While the tea party twiddles, diddles and resolves to keep the government hostage, we will take a shot at trying to unscrew the inscrutable, in this case, the American elections process. Not just Federal, but state and local also; no election too small! There are a LOT of things going on here, and most of them are not too favorable to the American people, and VERY favorable to the oligarchs and plutocrats – the 2% who have the most of the money in the US. They want to keep what they have (too much), get as much more as they can and keep the 98% down and out, struggling to keep things running and pitting their hard earn pittance into their masters pockets. So, money is the first thing to get out of elections; a daunting task but doable - with a few painful (for them) changes. First, but toughest, get legislation AND Constitutional protections to severely limit the money. This means eliminating PACs, Super-PACs, black money organizations and limiting all contributions to a maximum amount – say $1000 from anyone, period. And by anyone here, I mean flesh and blood, living breathing people. Not corporations, banks, colleges, civic organizations, whatever. Along with the limits, we need ABSOLUTE transparency of the donations. No one, that is NOBODY AT ALL can give one red cent without it showing up in the public record. And the transparency can’t stop there. It would be perfectly allowable for a person, group, club association or whatever to buy media time to support or oppose a candidate or issue, but the disclaimer (this is a production by American Whatever-We-Are) should be required to have all the names of anyone who contributed, and if they wanted to use another group, etc. to contribute and support the advertised position, that group would have to be public also. The media outlets would love selling all the extra time for that. That takes care of the black money issue, probably. And that brings up the next money issue – amounts. There should be a pre-set limit on Presidential election spending – let’s say $50 million, a good round sum. Spending for a senatorial seat is limited to say, 45% of that figure; for a Congressional seat, maybe 20%. Gubernatorial elections should be limited to 5% of the Presidential figure, and other state offices to 25% of the governor’s limit. Local – county and municipal elections – would be proportionally less also. And to make the playing field a bit more level, so the spending limits don’t hurt quite so bad, we need to limit the time a campaign can run. Let us say three months prior to the election date, maximum. For any election, unless states or local authorities decide to reduce that time frame – they won’t be allowed to go longer. And when I say limit, I mean LIMIT, dammit. A candidate can’t announce, express interest test the waters, send up a trial balloon or put up a wanted poster before that start date. No advertising, public affairs announcements, tweets or social media posts – nary a peep. Violations result in disqualification, no ifs ands or buts. The final nail in the coffin of our convoluted electoral process is to redistrict every state, at every level, with gerrymandering strictly prohibited. There would be a Federal commission, copied in every state, made up of neutral parties – no candidates, elected officials or party officers of any stripe that would apportion each district and precinct according to a strictly non-partisan formula, with equal representation amongst registered voters of all parties (or non-partisan folk) and following natural geographic features wherever possible. The latest census would be used for a primary database. And anyone over the age of 18 who’s a resident in that particular district or precinct would be allowed to vote, even if they registered on election day. Again, period, no argument. No ‘provisional’ ballots, no ID required for other than proof of age; we trust each other to vote without committing fraud. The corollary to this is to give everyone the opportunity to go to the polls. Elections should be mail ballot as far as possible, with central, convenient polling places for those who want to pull the lever, or who need to take advantage of registration. And early voting should be encouraged, starting at least 30 days prior to the official date, which should be a weekend, Saturday or Sunday say, to allow convenience and encourage participation. Our current first Tuesday after the first Monday in November schedule is archaic and unfair. Going to a weekend, two-day election ‘day’ would be infinitely more conducive to getting out the vote. I know a great many who will read this and scoff – they’ll say these changes would never be doable, but I say this to the nay-sayers: Fine! Come up with logical, workable alternatives, but agree we MUST do something to restore the sanity and honesty to our democratic (small d) electoral system. Right now it’s broken, but not beyond repair.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 03:46:04 +0000
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