Electioneering

[gallantwarrior]

The "fix" is so simple, it's painful. Given our technology, one-person, one-vote should be the way to go. Each registered voter is issued a one-time only access password. After they have presented appropriate identification proving their bona fides, they may then use that password to cast their vote. This prevents others from "buying" passwords to tip the vote. Once a password has been used, it is no longer valid. The reason for an electoral college is long gone.

This is a thought I had for a number of years, but I am not so sure anymore. I think the best thing to do is not to end the EC, but rather, to mend it.

The "Electoral College", a term we like to use, but which does not exist in the Constitution as a term at all, is a good way to keep 100s of splinter parties from forming. And I think that is a good thing.

The problem I see with the electoral college right now is how most states cast all electoral votes as a majority. I would find it much more...honest, to allow the electoral vote for each district to be cast as the majority in that district votes. As it stands now, all a candidate has to do is win a few states with a lot of votes and the rest of the country is screwed. If the electoral votes were cast by district, instead of by state, I think we would also see that the electoral and popular votes would sync more closely.

 

[gallantwarrior]

on some great ideas and responses from GW and GT too.

I tagged some additional members whom I believe could make some excellent contributions. (Used the [Tag Users] function at the top since that is what it is for.)

Some of what you suggest is going to require Constitutional Amendments and that means that this is going to be difficult to implement. Not impossible, but harder than necessary. Overall I agree that we are way overdue for a complete overhaul.

My suggestions actually piggyback on the concept of voter involvement in elections via the internet and using unique ids similar to SSNs.

1. Compulsory voting for all citizens. Doesn't matter if you vote for Mickey Mouse but you must cast a ballot. This eliminates parties having to focus on "turnout". If everyone must vote then turnout becomes a non-issue.

2. Voting via the Internet is something that needs to done sooner rather than later. Yes, it is feasible and it eliminates the BS about long waiting lines and voting hours and all the rest of the ways that politicians are using to mess with voting rights. If we trust the internet to make credit card purchases (sometimes for thousands of dollars) then why can't we have a similar secure system for voting? Eliminates weather concerns too. Best of all counting electronic votes can be tallied in seconds and there are no "hanging chads" and other nonsense. Polls close and vote counts are known nationwide.

3. Allow permanent residents to vote in non Federal and non State wide elections. These are taxpayers too and since their taxes pay local municipal taxes and for schools it only makes sense that they should be allowed to enter the electoral process in this manner. (BTW this is already allowed in some states.) This is all part and parcel of greater involvement in the process rather than less.

Right now part of what is messing up the system is the deliberate and malicious process of driving voters away. A vote lost for your opponent is a vote gained for yourself. If voting becomes compulsory the incentive to drive away voters falls away (and so does the money to make that happen.)

The use of the Internet for voting eliminates the excuse for not voting. Every place that offers WiFi now becomes a potential polling station. College dorms, coffee shops, libraries, shopping malls and yes, in the comfort of your own home. Once again greater involvement across all registered voters means that trying to appeal on single issues to drive "turnout" becomes a non issue and again, it undercuts the benefit of outside funding.

Internet voting doesn't require a constitutional amendment. It can be implemented sooner rather than later and it makes the most sense to begin here because it will increase voter turnout simply because it makes it easier. It also increases voting in primary elections which are notorious for low turnout. This can eliminate a subset of the voters being able to restrict the choices of the greater electorate.

Anything that increases involvement in the election process means a democracy where votes count more than dollars. That is where we must begin in my opinion.

Australia has compulsory voting. I wonder whether some of our "resident" Aussies could weigh in on how well this works?

 

[gallantwarrior]

I don't agree that making wholesale changes to the constitution is the right way to go. Neither do I think that this is the fault of the voter. Restricting access to the polls by elaborate ID measures answer a problem we do not have, namely voter fraud.

The problem as I see it is the money. Money spent on ads and campaigns. If contributions from individuals AND corporations was restricted to a three digit number, we could eliminate checkbook politics.

