Welcome & Ballot Basics

Amanda Benbow Lunn 0:08

Hello friends, welcome back to the NC Deep Dive. I'm Amanda Benbow Lunn, and this episode features one of our candidate conversations for the 2026 general election. It looks like we'll have about 18 contested races with 46 candidates touching Southern Wake County, specifically Holly Springs and Fuquay Varina. There are some other races that have only one candidate running. We will not be including those in our election segment. Of course, the races on your particular ballot will vary based on your address and the specific districts your residence falls within. You can always find your jurisdictions and your sample ballot by searching NC Voter Search made available by the North Carolina State Board of Elections. Once you get on the page, you'll fill out your information. It will populate with all those who share your name or the information you provided. You'll scroll until you find you, click on it, and just verify that it is indeed your name and address that show up. If so, you can scroll down to the appropriate sections you're looking for. So on that page, you can see your voter details, your jurisdictions, so which races will be on your ballot. If you are voting on election day, you can see your specific voting location for that day. You can also take a look at your sample ballot. You'll see exactly what will be on your ballot when you go to vote. So if you like to print it out, you can fill it out and take it with you. And then you'll just mark your answers when you get into your polling place. You can do that. And then it also has a spot where you can check if you voted by mail or early voting, you can check on the status of those votes as well. Since there are so many races, your ballot will be both front and back. So make sure you do your due diligence and you flip it over, or you can start on the back. That way you don't forget it. Keep in mind if your time is short before you go vote, you can see each episode's transcripts at www.ncdeepdive.com, and you can skim through, or you can search the episode's chapter titles for all the topics that we are covering to find those that most interest you. For this particular episode, we are delving into the US Senate race. The candidates include Roy Cooper of the Democratic Party, Michael Whatley of the Republican Party, and Shannon Bray of the Libertarian Party. You will have the opportunity to vote for one of these candidates. Without further ado, my friends, let's dive in.

Shannon W. Bray: Intro, Why, & Experience

Amanda Benbow Lunn 2:36

On this episode, I am honored to be speaking with Shannon Bray, who is running for the United States Senate. Welcome, Shannon. I appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today. You want to take a few moments to introduce yourself, and you can go into why you're running for this office and what experiences have prepared you to serve in this role.

Shannon W. Bray 2:57

Thank you for having me, Amanda. I'm thrilled to be here. Yeah, my name is Shannon Bray, and I am running for the U.S. Senate. I am a technologist. I've been writing code over the last 30 years, and I've worked from everything from a mom and pop shop to Microsoft. I've done contracts with the government, with NASA, all across the board. So I'm fairly well-rounded in technology. And even when COVID hit, and then blockchain and cryptocurrencies became some of the main topics, you know, these are all things that I have experiences in. And I'm not necessarily looking at them with new eyes like a lot of the representatives that we have now. So one of the reasons why I'm running is to bring uh technology experts basically into the arena. When you look back and you look at the interviews with Mark Zuckerberg and all of these other technicians, questions from our representatives, really kind of put a flashlight on them as not really understanding what they were talking about. And then it allowed them to get schooled by the experts. Because if you don't have people in the cabinets or in the presidencies, and as our elected officials who actually understand the technology, you know, we're not going to have a good representation. Most of the laws that we have on the books today are representative of how life was 50 years ago. And a lot of the people who represent us now are really thinking back to, you know, their childhood, their laws, and how things work. And our world is evolving so fast. It's amazing just the changes that I've seen with AI. But in the last election, we have a younger generation who's not playing ball, right? With the same representations that we have now. And so there's always going to be a clash. But along with them comes a lot of really smart kids who are changing the world with AI and a lot of their other talents. And, you know, we don't have representatives in elected to really kind of help understand that. So, you know, that's primarily the reason why I like to run, but I'm a libertarian as well. I'm a third party. And in the state of North Carolina, if we're not able to bring in enough votes, you know, our party gets canceled. So, with that being said, a lot of times I'll run in a particular election to help the Libertarian Party, but then I always come in with the principles that I would like to get out there in the open. And a lot of it doesn't really come down to, oh, why is he running? Does he think he's gonna win this time? Or, you know, something like that. It's no, I state all of my policies are written out, right? They're on my blog, they're on the website, and they go into deep technical areas that most people don't even care about. But if you care about voting, transparency in our federal government, I mean I've got research papers written about it. So I don't necessarily need to win in order to affect our future. I just have to get other people to look and absorb these ideas and try to carry them forward. So, for a lot of times, I'm here trying to make my kids' world better. And it doesn't matter to me necessarily if I win or lose. That doesn't matter to me because as people see in the state of North Carolina, I'm here, right? And whether there's an election going on or not, I'm out there talking. Um, I'm still publishing papers, I'm writing books, right? I'm out there really trying to change the mindset of you know political activism, maybe. You know, I don't go out and promote violence or anything. I'm just sit here at my computer. I try to, you know, come up with new ideas and follow technology. And by and large, I want people to at least understand that there's more out there than the flavored Republican or Democrat of the Month. Because primarily, I mean, you already know what their platforms are, right? They're gonna talk about their little bullet points, and it's the same bullet points that's all the way across the country, right? Because it's part of that particular party. Now, you might come to me and say, Well, you're doing the same thing with libertarians, but I don't know. If you happen to look at my site, you're not gonna see while it talks about liberty first, right? It's not given the regular things that you might get from, you know, libertarian candidates, where I don't think anywhere I talk about taxation being theft, although I I'm definitely not not shying away from that because if you don't pay your taxes, right, the federal government will come take your property by gunpoint. You know, anytime you got guns and stuff involved, I call that robbery, but you know, I'll let everybody else kind of come up with theirs. But anyway, I kind of ran away with you on the question. That's why I'm here. And I would love to answer any questions that you've got.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 7:54

Okay. You

Keeping Third Parties On The Ballot

Amanda Benbow Lunn 7:55

brought up part of the reason why you're running is to keep the Libertarian Party kind of lifted up and uh applicable to the North Carolina ballots. Can you talk a little bit about the numbers there? What are the requirements to keep that party on the ballot?

