Election Reform

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am beyond getting tired of the current crop of campaign advertising. The entire situation has gotten entirely out of hand. The system needs to be scraped and replaced. With all the questions and allegations that both of the nominees are slinging around, it seems that if any of these are true then we are facing a security problem.

With the way that contributions are coming in for Obama, it is impossible (at least with the information that he is giving us) to determine if these contributions are legal. Unlimited contributions, under the $250 dollar limit can come in from overseas - from those who are against our standards. These funds, should they be sent from terrorist organizations, could tilt the election. In fact, they could buy the election. I am not saying that this is happening. But, it is a possibility. There are just too many questions that are unanswered to know for sure. The point is, this could happen. It could happen on either side.

The possibility of this happening has been acknowledged for years, on both sides. In the current election, we are hearing that Obama is buying the presidency. And we have heard the same allegations from the Democrats in elections past - that they are buying the election- or flat stealing it . And, it is a real possibility that this could happen. The amount of money coming into the system is just far too great to monitor. What if someone were running for president and had $150,000,000 of contribution that comes in, what would keep them from just running for the border and living in the islands?

There are some other weaknesses in the system that need to be addressed. But, rather than going through all the things that are wrong (like a politician) I am going to offer my idea of how the system should be run. I am directing my comments to the Presidential contest, but the same concepts can be adapted to other contests as well.

1. The presidential election should not last two years as it currently does. This is a waste of both time and money. If a candidate can not present his case to us as to why he/she is the best person for the job, in two months (one for the primary and one for the general election), then I don’t feel they are qualified for that job. They should be allowed to do some background work before the campaign starts. In fact, they should be required to do so. They should have their resume in hand and ready for our (the public’s) review when they fill out the application to run. In this resume, we should have their qualifications, including birth certificate, job history, medical history, education history, bills sponsored and votes (if they are already in office) and above all, why they are the best person to take this job. They need to tell us whatever we need to know to make an informed decision to vote for them. If they can not tell us why we should vote for them, then they are telling us why we should vote against them.

2. In the current presidential election we have two Senators running. Each of these were previously voted into office, to serve our county. It is a disservice to America, and to those who voted ffor them, for these people to be employed by the Federal Government (that is what the classification of being a Senator is, isn‘t it - an employee of the United States?) and run for another office. Doing this would be like me being employed by Walmart and doing work for the Gap during my Walmart working hours. If I am working at Walmart, then I owe them them a full shift of work for a full shift of pay. That is just fair.

3. There should be no fundraising allowed. None at all. Only funds from the Federal Government should be used. Each candidate for the presidency should be given a set amount of money, paid into an account that is to be managed by a third party accounting firm. This puts all candidates on equal grounds. This gives no advantage to any candidate. All advertising would be paid for by the third party. No advertising would be allowed that is not paid for through the third party. I am not saying that censorship should be applied to the advertising (other than all ads should be verifiable facts or “this is what I intend to do and how”)

4. All claims made by a candidate MUST be substantiated with solid evidence - not taken out of context words, not theories, not plain old mudslinging. All supporting evidence is to be used quoting bills voted upon, legislature introduced and other solid and verifiable facts. Do not say “I support the 2nd amendment and my opponent does not”. Rather say (if it is true), “I voted for bill # ____ that supports your 2nd amendment right and my opponent voted against it”. Any claims that are shown to be false must be publicly apologized for, on an equal basis. That is to say, if a candidate makes an untrue claim against the opponent that airs 14 times, during prime time, in 45 cities. The retraction must also be made and aired 14 times, during prime time, in the same 45 cities. Play fair, play honest. We don’t want to know how dirty you are, we don’t want to know how dirty you think your opponent is, we want to know what you are going to offer us. If a candidate is required to some a part of their advertising budget to retract lies that were told, then there should be less lies told.