Perhaps it's the length of the campaign that makes the money so needed. If we had one national day for primaries, in May perhaps, and a national moratorium on campaigning until early August, long drawn out budgets for media buys would dry up and take the cash with them.

I have to agree about the money spent on ads, sometimes a year or more in advance of an election. I would suggest some election financing reforms.
Only an individual may make a contribution. Individual = a single identifiable person, no other "entities" may make contributions. A contribution can only be made to the candidate running for office in the individual's geographic location. I.e.: If someone is running for mayor of Anchorage, AK, only residents of Anchorage, AK may make contributions. If someone is running for state senator, only verified residents of that state may make contributions, and so forth...
Advertising would be limited to a certain period prior to an election. 30 days, 60 days, something reasonable. (Personally, I'm already sick of the 2014 elections.)
Any candidate who starts ragging on what another candidate has done, rather than what they will do if elected, is penalized. Maybe pull all their advertising and "sanction" them for a period of time. (Again, I really don't care about some trumped up charge of animal abuse, or some similar bs. I want to know what the candidate's ideas are, what their plans include, what they will do for us.)

Just a few thoughts to toss out there...

 

[Statistikhengst]

The "fix" is so simple, it's painful. Given our technology, one-person, one-vote should be the way to go. Each registered voter is issued a one-time only access password. After they have presented appropriate identification proving their bona fides, they may then use that password to cast their vote. This prevents others from "buying" passwords to tip the vote. Once a password has been used, it is no longer valid. The reason for an electoral college is long gone.

This is a thought I had for a number of years, but I am not so sure anymore. I think the best thing to do is not to end the EC, but rather, to mend it.

The "Electoral College", a term we like to use, but which does not exist in the Constitution as a term at all, is a good way to keep 100s of splinter parties from forming. And I think that is a good thing.

The problem I see with the electoral college right now is how most states cast all electoral votes as a majority. I would find it much more...honest, to allow the electoral vote for each district to be cast as the majority in that district votes. As it stands now, all a candidate has to do is win a few states with a lot of votes and the rest of the country is screwed. If the electoral votes were cast by district, instead of by state, I think we would also see that the electoral and popular votes would sync more closely.

Yes, but congressional districts are not state administrations. The idea of the EC is that the states, as a body, would speak.

There are, however, strong arguments for and against this.

And there have been calculations of what-if-when,and it ends up that, except for 1960, 1976 and 2012, the guy who won the election would still have won the election.

Source:

http://partisanid.blogspot.de/2012/12/presidential-election-results-by.html

So, in 2012, in spite of having won by +3.86% of the NPV,according to what you propose, Obama would have lost.

In 2012, this is because there are considerably more CDs with decidedly less people in them that lean strong R than there are CDs with considerably more people, which tend to lean D. Not all CDs have the same size, although they are supposed to.

In 1976, we would have had an electoral tie, 269-269.

So, instead of having one electoral backfire in 52 years, we would have had three. No thank you.

Interestingly enough, the states where Republicans are trying to push through elector-splitting are all states that tend to go blue in presidential elections, but deep red states show no interest at this time.

There is also an invisible connection between Nebraska and Texas concerning this, and if you are really nice to me I will share it on this board. There is a reason why Nebraska, which has put forth a law to eliminate elector spliltting 3 times since 2009, has not gone through with it.

If given the choice between mending the EC as I would like, taking your option, or just elminating the EC, I would still take my choice.

 

[Statistikhengst]

on some great ideas and responses from GW and GT too.

I tagged some additional members whom I believe could make some excellent contributions. (Used the [Tag Users] function at the top since that is what it is for.)

Some of what you suggest is going to require Constitutional Amendments and that means that this is going to be difficult to implement. Not impossible, but harder than necessary. Overall I agree that we are way overdue for a complete overhaul.

My suggestions actually piggyback on the concept of voter involvement in elections via the internet and using unique ids similar to SSNs.