Shannon W. Bray 8:10

Yeah, so the big elections are our statewide governor and the U.S. Senate, right? Because these are the ones that all the statewide votes come. And when they total them up, we have to be above 2%. If we get below 2%, we get dropped, and then we have to go jump a bunch of hoops, like the Green Party does every time. So the Green Parties, instead of going out and campaigning and taking time to, you know, work through some of their ideas, they have to go out there and get all of these signatures and jump through all these hoops. And their biggest enemy is actually the Democratic Party because they feel like the Green Party takes away their power, takes away some of their votes. But they're entirely different parties. I mean, the Green Party, you know, they're anti-war, which I fully support, and they have a lot of great ideas. Those ideas just cost money, and taking tax dollars away from our citizens to go pay for all of these projects, I don't necessarily agree with. But most of the Green Party principles, I'm totally down with. And so we're typically tight. The Libertarian and the Green Party is while they're different parties completely, you know, we'll do debates together, we'll go out and do events together, just trying to help build third party awareness. And we've done that with, you know, the Constitution Party and other parties as well. But one of the things about the Libertarian Party that I'm proud of is it's so supportive of other third parties, right? We want the voice of everyone to be in the mix. We want everyone to have somebody they feel like they can vote for. We want everybody to get out and vote. You don't get that from the other two parties. I mean, they will sue you, they will try to shut you down, they spend dart money all over the place to re-encourage all of their little mischiefs because North Carolina is typically the hot seat. That's where all the money's coming. Well, that's the Republican Party is now pulling out of this state race, right? Because Cooper, they feel like Cooper's got too much of a lead, so they're gonna stop investing money here. But to me, that gives, you know, the Libertarian Party, or at least me, right, the opportunity to get in, maybe talk to some Republicans that may see things more closely to me, and it's not necessarily wasting their vote. And I guess I'm audio, so people can't see my air quote. You know, I think the race might be so leaning to Cooper that we may have Republicans who just don't necessarily care to vote. So I'd like to get them out at least and talk about the Second Amendment and you know, talk about some of those things that are important both to the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party, because the Republican tenet is, you know, let's reduce the federal government, but that never actually happens, right? They talk about it, they talk about how they want to limit, you know, our national debt, but you know, and here we are. We have a Republican president and we've got the law. I mean, I don't know if we've ever had this much debt, but it's definitely not where the Republicans typically align, right? You have your Trumpsters, which is Trump everything, but your real Republicans are gonna care about their gun rights, they care about small government, but every time Republicans don't ever shrink the government, they take that money and then they put it into Homeland Security or they put it into border patrols. So they are always out to grow the protection forces. Where the Libertarian Party, we want to actually balance the budget. We think it's a crime if you start passing all of this debt down from one generation to another, because now you're forcing people to pay for stuff they didn't even get any benefit from. You know, most of it is just us printing money to satisfy Ukraine, right? So that's another thing. You know, the Republicans and the Democrats they make money when we're at war. And so they vote that way. And where, you know, the Green Party and the Libertarians were more anti-war. Now it doesn't mean that if we get attacked and I'm like, oh no, we shouldn't do anything. That's that's not where I come from. I'm a combat veteran myself, and seeing life through the eyes of war made me anti-war. You know, that's not stuff that we should put on our youth. My generation and many of those younger than me, in fact, the last two generations have seen way more war than we should have ever. We should have never been involved in half of those. And it's technically not even war, right? They're just conflicts because Congress didn't declare war. Presidents just start sending people because that's something else that's a big deal. If we're in conflict, you know, it needs to be voted on by Congress, and Congress needs to declare war before we start sending money and resources and killing our kids. But I again, I apologize. I think I just went on a ramble.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 12:52

Let me clarify: you mentioned two percent of people. Did you mean two percent of voters who actually vote? Is that two percent of those eligible to vote? Is that two percent of our population altogether?

Shannon W. Bray 13:06

It's two percent of the vote. So if only 10 people voted, it would only need to be two people. So when people go out there and they vote their parties, it doesn't typically leave a whole lot for a third party. But North Carolina's demographic is mostly unaffiliated, actually. Like the unaffiliated voter outnumbers both the Republican and the Democratic Party, and their numbers are shrinking every year. Now, our numbers are getting a little higher, but we're a very small party to begin with. So that could just be normal data. But the important thing is that they're unaffiliated, which means they're maybe they're starting to care. Maybe they'll vote for a Republican, maybe they'll vote for a Democrat, maybe they'll vote for a libertarian, because those are the voters who typically will do more research, right? Because they're not just voting party lines. Now, some of them just aren't voting at all, right? They may have registered and they never go out, and so they're not a Republican or a Democrat, and so they're non-factors. So we do have some of them counted in there. So our goal is really, as it's any candidate, should be trying to fire up the unaffiliated voters and not really caring about the Republicans or the Democrats because they're, you know, they're gonna stick to their lane no matter what their guy does. I we've seen that. You could be a terrible candidate, but if you're the guy on the ticket, they're voting for you. So the unaffiliated voters, though, they'll shift on you. I know some of them who don't, if they don't know anything, they'll be like, oh, I did an R, I did a D, I did an R, and I did a D. I just want balance. I'm like, that's not really how that works, but I understand you, I understand where you're going with that.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 14:43

I've I've done a lot of canvassing. And so just sometimes I'll ask people or people will share their voting strategies. And it's my wife said to do this, my husband said to do this, I vote C. Like people have their different strategies, and I'm not saying one is better than the other, but they are interesting to hear sometimes.

