00:03:41.000What I'm saying is perhaps these numbers are absorbed in some other category.
00:03:45.000The biggest challenge is accumulating all the data, reading through it, digesting it, and then figuring out, out of all of these data points, what the most important data points are and how we can distill them and present them to the audience in a very succinct and digestible way.
00:03:59.000There's red and there's blue, you see?
00:04:03.000Until you are actually behind the scenes working on it, you see how much it takes to come up with accurate pieces of data like that.
00:04:09.000That's hours upon hours of work trying to find that out.
00:04:11.000And to try to be accurate too, what we're explaining, so we're not trying to just throw data out there.
00:04:15.000The important thing is to have an informed and enlightened audience, and I think that's especially where we shine.
00:04:20.000When we know we have a foundation of accurate data, then we can really look at it in a way that allows us to present the audience with an angle that they really won't see anywhere else.
00:04:31.000I mean, I hope we're able to present something to the audience and shows the actual truth of what's going on.
00:04:39.000Like, if there is something amiss in a county, in a state.
00:04:43.000Michigan already said they're already going to kick 500,000 people off the voting rolls after the election.
00:04:49.000I don't know why they have to wait till after.
00:06:12.000It's a fun environment because there's so much comedy going on, but it's also intense because there are big, country-altering things that are happening, especially with the undercover stuff we've done.
00:06:22.000That added a whole new element to the intensity that I didn't even see coming until it happened.
00:06:28.000Today there was a story about somebody in Southern District who's highly respected.
00:06:35.000Knocking the hell out of both of those cases.
00:06:38.000Say it's an embarrassment they were allowed to be brought.
00:06:41.000And I'm going to write out a list of them.
00:06:44.000One of the top people in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan.
00:06:47.000Quote, Honestly, I think this case is nonsense.
00:06:51.000Nobody's ever been charged with this before.
00:08:22.000We saw what happened last time with pipes bursting and stories changing and all kinds of stuff happening that we didn't really have a lot of faith in.
00:08:29.000And to be able to restore people's confidence in an election, transparency is key.
00:09:15.000Optimistically, I think that it will be ran more transparently than the previous election.
00:09:20.000But at the same time, I think our election integrity map and the people we have on the ground are absolutely necessary to ensure that that is the case.
00:09:28.000I don't know how to answer any of these questions.
00:09:37.000And then we get into election season and we feel like we've all been running at a 10 and it's like now we have to go even faster for several months.
00:09:43.000And really the last couple of weeks of election, just insane kind of pace.
00:11:23.000Really, I think there's reasons why people don't do it because there is so much risk.
00:11:29.000I don't think other people want to take on that risk because you can get the clicks and you can get a certain amount of ad revenue by just, you know, going on camera and commenting on something.
00:11:36.000There's actually going to be, I believe, we'll announce a betting line as to whether we'll be removed from YouTube or when.
00:11:42.000That's never what we wanted to do here because we're not trying to be here right now and get a few clicks for this election.
00:11:48.000We're trying to change the way that the media infrastructure develops and we want to be part of that moving forward for a long time.
00:11:55.000You know, hopefully we could save the election.
00:12:47.000And that's why we are gearing up the election livestream of the century.
00:12:50.000We'll have the live electoral integrity map.
00:12:51.000No one will have the data that we have on that night to call, dispute states, and let you know everything that is going on across this country.
00:12:58.000There's no reason to tune in anywhere else that night.
00:13:00.000The election livestream of the century.