Veterans for All Voters

Veterans for All Voters has numerous state-level chapters throughout the United States advocating for its electoral changes. The “most active” state chapters are in Missouri, Nevada, and Wisconsin. ¹

In October 2023, the group announced it would change its name from Veterans for Political Innovation (VPI) to Veterans for All Voters. In a statement released, the organization claimed that the name change was made to find, “opportunities to build affiliated state chapters.” ²

Funding

Veterans for All Voters receives funding from the Institute for Political Innovation and Dr. Bronner’s Family Foundation, a charity funded from the Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap company fortune. ³ Eric Bronner, the co-founder and brainchild behind Veterans for All Voters, ⁴ is a member of the Bronner family and personally contributes funds to it. ⁵ In 2022, the organization received $50,000 from the foundation. ⁶

Policy Goals

Veterans for All Voters supports what it calls “Final-Five Voting,” a package of voting-procedure changes. The organization, “is generally supportive” of other voting changes but focuses its efforts on Final-Five Voting. ³

Veterans for All Voters considers closed primaries the “biggest form of voter suppression in the country” because a majority of U.S. Congressional races are de facto determined by primaries because the dominant party’s primary winner has no viable challenger in the general election. ³

Veterans for All Voters supports the adoption of single-ballot primaries, as opposed to primaries for each political party, in which the top five candidates would advance to the general election. The organization claims that this system will reduce political polarization since the current primary systems tend to promote more extreme candidates who cater to party interests. It also supports the procession of five candidates because “Too many candidates can cause voters to feel confused, overwhelmed, or discouraged from completing their rankings. Five is an ideal number to optimize competition without overwhelming voters.” ^{3 7}

Veterans for All Voters supports the adoption of numerous potential changes to the plurality voting systems that most states use. It supports a ranked-choice voting system where a candidate wins if they earn more than 50 percent of the votes, but ranked-choice determines the winner if no candidate gets a majority. The group argues that ranked-choice voting lessens polarization by incentivizing candidates to curry favor from political opponents to gain higher rankings from opposition voters. ³

Veterans for All Voters also supports approval voting, which allows each voter to vote for multiple candidates, instant run-off voting, and other viable alternatives to the currently dominant plurality voting system. ³

Leadership

All members of Veterans for All Voters’ employees and board members are military veterans. ⁸

Veterans for All Voters was co-founded and is led by Todd Connor, an executive in residence at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Connor is the co-founder of the Collective Academy, a career-development organization, and the founder of the Bunker Labs, a nonprofit that supports veteran-run businesses. Connor served in U.S. Navy and exited service as a lieutenant. ⁹

Co-founder Eric Bronner is the chief operating officer of Veterans for All Voters. Bronner is a former real estate agent, lawyer, and flight officer in the U.S. Navy. Bronner originated the concept of the organization and brought the idea to the other two co-founders. In an interview, Bronner said he was always passionate about politics and wanted to be a politician but was dissatisfied with the two major political parties. ^{10 11}

Co-founder Dan Biga worked as chief-of-staff until he left the organization in December 2022. Biga is a lead specialist at the accounting firm Deloitte and a former employee of the With Honor PAC and Bunker Labs. Biga served in the U.S. Marines Corps. ¹²