Shannon W. Bray 15:03

Yes, yes, they are.

Ranked Choice Voting Explained

Amanda Benbow Lunn 15:05

Now, this wasn't actually one of my questions, but while we're talking and going down this tangent, what are your thoughts towards ranked choice voting and how that might apply? Because I do believe North Carolina might have passed a bill or added it to a bill that makes it illegal in North Carolina. So, what are your thoughts there?

Shannon W. Bray 15:24

I love ranked choice voting because that that fixes the, and this is why it won't work here, right? Because it fixes the voting problem of oh, I'm throwing my vote away. Because now everything gets if you vote for a guy and no one else votes for him, your next two votes count, right? It's so it goes down, it's just a better way. It's like these are the top three people I want on the ticket, or these are the top ten, or whatever it is. These are my top ten people. It just works better.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 15:54

Could you explain what ranked choice voting is? Because I think there are a lot of people that have zero idea what that is.

Shannon W. Bray 16:00

Yes. It kind of starts out with it goes in voting rounds. You can have, let's say, five to make it and the last guy. Now, there's a couple nuances to it. If the top guy just runs away with it, then he's in. Typically, though, you'll have like 20 or 30 percent or you know, 15, where it's not really a runaway, everything's kind of kind of similar. So then they'll take the last guy and they'll drop the numbers off, right? And then then you have the votes and you kind of you kind of start getting rid of the least favorable guys, but people don't feel like their votes wasted because you get you're basically setting your rank, you're ranking your choices. You may be like, okay, I want George's my number one pick, but if he doesn't make it, I'd like to have number two. And if he doesn't make it, I'd like to have number three. And then you're like, well, if he doesn't make it, I really don't like number four and five, you know. So you know, you you rank the people how you want them, and that would open up the ability to have a talented third-party guy. It doesn't say that hadn't been me, because uh I'm just saying if you find somebody you like, you can select them. And if it doesn't work out for them, that's okay. You got your second choice, right? As opposed to, and I think that's the best way is you potentially have your first and second choice as opposed to, oh, you have to vote this way or it's doom and gloom, right? Because that's how it's sold. It's either you're either winning or you're losing, right? And ranked choice is more like, hey, you know what, we're just gonna take the people as they bubble up and kind of sort it out, and there's your winner.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 17:35

All right. It's a little more nuanced, but could you kind of let me know if I have the right idea? So right now, we basically are made to feel like it's either Republican or Democrat, and it's very hard for a third party candidate to gain enough votes for it to really make a difference. So voters are put into the position where they may prefer that third party candidate, but because that candidate doesn't really have realistic odds of being the top vote getter, should their vote go to the Republican or the Democrat instead of one of the third parties? What the ranked choice voting does is it opens up the field, you can have more candidates, you can vote for your favorites. And let's say that third party is the one that you really wanted, you can vote for them as your top choice. But if by chance they don't get enough votes, they're at the bottom. All of those people who voted for them, their vote then goes to their second choices, by which it keeps going until you get to the top two, let's say, and then you have the winner. So if your vote isn't necessarily wasted, you can still vote for who you would prefer to vote for and those that you would like to follow up if your person doesn't have enough votes. So it's not necessarily throwing away your vote. You still get to make a meaningful choice that carries weight. Is that correct?

Shannon W. Bray 18:55

Yes, that is right on.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 18:57

All right, perfect.

Biggest Issue

Amanda Benbow Lunn 18:58

All right. What do you believe is the most important issue or challenge facing the people you would represent?

Shannon W. Bray 19:04

Well, a lot of it's going to be economy, right? And economy is a big bucket. And it's tough when you have a president that doesn't necessarily understand how tariffs work because that puts undue pressure on our industries because of just the way how tariffs work. And you know what? That's just how he chose to fight these battles. Tariffs can have some positive swing, they are a tool, but they are also something that can get overused, right? And so we're sitting here in massive inflation. It doesn't matter if it's Democrats or Republicans, we're still sending basically because we're sending lots of money overseas, right? We're just printing money, sending it overseas to whatever effort that is. I mean, if some of it's going to Israel, some people don't like Israel. But guess what? Your money's going there anyway. That's a problem. But maybe you don't care about Ukraine and Russia. Don't really matter. Your money's going there anyway, right? And your money's going there, and so the price of eggs is going up. So the poor people are flipping this bill, they don't realize they're flipping, and it just causes an economic bombshell. And so we have that going on. Then we also have, you know, we have our uh military complex, right? We have the people outside the military who are weapons makers, and they only make money when we're at war. So we have all that money going in, and that's going overseas, but we're buying that from them to send it overseas. So we're funding everything that's going on, and the job markets aren't doing stellar. There are a lot of people out there who are suffering. I heard the number the other day of something that was happening with the SNAP program, which I think is the food program. And there's a million North Carolinians on that program, which goes to state that there are a lot of people who are needing some sort of economic help, right? And it would be great if we weren't spending our money in taxes, sending stuff overseas, and not helping the people here in North Carolina. And one of the other things that to me is tied to our economy here in North Carolina would also be this war against marijuana for some reason that North Carolina's gonna be the last state to legalizes it, right? We have all these other states that are making money, they're finding out how to regulate it, they're quite successful with it. I don't like taxes, but I'd rather pay taxes on something than go to jail for it. You know, so that's something that our farmers and a lot of our industries here could benefit from, and that would help our economy as well. We also have on the bad side of that, we have big data centers coming in. Lots of people aren't liking the big data centers, but that's bringing in, you know, various state money so they can go spend it on other programs. Programs, schooling, you know, that's one of the things. So I, you know, I endorse that. But I'm sorry, I I got off track again.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 22:07

