How to fix Election Disenfranchisement in the U.S.A.

Recently I received a call from a political action group – which will remain unnamed – trying to allow anyone to vote in primary elections. I thought this was strange because from what I know, anyone over the age of 18, who’s a U.S.A. citizen, hasn’t been convicted of a felony, and who’s willing to follow their state’s voter register laws and pick a political party, can vote in that parties primary elections. Certainly some states have stricter laws than others in this regard, but exercising your voting rights comes with the responsibility of knowing what you are doing to ensure votes get properly and fairly counted.

What this political action group really wants is to break down the barriers that keep primary elections more honest, so that one party or a mass of the general public who doesn’t necessary know or understand the party’s platform, cannot sabotage the primary elections by voting for the weakest or least representative candidates for their given parties. This dilutes the message of those actively involved in the political party and ultimately leads to mediocre moderates – or those with the deepest pockets – getting elected.

If we want real election reform, here’s what I would suggest as a much better approach to ensuring we have good candidates to choose from when the general elections come around, without the fear of the so-called “thrown away vote” that fear mongers like to use to get voters to choose candidates that don’t best represent them.

1. No elected official may be a candidate for a different office from the one currently or previously held while currently holding or having held any other elected office within the last year. Make them focus on their current job, instead of their ambitions.
2. No tax money or government provided funds may be used, directly or indirectly, to assist any political party in determining their candidate(s) for any election. And then lower our taxes based on the amount of money saved, so we can give it to the candidates we truly want to support. The best way to do this is to force each political party to hold its own Caucuses and Conventions to choose their candidates.
3. All states must provide equality in standards for allowing ballot access to any candidate regardless of party affiliation or lack of affiliation. The only reason we have two major parties in the U.S.A. is because politicians like it that way and make it easier for their parties to get ballot access.
4. If after the general election, no single candidate within their given race has a majority of votes, a run-off election shall be held within forty-five days between the two candidates with the most votes; except in cases where more than one candidate is intended to be elected from a single grouping of candidates via the same tally of votes. Why do we allow someone to represent us, who hasn’t gotten the support of the majority of voters?

Of course, we will never truly have people who represent us as long as we have too few elected officials representing too large of a group of people within a district that was designed by positions to ensure they get to keep their jobs. Commonly known as gerrymandering, this problem is best solved by:

1. Reinforce a cap on how many people can be represented by a single elected official (the constitution says thirty-thousand, but this standards has long since been re-interpreted as a bare minimum rather than a target size).
2. Have two representatives elected from each repetitive district (Arizona does this at a state level, so why not at a federal level too?), to ensure a majority of people have someone who truly represents their interests, instead of a minority picking between the least scary candidate between the two they have been told by the media have a chance at winning.
3. Don’t allow donations to political campaigns or other political related funds to come from outside sources: i.e.: crossing state lines.
4. Implement technologies that allow/require representatives to live within their respective districts, so they stay close to home and close to the issues of the people they represent.

For more amazing ideas on how to reign in an out of control and out of touch Federal U.S.A. Government be sure to check this out:

Seth Hollist’s Clean Slate Amendment