Can campaign finance reform unite OWS?
As the movement searches for an agenda, it gives new life to an issue recently thought to be a lost cause
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/08/can_campaign_finance_reform_unite_ows/singleton/
To me money really is the root of our political problems. Now that the Supreme Court has ‘legalized’ the monied corruption that has always been part and parcel of our ‘democratic’ system the floodgates have truly been opened. I believe I read somewhere recently that they expect over $8 billion to be spent on the 2012 election (note not all of that for the President election). With that much money clearly elected politicians will be spending their time focusing on their major donors so as long as there is that massive flood of money involved I think it is impossible for our elections to even have the chance of fairness or for our elected officials to represent the majority. Given the SC decision I think that the only way to truly implement effective reform would be through a Constitutional amendment. Of course, I figure the chance of that is about on par with all the molecules in the room all the sudden grouping into one corner and causing everyone in the room to asphyxiate, but I haven’t shied back on writing about impossibilities, so I will outline my ideas for how to have fair and representative elections…
- Other than personal money (exclusively from the candidate, not from spouse, relative, etc.) all money spent on an election must come from tax payer funded pool. That means, of course, that the money available to run an election is hugely diminished, which leads to…
- Candidates are given equal time/space on media (other than their own web site). If the government is buying huge blocks of air time on radio and TV as well as space on news papers (are there any left?) and news web sites, I am sure the government can get a great deal and there would be no need for eminent domain or anything like that. Each candidate would get an equal portion of the available resource.
- No one else can advertise on behalf of the candidates. Since this clearly a violation of free speech it will need the Constitutional amendment to have any chance of success.
- Violators get real jail time, not just slap-on-wrist fines.
Since I am here anyway, howzabout some ideas for actually holding elections…
- Districts are created based on neutral, open source methods subject to peer review. Something along the lines of minimum borders so we don’t get these damn Gerrymandered districts.
- Internet voting would become the norm and voting would be allowed over the course of a couple of days. It is very practical to have open methods of voting that allow for any voter to know that their vote was in fact counted and not changed without giving away their vote (I won’t detail anything here). It isn’t necessary for everyone to test that their vote was counted properly, but if the announced election results are in discrepancy with the expectations based on polls, I imagine many people would vet their votes and if enough people claim discrepancies then an investigation would ensue and the vote would not be certified. People could still vote as they do now, in person, and could get the same record (which is nothing more than a one-way encrypted string) they can also compare to test their vote was recorded.
- Voters can rank their votes so they can vote for their favorite long-shot candidate without throwing their vote away. By ranking their vote they can still virtually cast their vote for their second (third, etc.) candidate and their vote would automagically be assigned to their other choices if their primary candidate fails to get a majority.
- As mentioned in 3) there would be virtual runoffs. If no candidate has a majority at the end of the voting period (I believe that the votes should be tallied and reported in near real time so people can decide if they want to cast their votes) then the candidate with the fewest votes is thrown out and the second choice for all those voters is accorded that candidate’s votes. This process continues until either there is a candidate with a majority or we are left with a dead heat among the remaining candidates. Then, I suppose, the remaining candidates would be left to decide things based on some game of chance (e.g., if there are two, a coin flip (perhaps if there are several they can play poker or something ;-)).
I feel that if these sorts of reforms were implemented the chance of getting elected representatives that actually represent the people who elected them is much higher. I don’t think it is possible to eliminate corruption, but what we have now is legalized corruption where the wealthy simply purchase elections and those elected have no real choice (indeed, I believe most are attracted by the choice) but to accede to the wishes of those who paid to get them elected.