No

Priorities & Hopes for Accomplishment

Amanda Benbow Lunn 22:08

worries. If elected, what would you prioritize and what specifically would you hope to accomplish during your term?

Shannon W. Bray 22:15

I would vote, first of all, for anything pro-economic and thing. But my mission would be transparency. I want to have a system in place that offers complete transparency and verification. Now, just because I say transparency doesn't mean I want everything available to the public, right? I believe in secret information. I believe in top secret information. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is like the accounting and all of this other stuff, people being able to cook their books, right? People being able to create their own receipts. That's the kind of lack of transparency I'm talking about here. So to me, we should have systems in place that use a providence of information that can't be changed, kind of like the blockchain, but I'm not saying to use the blockchain, it's just a tool. But there are many things out there, like Merkle chains and things like that, that you can build things on. And if somebody goes and alters data, it's noticeable, right? So I want a completely transparent government because they're taking my money by force. The least they should be able to do is see where my money goes, see what people are voting on. Like everything that is not technically classified should be available somewhere without having to go beg somebody for the information.

AI & Data Centers: Impacts & Federal Role

Amanda Benbow Lunn 23:32

Data centers and the infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence are becoming an increasingly important issue in North Carolina. They can bring investment, but they also require significant amounts of electricity and water, amongst other environmental and community concerns. What role should the federal government play in determining how this growth occurs?

Shannon W. Bray 23:53

I don't think the federal government should be involved in that at all. I would like to minimize the government. Now, I doesn't mean that I want it to be, you know, an issue here in North Carolina, but I believe that should be taken care of by the state. Uh the state of North Carolina should be able to dictate what happens here without any federal involvement. But I am a, I guess by definition, I think the federal government should be small, right? They should only be able to help support our constitution and stay within the guidelines of our constitution. They shouldn't be expanding like superintelligence, whatever it is, it just came out, right? Trump's AI team for the superintelligence force just got announced, right? Um, to where the federal government is going to dictate what we can and can't do with AI. Now I'm huge into AI. I own an AI company. Um before that, I had I was using AI in my job at Microsoft to help scale up and you know, um get more work done. Unfortunately, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, a lot of these other tech companies the last few months have had massive layoffs because those jobs disappeared because of the use of AI. So a lot of the technicians who really understand it, um, you know, are are kind of kicked out of the corporate world, but a lot of them are brilliant. And now you have all of these AI startups kind of going all over the place, and they're able to build solutions that matter to them, right? Um, and typically, if it matters to them, it's like they were just waiting to be able to do tools like this. Like there's been problems going on for forever, and it's just like I don't have the time to work on that. But AI does help us achieve things faster. Now, at the same time, AI is quite capable of home wrecking just about everything if it's not used right. And unfortunately, it's not being used right. There are some times that, and I know this is on data center, so I don't want to keep talking about AI, but we our careers are all going AI somewhere. Like the what was his name? He was a presidential candidate, Andrew Yang. He had in his book, yeah, he came out and was talking about how we should be taxing. It was technical, right? AI wasn't quite out yet. I mean, it was there, but it just wasn't, it wasn't like here like it is now. But he's like, we should be taxing them. Basically, people are gonna be out of work, you should have a fair wage or or whatever. I have to go back and look at it. I didn't plan on talking about it. Because in the gross scenario of, I think where his vision was going, I'm not sure if he saw what we're going through now, but we have all of these technology jobs, and these are smart people, right? These are people with bachelor degrees, master's degrees, PhDs, their jobs are being replaced by AI, and that's just kind of showing you where the rest of it's going. Unless you are needed to turn that screw, which you're not, you can be replaced by a robot, right? So it now with AI, this stuff can get developed fast, right? And then you even have it. I mean, write your code. You know, anybody can write code now. It's pretty much and it's pretty good now. It's not as bad as it used to be. We you can write good solutions pretty quick without really knowing what you're doing if you just got the right AI engine. But potentially you're just gonna have a bunch of people who own companies with no employees, right? You don't need to have a receptionist anymore, right? I've got 11 labs, right? They've got like all these agents and their stocks shooting up to the moon. But you don't need anybody answering your phone anymore. They can route it, they can schedule the calls, and you don't need salespeople anymore because I can get an AI to do it. So, unless you're like physically involved with people, your job can be replaced. It just may take a while for people to get that level of automation. But the most expensive resource in a company is the people. And these companies are trying to downside all of that with AI. So it's important that you know the world's prepared for that because that's common.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 28:01

From a government standpoint, I think you mentioned specifically data centers that you don't think that that should be managed at a federal level and should be left to the states from regulating AI. Do you feel like that's a separate category? Should that be regulated by the federal government or left to the states?