5. With the instant information age, there is no real need for all the extent of television and radio advertising that we currently have. The screaming, slanted lies about how bad the other candidate is, and the lies about how good I am, tell us nothing. All claims of past performance must be solidly substantiated (both claims of what they have done and what they claim their opponent has done). And, all statement about what they (or their opponent) plans to do must be substantiated with facts and figures as well. It is not enough to say “I am going to lower taxes and raise benefits!” The step by step plan on how this is going to be done must also be included.
The debating system must also be changed. We don’t learn much, if anything at all from debates anyway. What we have is a moderator, who is biased (face it, we all are biased for or against all candidates - and it is very difficult to overcome these biases when asking questions) asking questions that the candidates know is going to be asked and they have a prepared answer ready to be given. Public forums are the way to go. Not with prescreened questions. We need good, solid, honest interviews of the candidates by the people who want to know the answers. The questions are not to be screened. It should be up to the candidates to handle all questions. If a question is stupid, this will come out in the answers. And, stupid question askers will be handled by the system, and the others in the audience.

Not to pick on Obama, but his interaction with Joe the Plumber is a good example of what should be happening. It doesn’t matter that Joe was just thinking about buying a business that may or may not make more than $250,000 a year. Perhaps that is just Joe’s optimism that he can make that plumbing business perform to that level. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that Joe doesn’t have a plumbing license. He has been working at for that company for years, but that doesn’t make him a plumber. And, to own a plumbing company, you do not have to be a plumber, you just have to have plumbers working for you. What does matter is that Joe had a question, a valid question that deserved a real answer. He got an answer, sort of, from Obama. And, Joe got attention, that interfered with his job, from both parties and the media. All for asking a real question that affects many people, that deserved a real answer. America want to know what the candidates really have to offer, not the speaking points that may not be relevant and not really apply to the citizens.

6. The candidates should be limited to a set number of media hours and printed pages. Press releases and other news items will be treated as advertising. If Candidate A is reported in the New York Times as being at a certain function where they gave a speech about abortion, this counts towards the advertising that they are allowed. This should help curtail the possibility of the media picking one candidate that they will support, and hinder the other. Media, in the current election, has decided that Obama will get special treatment. In all elections it has been the same. There has been one candidate that gets good coverage, the other gets negative coverage. Media’s job is to report the news. It is up to those of us who care to be involved to interpret the news. And, for those who choose not to be involved, perhaps they should step aside and allow those who do care make the decisions in these elections.

7. Any violation of any campaign rules will required to be published in newspapers, internet, radio and TV. Fines, paid out of the funding supplied by the Federal Funding. And, as stated before, any retractions that must be made will have to be paid for as well.

8. And this is the big one; there should be an option to vote “none of the above”. With this option, the parties will be forced to offer more viable candidates. If the majority of the votes are for “none of the above” then the parties will have to start all over, with new candidates, and have a new election

9. All of us must educate ourselves to the pulse of our Government. We should demand that each bill in the Senate and Congress be posted in easily accessible formats so that we can all read them before the vote. This information must include the names of all the sponsors and cosponsors of the bill. Then, when the bill is voted on, the vote should also be made public. This way, we can easily see how each of our representatives are voting. I know that this is complicated, with all the added pork to the bills. But, if we give the names and supporters of all the added pork, then we can see how our representatives are wanting to spend our money as well.

10. The electoral college is part of our problem today. First of all, contrary to the belief of many people, the those we vote for, in the electoral college are not required to vote the way that we direct. This is why many people I have spoken with do not vote. They say their vote does not count. They say they are just voting for the elector. Electors, it seems, are free to vote any way they want. The risk of this system is this: no matter what the popular vote is, it could be 70% for Obama but the electors vote for McCain. Sure, it has never happened. But, it is not impossible for it to happen. The electoral college was essential during the early years of America. Information traveled so slow that votes on the far side of the country would take days or weeks to be reported and counted. That is no longer the case. With the instant communication we have today, it is possible for a vote cast in California at 8:30 PM Pacific time to be counted in Washington DC (or where ever the counting is to be done) by 8:31 PM Pacific time. There is no need for anything other than using Popular Vote. Yes, this may give the people in high density states such as California more power than perhaps Utah. But, in that California has more electoral votes than Utah, that is already the case. Using popular vote is one of the changes we need to make in our current election process.

These are the ideas that I have to help bring our election system back to the control of We, the People. I know, that as one person I can't make these changes happen. And, I know there are things that I am missing. But, this is a start. With help, perhaps we can come up with a viable change to the election process before the 2012. Providing America survives the next four years, We, the People must take back control of America from the special interest groups, foreign interests or big business. This is our country. You know, the Founding Fathers declared this a Government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”