Election Reform

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Jeff There are several interesting ideas in this post. Does anyone really think that whatever measures are put in place will work? Politicians look at rules and regulations as challenges to overcome. Campaign finance reform gave us the first election where over a billion dollars were spent in the presidential race. Election fraud is part of the political process and it always will be in one form or another.

Hmmm, even post revolution?

[Occam]

Back to the original question.

1. Have each state require that all voting districts have
a. Approximately the same number of citizens,
b. The minimum perimeter divided by the longest distance across the district.
This would make all the districts compact and would get rid of gerrymandering.

2. Make all corporate or organizational election contributions illegal, and allow no individual contributions greater than, say, $100. Since the corporations and the organizations are the ones who finance elections today anyway, just charge them all a small tax to be distributed equally among the candidates so they can advertise fairly.

3. Get rid of term limits. This has a worthwhile goal, but doesn't even come close to accomplishing it. Instead, it drives experienced legislators out of their positions and forces them to all go through the dance of finding another legislative job.

4. Strongly increase penalties against both the lobbyists who bribe them and the legislators who accept the bribes. Something like confiscation of all the assets of both the employer of the lobbyist and of the legislator, then a minimum of five years in prison.

5. Move all legislative bodies in all states and the Congress to unicameral. Get rid of the Senate and just have the Representatives. Cuts way down on overhead and time waste.

6. Write a Constitutional amendment that requires the federal government to decrease the National Debt by 1% each year (with a temporary exemption in case of a national emergency such as a war).

7. Write a series of laws protecting the privacy of individuals and blocking the secrecy of the government, except in the case of national security. And, have a review of those secrets every year by an independent body. If national security secrecy is used improperly, the person who assigned the secret category is liable for criminal prosecution.

Occam

[PatrickHenry]

Wow! Reforming the whole government while we try to get fair voting!

[Occam]

OK, hold off on the last four points until we've accomplished the first three. :)

Occam

[PatrickHenry]

Point of fact: fair voting would go a long ways toward getting government straightened out. If more people thought their votes made any difference, more people would vote.

[Occam]

I certainly agree. And, getting rid of "safe" gerrymandered districts where the incumbent is assured of being elected, getting big money out of elections, and, of course, making sure the voters are allowed to vote and their ballots are properly counted (with a paper trail) would all make voters more sanguine about voting.

Another change I'd like would be to allow voters to vote both a first and a second choice. This would allow them to voice their desires by voting for a minor party first then the major party second without causing them to throw away their vote.

For example, a person who believes in Libertarian principles but votes Republican because he knows the Libertarian candidate can't win isn't really allowed to state his real preference. If he could vote Libertarian first, and Republican second it would show the real strength of the Libertarian party, but still be a vote for the Republican candidate (unless everyone was surprised and the Libertarian won).

The same would go for, say, the Green party and the Democrats.

Occam

[Osborn F Enready]

Occam said: Another change I'd like would be to allow voters to vote both a first and a second choice. This would allow them to voice their desires by voting for a minor party first then the major party second without causing them to throw away their vote. For example, a person who believes in Libertarian principles but votes Republican because he knows the Libertarian candidate can't win isn't really allowed to state his real preference. If he could vote Libertarian first, and Republican second it would show the real strength of the Libertarian party, but still be a vote for the Republican candidate (unless everyone was surprised and the Libertarian won). The same would go for, say, the Green party and the Democrats.

I fully agree, and this is why I want to see some type of IRV system, that is tamper-proof.

[Occam]

I was thinking about computer/electronic voting systems and I've decided that I would be delighted to see them installed, just as soon as they make a few minor improvements.

1. Develop an operating system that is totally unhackable.
2. Make the entire program completely transparent so anyone can see exactly what's going on.
3. Keep a record of each person's vote so it can be checked against how the person says s/he voted, but at the same time build in absolute privacy so that no one can learn how anyone voted.
4. With the above records, allow anyone who was improperly disenfranchised to vote after the election, and be willing to correct the error if the person initially elected wasn't really the winner.

If they can fulfill all of these conditions I'll gladly withdraw my objections to electronic voting. :)

Occam

[Clarence]

I'm not totally against photo id. Paper ballots like Canada. Don't give no flak about costs, neo-cons. Gimme a break.

How do people go about this kind of reform? How we do we keep PR from twisting it all up into a horrific charade before enough of a following is mustered?

[Occam]

While I agree with the thought behind objecting to photo IDs, we have to recognize that privacy is rapidly disappearing because of technology. They don't need an ID. Huge, high speed data bases are already being built on anyone in the justice system, and also on citizens in general. Facial recognition software is pretty accurate now and getting more so every day.

When you walk into a voting facility a small video camera will automatically scan your face, send the results to a central government computer which will identify you. Before you get to the counter you will have been accepted and logged in, or rejected, and your ballot will be ready if it's a primary where you get only that of your own party.

I hate this loss of privacy but there's not too much that can be done about it. However, I think we have to insist on laws that make government just as or more transparent to all of the citizens. That at least helps level the playing field.

Occam

(N.B. I justed posted this on another thread; it may have some applications here.)

Most of the ills associated with all voting systems can be resolved by getting rid of the vote. We could choose our representatives by lot and avoid much grief, corruption, and self-serving policy. It's the vote that destroys democracy.

Everyone (qualified by age, citizenship, of sound mind, not a convict, etc.) who wants to be a representative in whatever legislative assembly should submit their names . A random selection is then made, perhaps by the Governor General. Such a system, not unlike the jury system, would eliminate all the problems associated with campaigns, fund raising, election promises, underrepresented segments of society, etc. And, it would likely produce representatives no better or worse than those who we have now. There are precedents for this.

In Ontario, the notion of choosing by lot is held in enough esteem that it was the means whereby the citizens assembly was chosen to consider reforming the voting system.

Regards
S.

[namguy69]

Quote by: PatrickHenry I was reading Devvy Kidd just now and realized that she has some great suggesstions for cleaning up the voting process. Devvy Kidd -- The Unseen Hand Will Decide Who Gets Elected What do you think of these ides? Can you think of more accurate voting methods?

Lets get rid of Electoral College.

[Clarence]

Lets hear ya Jimmy Carter! Wasn't he on this one? wtf?

Dems winning in midterm made it seem as though the voting system is not compromised

[Autolykos]

Personally, I feel that the flaws go beyond the ballots themselves. At heart, the problem is one of representation.

The United States uses a system of plurality representation in its elections. Other terms for this system are "first-past-the-post voting" and "winner-takes-all voting". We all know how it works: the candidate with the most votes wins. Furthermore, for any specific election, no more than one seat is up for grabs.

Plurality representation in the U.S. came from Great Britain, where it was used earlier (and is still used today) for the House of Commons. On the other hand, most other countries in Europe have used what's called "proportional representation". Under this system, typically two or more seats are contested at the same time. Voters do not vote so much for individual candidates as they do for political parties or platforms. Each party or platform in the election receives a percentage of the seats proportional to the percentage of total votes they received.

It seems to me that proportional representation has many advantages over plurality representation. For one thing, it obviates the need for geographic districts with a single representative for each. Second, and related to the first, the incentive to engage in so-called tactical voting, which gives rise to two-party systems, is greatly reduced. Other advantages derive from these, such as a likely reduction in "pork-barrel" spending.

Simply put, I feel that most of the electoral problems in the U.S. can be solved by adopting proportional representation.

- Rob