Shannon W. Bray 28:17

Well, I don't think it should be regulated by the federal government. I think the guardrails should be put in place by the AI companies. And if their AI gets misused, that they're responsible for it. Because I can probably argue the use of AI all the way down to the First Amendment. I mean, there's guardrails now, you can get around them. If you're really smart, you can just have your own so that guardrails don't apply. So if you're doing that, that should be put on that particular person, right? Not necessarily. I can have a supercomputer here next to me. And if you ask your AI to try to make a bomb, it'll be like, nope, sorry, we're not going there. But if you had your own, you could probably remove the guardrails and stuff like that. But it may not even have that kind of information. So, but eventually they would. Problem is, is once you have the federal government able to say what you can and can't do, they are going to say you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it, and you're gonna take it all away. And then they're gonna be able to control it, and you're not gonna be able to really use the tools the way that most normal people use it. Now, you should be prosecuted if you go off and you do something that's dangerous. I'm okay with me being able to go ask ChatGPT to make a thermonuclear weapon and it saying, you know what, we shouldn't be talking about that. Yeah, I'm okay with that, right? But I don't think it should get down into it, could easily get down into, oh, I don't like my government. Oh, we can't talk about that. When they can slowly just start shutting everything down. No, federal involvement is never good. I don't think they can get involved without infringing on our First Amendment rights. And I don't want to give them consent to do that.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 29:55

Okay. With your expertise in the fields at a state level, are there any guidelines that you would recommend or guardrails for data centers and AI that current elected officials should be thinking about?

Shannon W. Bray 30:09

I think the data centers should be left up to the people that live there, right? Here's some of the side benefits that people don't necessarily think about. Those data centers are also bringing internet capabilities to rural areas of North Carolina that there's nobody bringing them internet, right? So they're way out there. And if you're not on the internet at this point, you there's so many things you can't do, right? So there are people who live way out there, and data centers are how they're going to get their wired service. So will they vote for it? Or is it too much of an environmental issue in their neighborhood? I think they should be the ones to be able to specify that. Now, because I can go both ways, right? I know that the economic power and control of a data center and it's bringing technology to places that nobody else would do it. Like you're not going to go to Spectrum, right? If they were going to make money, bringing internet out there, they would have already done it, right? It was a lose-lose situation for some of these areas. But when you put a data center out there, you're going to get some high-speed internet. That to me is why it's an individual choice where you get the people in that community to vote because they may want it, they may not. me, though, if I'm living where I am, do I have any say what happens in their neck of the woods? Oh man, see, that's where it violates the libertarian principles because now I'm dictating what they have to live through, right? So I'm negative on that aspect, right? I want it to be a choice by the people as opposed to it being imposed on the people.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 31:38

All

Security & Oversight Versus Privacy & Due Process Rights

Amanda Benbow Lunn 31:39

right. Government agencies now have access to an unprecedented amount of personal information from health care and benefits records, voter information, and data from automated license plate readers like flock cameras. Where do you believe the line should be drawn between the government's legitimate need to verify information, prevent fraud, enforce the law, and protect public safety and an individual's right to privacy and due process?

Shannon W. Bray 32:04

I am so against these flock cameras. It's sick. It's not even. This all starts to go down into the nightmare scenario of there's a show on one of the services called The Capture, right? It's an English show. But they've got those flock cameras, and you know, they have all this video and they're just capturing it. But you get a government agency in there and they're using AI to alter the final product as it's coming down. And in their eyes, they are taking intelligence and they're making evidence out of it. Well, that is making up evidence, so that's a futuristic kind of thing. Well, it was written three years ago, so it was very futuristic then, but I can see that happening now quite easily with these splot cameras, right? And the normal person not being able to prove that those videos are real or fake. Now, this is the whole premise of my own, my personal company. Uh, this is the area I specialize in, so I'm not gonna you know make a sales pitch there, but it's all about knowing that the information that is being recorded is actually factual. Now, I'm completely against these cameras anyway, because they can be a hijacked and their evidence I wouldn't trust anywhere. But just being able to film everybody, catch your plate, and then they're running scams. I mean, they are violating our Fourth Amendment rights all over the place with these cameras. So we should definitely go back to the 1980s as far as the government control, right? If you're on a toll road, fine, you're paying to be on that road and you get to have that choice. But putting a flock camera on the I got one on the end of my street over there. So now it's like, well, how do we avoid the flock camera? Why do you want to avoid the flock camera? If you're not doing anything illegal, it shouldn't matter, is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Because you are just giving away your constitutional rights, right? And one thing that we know is once you give stuff away, you don't get it back. I mean, just like taxes. Taxes started World War II, I mean, the income tax. We had taxes before that. But like taking a 30-year paycheck, no, we gave them the power to do it with the 16th Amendment, shouldn't have done that. And you know, now they just get to raise taxes no matter what. And you don't get any say-so in it. I mean, we don't vote on, I mean, you every once in a while, oh, would you like to vote for a penny? You know, this is going to make sure the kids never starve again. But that's not where that goes, right? That money goes somewhere else, and next year you're still hearing, oh, we still need more money for schools. So plot cameras, yeah. I completely disagree with all of the use of that technology.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 34:36

Do you think that the federal government should be setting safeguards and regulations for it? Do you feel that a judicial warrant should be necessary for some of that information?

Shannon W. Bray 34:48

I mean, how are you going to get a judicial warrant when you don't even know who's going to be on the camera? There's no way to justify us just sitting there scanning and trying to check your license plates and seeing if you got any warrants and see if you go across state lines and then come back within, you know, 10 minutes. Did you go buy firecrackers? Oh, did you go into Virginia and buy some weed? You know, we're pulling you over because you set an alarm off on our flock camera, which you're what? So I don't even have the right to go to another state and come back without then being stopped. The government has proven time and time again that if they have the power to do something, they will misuse it. I can't think of one time they haven't misuse power. So no, they shouldn't have it.