1. Compulsory voting for all citizens. Doesn't matter if you vote for Mickey Mouse but you must cast a ballot. This eliminates parties having to focus on "turnout". If everyone must vote then turnout becomes a non-issue.

2. Voting via the Internet is something that needs to done sooner rather than later. Yes, it is feasible and it eliminates the BS about long waiting lines and voting hours and all the rest of the ways that politicians are using to mess with voting rights. If we trust the internet to make credit card purchases (sometimes for thousands of dollars) then why can't we have a similar secure system for voting? Eliminates weather concerns too. Best of all counting electronic votes can be tallied in seconds and there are no "hanging chads" and other nonsense. Polls close and vote counts are known nationwide.

3. Allow permanent residents to vote in non Federal and non State wide elections. These are taxpayers too and since their taxes pay local municipal taxes and for schools it only makes sense that they should be allowed to enter the electoral process in this manner. (BTW this is already allowed in some states.) This is all part and parcel of greater involvement in the process rather than less.

Right now part of what is messing up the system is the deliberate and malicious process of driving voters away. A vote lost for your opponent is a vote gained for yourself. If voting becomes compulsory the incentive to drive away voters falls away (and so does the money to make that happen.)

The use of the Internet for voting eliminates the excuse for not voting. Every place that offers WiFi now becomes a potential polling station. College dorms, coffee shops, libraries, shopping malls and yes, in the comfort of your own home. Once again greater involvement across all registered voters means that trying to appeal on single issues to drive "turnout" becomes a non issue and again, it undercuts the benefit of outside funding.

Internet voting doesn't require a constitutional amendment. It can be implemented sooner rather than later and it makes the most sense to begin here because it will increase voter turnout simply because it makes it easier. It also increases voting in primary elections which are notorious for low turnout. This can eliminate a subset of the voters being able to restrict the choices of the greater electorate.

Anything that increases involvement in the election process means a democracy where votes count more than dollars. That is where we must begin in my opinion.

Australia has compulsory voting. I wonder whether some of our "resident" Aussies could weigh in on how well this works?

I listed the twenty countries or so with mandatory voting earlier in this thread.

There is a debate going on in Australia as to whether to keep it, but from what I have read, most are cool with it.

I do agree, it would be nice to hear from some Aussies here about what they think on this issue.

 

[Statistikhengst]

I don't agree that making wholesale changes to the constitution is the right way to go. Neither do I think that this is the fault of the voter. Restricting access to the polls by elaborate ID measures answer a problem we do not have, namely voter fraud.

The problem as I see it is the money. Money spent on ads and campaigns. If contributions from individuals AND corporations was restricted to a three digit number, we could eliminate checkbook politics.

Perhaps it's the length of the campaign that makes the money so needed. If we had one national day for primaries, in May perhaps, and a national moratorium on campaigning until early August, long drawn out budgets for media buys would dry up and take the cash with them.

I have to agree about the money spent on ads, sometimes a year or more in advance of an election. I would suggest some election financing reforms.
Only an individual may make a contribution. Individual = a single identifiable person, no other "entities" may make contributions. A contribution can only be made to the candidate running for office in the individual's geographic location. I.e.: If someone is running for mayor of Anchorage, AK, only residents of Anchorage, AK may make contributions. If someone is running for state senator, only verified residents of that state may make contributions, and so forth...
Advertising would be limited to a certain period prior to an election. 30 days, 60 days, something reasonable. (Personally, I'm already sick of the 2014 elections.)
Any candidate who starts ragging on what another candidate has done, rather than what they will do if elected, is penalized. Maybe pull all their advertising and "sanction" them for a period of time. (Again, I really don't care about some trumped up charge of animal abuse, or some similar bs. I want to know what the candidate's ideas are, what their plans include, what they will do for us.)

Just a few thoughts to toss out there...

Both of those bolded points are in the op.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Even if there was just a web site where we could go to voice our opinion on which programs deserve funding...