State Power Versus Federal Power

Amanda Benbow Lunn 35:30

Okay. What do you believe is the appropriate balance between federal authority and state authority?

Shannon W. Bray 35:36

Well, we are the United States, right? We were formed for individual state power, right? And if you don't like something in one state, you can go live in another. I think the federal government should basically just be the glue that keeps us all together, right? It shouldn't be its own enforcement agency of trying to impose other rules, right? We have our 10th Amendment for a reason, and we we shouldn't be giving the federal government any additional rights whatsoever.

Approach to Federal Spending & National Debt

Amanda Benbow Lunn 36:05

Okay. What is your approach to federal spending deficits and the national debt?

Shannon W. Bray 36:09

Yeah. Well, so here's something that uh is probably not gonna land well. But I was pretty excited when this past administration, I never put, I was excited and put Trump in the same paragraph, but with their plan to do doge, right? It made a lot of sense to me. I want to see the federal agencies be shrunk down to a meaningful size and not being given more power. Now, that's my side of it. That's not where Trump was going with it. And this that part I don't necessarily agree with. He was trying to reduce the power of each federal agency and then increase the power of the presidency. That's not that's not the same ball of wax. But I do believe in trying to keep a small footprint in our government. I've been in and out of, I don't know, I think I've worked for 16 different agencies over my career. And I I know every year, you know, when we didn't spend our budget, we just spent our budget. We we went out and we spent that money. Why? Because if not, we're gonna lose that money next year. And not only that, we're gonna sit there and try to apply for more money, right? And when I was on that side of the federal government, it's like, oh yeah, I could really use some more funding for this, and I'd really like to do that. And but now you have all these people doing all of this, right? And it just raises our federal spending limit, and we should be reducing because I believe that we should be balancing our budget. Every every president should leave office with a balanced budget, right? If not, um, then he hurt the American people. Well, except for Clinton, right? And I don't want people to think I'm a Clinton fan because I voted for Bush that year. I like 94, whatever, 93, 92, probably 92. But Clinton, he balanced the budget. Last president that I'm aware of that has done so. Um, now he shut down some bases, and I was totally, and you asked me 30 years ago, I'd be like, oh, I hate Clinton. But he balanced the budget, right? I'm older, I'm smarter now. I've seen how the economy works, I've seen how government works. So now that I'm older, I realize that what he did was an exceptional job. And he would easily be probably the best president we had in forever had he not had the Monika Lewinsky thing. But you all the scandals we've had after that, you know, Bill is probably all right. But yeah, I think that a president basically should be rated on how well he did his job and maintained the budget. And if you skyrocket that budget, you're not a

Approach to the Responsibilities and Decision-Making Authority of this Office

Shannon W. Bray 38:36

good president.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 38:36

Okay. How would you approach the responsibilities and decision-making authority of this particular office?

Shannon W. Bray 38:42

Ah, deep down inside, what I would really like is to get rid of this office, right? Now, there's a reason why we have our representation the way it is, right? It's because back, you know, 200 years ago, this is how they, the individuals were represented. But how many times are we actually represented by the people in office now? Where half the people don't feel represented at all? What I would more like to do is have a technology solution in place that would help the people voice their concern in a rate choice voting situation. You know, I was kind of thinking this through as I go along, but how much easier would it be if when we vote it's this or it's that, right? It's either good or it's bad, or it's bad and it's worse. But then if everyone's able to kind of structure their government the way that they see fit, we don't need these voters because we can take the vote of the people and straight up tally it now, right? A long time ago we couldn't do that stuff, but that would require people to actually read bills and stuff, but you know, most people won't do that anyway. Most of our representatives don't.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 39:45

Sometimes that's hard when you're given a thousand pages to read in like two hours.

Shannon W. Bray 39:49

Two hours, right? That that whole structure is not there for us, right? And then this is where they sneak all that other stuff in there, and then you hear about it in the next election, it's like, yeah, so-and-so voted to starve the children. And then you're like, when did he do that? And it's like, oh, well, you know, they stuck it in this bill and that big, beautiful bill, yeah, it said you had to take a little money from this, and you know, so that's our whole political thing is based off of fear and manipulation. And yeah, I think it should all go down to building a technology system that is completely transparent. And there could be people involved, I'm not saying it, but the jobs would be different. It would be maybe, hey, let me go out and explain to you the issues that are on the ballot, right? Let me talk you through this and it not be up to them as a Republican or a Democrat and trying to manipulate the system. It would be them as more of like a teacher, right? And then they're not involved in all the backdoor deals. And, you know, then we need a different kind of person. We need people who can communicate well and actually care about the people, which to be fair, most people do as they get in. It's only after they get the power and they get in there than they kind of lose their way for the people and they start accepting the backdoor deals and things like that. You don't get backdoor deals if everybody's able to contribute to that vote because now it's not summed up in a person you can go pay off, right? So, ideally, in my mind, we'd have a system that would allow you to participate in your system, but not be hijacked by big donors or other people's financial interests. So the while the question was, but how would it change the office?

Amanda Benbow Lunn 41:30

How would you approach the responsibilities and decision-making authority of the office?

Shannon W. Bray 41:34

Yes, I would, and I might still do it. I would work on making it as transparent as possible and less party driven and more about the people. And I think I won't, I'm gonna throw some code at that, but at least as a prototype, right? To just show people how that can change everything. When you don't have somebody who can be manipulated in the past, then everything gets better.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 41:59

Okay.

Working Across Party Lines

Amanda Benbow Lunn 42:00

How would you work with a president or congressional majority or minority from the opposing party?

Shannon W. Bray 42:05

I'm simple. You will know exactly what I will say. Maybe not what I'll say, because who never knows what I'm gonna say. But you will know exactly the way I will vote off a simple formula. Did you hurt anybody? Did you take somebody's stuff? If those things don't apply, I'm okay with it, right? So are you taking away someone's liberty? Are you taking away someone's opportunity to make their own choices? If you are not, I'm all for it. But if you are infringing on somebody, forcing them to pay into a system, if they don't pay their taxes, you're taking their house, when you start doing all of these things, that's by force. I do not, I do not condone that. I think from personal liberty, right? This isn't normally well received, but gang rape is highly democratic, right? When you have like eight people on one, that's eight people imposing their will on one person, right? Do you think that one person that's receiving all that great will is happy about it? No. So I believe in personal liberty, right? To the person who is being inflicted, um, I think their rights matter. No matter what situation it is, I don't think a group of people have the right to impose their will on anybody. So that's really how that goes. Because you can break a law down typically all the way down to that, because somewhere along the line, they are you know taking someone's freedom.

Deciding What Takes Precedence

Shannon W. Bray 43:23

Amanda Benbow Lunn 43:23

All right. When priorities compete or resources are limited, how would you decide what takes precedence?

Shannon W. Bray 43:29

Give me an example.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 43:30

It could be anything for this particular office that the federal government currently spends money on or might prioritize.

Shannon W. Bray 43:38

I guess it's always accountability, privacy, and transparency. As long as you have those things in place, everything else will be exposed. So accountability only comes from transparency because if they're not transparent, they can't be held accountable for it. Those are my number two things. Same way I raise my kids.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 43:55

So that leads us directly to the next question.

Accountability: What & How

Amanda Benbow Lunn 43:58

What should voters hold you accountable for if you are elected and how?

Shannon W. Bray 44:02

They should hold me accountable for everything. Am I voting to spend more federal money outside of what we can afford? The entire job you're accountable for. You're good, you're bad. Because somebody might think I'm doing a good job, somebody else thinks I'm a terrible job, and it's the same job, right? It's all about their perception. But they should have the right to hold me accountable because I'm their representative. Whether they voted for me or not, I'm their representative. And if I'm not making them happy, they should have the right to hold me accountable. And what does that look like? Well, it kind of depends on whatever the issue is at the time. But for me, I'm always coming back with, well, you started infringing on somebody else's rights, right? You might like this, but you liking this caused harm somewhere else. So you just want to be a jackass, maybe. If you want to be a jackass, do it through somebody else. You're not going to do it through me. Right. But they should have the right to come to me with whatever issues they have. And then I should have the right to defend myself. And then, you know, if they uh hold it up at public opinion and the same voting I was talking about, you can send me off, right? Well me off the island. You know, I'm not a hypocrite. If the technology works one way, the technology just should just work, right? It should help the people voice their opinions, and their opinions matter, especially the educated, the people who take the time to watch to kind of expand their knowledge and watch podcasts like this. And um uh there's a lot of people out there who, you know, some some people are just one, you know, one issue voters, right? If you're gonna take my guns away, I'm not gonna vote for you, but that's their right, right? That's the one thing they care about. But there's a lot of people who care about a lot of different things, and you know, they really have to kind of do their research. And one of the nice things I like about, especially this particular cycle, I've gotten more letters from people like sailors off in the USS George Washington, where I got my first one and my first vote. Thank you very much. You know, she was she's just talking about the things that were important to her, and she cared about them so much that she wrote me an email telling me that A, she voted for me, and B, she listed it out. And then within days, I had lots of others. And these are people who I would have never been able to contact, right? Because they are they are in mission, right? They are overseas, they are on boats. I was tickle pink to be able to reach some of my shipmates out there like that. Because I've prior service, Navy. I don't care about how the election goes. I won that day. I mean, that it meant a lot to me. Yesterday I got a letter from a guy. He goes, I'm not a libertarian, but you are the only one talking about privacy laws. You're the only one talking about being anti-war. These are the things that is important to me. And I wrote them back and I was like, you know, some of those other things in the Libertarian Party, they don't agree. We don't agree on our own stuff. But the fact that these things are important to you means you are outside that party, right? You are easily just as libertarian as anybody else because you know you are making those decisions based off of your own personal liberty. But yeah, it's the little things like that that is really kind of cool at the end of the day, you know, when you're kind of connecting with people that they're not in the typical, you know, oh, I went to this church this time and I spoke to like 20 people or whatever. These are people that you wouldn't normally be able to talk to, and to still be able to reach them has been amazing. So I mean, we only have that through, you know, podcasts like you and you know, our websites and just our electronic media.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 47:22

It's pretty awesome.

Shannon W. Bray 47:24

Yeah, and I mean, thank you for just whatever the message is, you're just getting it out to people and so they can hear what it is. Because I'm not always telling somebody to like pick me, it's more just know, right? Know what you're doing, care about what you're doing, and just pick who's right for you. You know, I don't if it's not me, it's yeah, it's okay. But just have passion about and know why you're doing it, right? Don't just do it because they're an R or a D. Now, if you believe in both of those platforms, like die hard, well, you go for it. But most of that platform is just 50-50 split just to divide the vote, to have a two-party system, and to control the people.

Last Thoughts

Amanda Benbow Lunn 47:57

All right. As we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts? Is there anything we haven't discussed that you would like voters to know or anything from our conversation that you'd like to expand upon or clarify?

Shannon W. Bray 48:07

I think I did pretty good about rambling. So I think I covered most of the stuff. I really didn't know what I was gonna say. But you know, every election has its challenges, but there are so many benefits that come from running as a candidate, right? And if more people ran as candidates, I wouldn't need to. I just do it because A, I enjoy it, but I I like I like the use of technology, right? And my kid, she's going to Elon. Uh, this is her first year, she's a cheerleader, and she didn't really know what she wanted to do with her life. But she called me yesterday and it was dad, I decided I'm gonna study political science and become a lawyer. And I was like, holy cow, you're gonna be amazing. But, you know, so I'm proud of myself just for being lucky enough to be her dad. But I think that the more people who get involved, right, just helps, just helps our world get better. And maybe AI will have some positive spins, right? Helping people to reach mass markets and just kind of help educate people. Because I don't buy courses anymore, I just spin them up myself, you know, and go in there. And now AI is wrong a lot of times, right? You gotta know what that prompt says. Um, you gotta make sure it's checked and everything's proofread, and you know, because if not, AI will steer you way wrong. But the technology's out there, right? The the knowledge is out there. It's no longer impossible for somebody who hasn't had a college education but is still intelligent, right? It's not impossible for them to go off and do some some crazy cool stuff. And I really kind of hope that people take a focus on their political structures around them. What's really needed, what's not needed, think outside the box and you know, let's change the system to be better. If I can just get a couple people every time I run to kind of jump on that bandwagon and then let them, you know, I'll just light, I'll light the real firecrackers up and then let them go out and change the world. You know, I'm just that match, just a little voice box that just won't stop talking.

Where to Learn More

Amanda Benbow Lunn 50:09

For voters who want to learn more about you, your platform, your campaign, endorsements, and priorities, where can they go to find that information?

Shannon W. Bray 50:17

The simplest one is Shannonbrae.us. And if you want a deep dive, once you go to that site, you can then hit politics and technology, and it'll go into shannonbray.us slash blog, and you will get the full technical blog on whether you care about free and transparent elections. I wrote the paper, I even solved the problem. I'll pitch it after this election. I mean, that's where most of my thoughts, border security, economic changes, I just geek out on all that stuff and I post it there, and I can't write a technical article and then go change my mind later, right? I don't waffle on stuff. So I put everything that I'm about on these web pages, and I think I am the most transparent candidate ever because I, my entire life, even from my young days at Microsoft, my entire life is on the internet. You can find out everything, but that's where people can go. Start with Shannonbrae.us and uh or dub dub dub shannonbray.us. I may have a DNS issue I heard uh earlier today, so I'll check on that. But yep, politics and technology, you will geek out.

Amanda Benbow Lunn 51:22

All right, perfect. Well, thank you so much, Shannon, for joining me today. Thank you for choosing to talk to voters directly. I really appreciate you sharing that, and I wish you the best of luck with your campaign.

Shannon W. Bray 51:32

Thank you so much. It was great visiting with you today.

Closing Reflections & Voting Info

Amanda Benbow Lunn 51:35

Democracy is built on participation. Politics can sometimes feel distant or abstract, but the decisions made by our elected officials at the county, state, and federal levels have a profound effect on the communities we call home and the way we live our lives. From the roads we drive on and the schools our children attend to public safety, parks and recreation, housing, health care, taxes, the economy, and the many other services and amenities that make up our communities, government plays a role in shaping both our everyday experience and our future. That makes taking the time to understand the choices on your ballot and the people asking for your vote an important part of being an engaged member of your community. Early voting for the 2026 midterm election begins October 15th and runs through October 31st. In Southern Wake County, there will be early voting locations at the Hunt Center in Holly Springs, the Hilltop Needmore Town Park Clubhouse in Fuquay Varina, Beech Bluff County Park, and Southern Wake Tech Campus close by. Election Day is November 3rd. A general reminder that you will need a valid photo ID to vote, the regular voter registration deadline is October 9th, although you may still register when you vote during the early voting period. Please note that you cannot register to vote on Election Day itself, and that that day you will absolutely have to vote at your designated precinct location to have access to your full ballot. And because there are so many races and ballot measures this year, your ballot will likely be double-sided. It can be helpful to start on the back so that you don't accidentally overlook anything. You'll vote for the races that apply to your jurisdiction along with statewide amendments and for Southern Wake County voters, local Wake County bond referenda. Voting is one of the ways we take part in the communities we share. You don't have to agree with your neighbors or even with the candidates you've heard here to recognize that our communities are shaped by the people who show up, ask questions, learn about the choices before them, and cast their ballots. So please take the time to get informed, make your voice heard, and encourage the people around you to do the same. Your vote matters. Your voice matters. And you absolutely matter, my friend. And with that, this episode of the NC Deep Dive has come to an end. Please feel free to check out this episode's show notes at ncdeepdive.com for further information and relevant links for this candidate along with general election information. As always, if you have any topics or thoughts you'd like to share, you can find us on social media or email us at ncdeepdive at gmail.com. If you found value in this episode, I'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and share it so that others may more easily be informed. Please make sure to stay tuned for all the relevant candidate, amendment, and referenda episodes for the 2026 midterm election by visiting ncdeepdive.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or wherever you currently listen to your podcast. Until next time, my friends, Namaste: The Love and Light in me sees and honors the love and light in you.