How many of us would vote to continue millions in military aid to Russia and Egypt?

How many of us would vote to continue most favored nation trading status for China?

How many of us would vote for a little more money devoted to roads and bridges here in the USA?

If we have the ability to be that precise ... How about we add a link for filing income taxes electronically?
Make it a link where Americans that pay income taxes can divide the amount they owe among programs they wish to support ... Like Roads and Bridges, Military, Federal Government, Social Security, Welfare or Pork Projects.

That way we can make sure taxpayers are sufficiently represented in the capacity they contribute.
I mean if we are going to change the system to be fair by population ... Then fair by contribution would be equally justified.

.

That's the ticket!!!

Make our representatives justify their pet projects to the voters.

 

[gallantwarrior]

This is a thought I had for a number of years, but I am not so sure anymore. I think the best thing to do is not to end the EC, but rather, to mend it.

The "Electoral College", a term we like to use, but which does not exist in the Constitution as a term at all, is a good way to keep 100s of splinter parties from forming. And I think that is a good thing.

The problem I see with the electoral college right now is how most states cast all electoral votes as a majority. I would find it much more...honest, to allow the electoral vote for each district to be cast as the majority in that district votes. As it stands now, all a candidate has to do is win a few states with a lot of votes and the rest of the country is screwed. If the electoral votes were cast by district, instead of by state, I think we would also see that the electoral and popular votes would sync more closely.

Yes, but congressional districts are not state administrations. The idea of the EC is that the states, as a body, would speak.

There are, however, strong arguments for and against this.

And there have been calculations of what-if-when,and it ends up that, except for 1960, 1976 and 2012, the guy who won the election would still have won the election.

Source:

Fun With Party I.D. : Presidential election results by congressional district.

So, in 2012, in spite of having won by +3.86% of the NPV,according to what you propose, Obama would have lost.

In 2012, this is because there are considerably more CDs with decidedly less people in them that lean strong R than there are CDs with considerably more people, which tend to lean D. Not all CDs have the same size, although they are supposed to.

In 1976, we would have had an electoral tie, 269-269.

So, instead of having one electoral backfire in 52 years, we would have had three. No thank you.

Interestingly enough, the states where Republicans are trying to push through elector-splitting are all states that tend to go blue in presidential elections, but deep red states show no interest at this time.

There is also an invisible connection between Nebraska and Texas concerning this, and if you are really nice to me I will share it on this board. There is a reason why Nebraska, which has put forth a law to eliminate elector spliltting 3 times since 2009, has not gone through with it.

If given the choice between mending the EC as I would like, taking your option, or just elminating the EC, I would still take my choice.

I recognize your point about splitting the Electoral votes according to district instead of states. But the votes are set up to correspond with both Senate seats (2 per state, regardless of population) and House seats (allocated by population density). While you seem concerned about rural or suburban regions having more voice than urban areas, I see the opposite as a major problem. If you look at the district breakdowns by state, rather than only the state designation, you can quite clearly see where urban centers, as depicted by their blue color, are vs. rural districts. In many "blue" states, by far, greater geographic areas are "red". This would indicate that less populated areas tend to be more conservative than urban districts. The fact that smaller geographic areas can push an entire state into one party camp, or the other, is distasteful to me. In other words, you seem to prefer allowing a bunch of city-dwellers with little understanding of rural issues to run things.
I would much prefer to see the electoral votes allocated in such a manner so that all constituencies have a more equitable say in government.

 

[Statistikhengst]

The problem I see with the electoral college right now is how most states cast all electoral votes as a majority. I would find it much more...honest, to allow the electoral vote for each district to be cast as the majority in that district votes. As it stands now, all a candidate has to do is win a few states with a lot of votes and the rest of the country is screwed. If the electoral votes were cast by district, instead of by state, I think we would also see that the electoral and popular votes would sync more closely.

Yes, but congressional districts are not state administrations. The idea of the EC is that the states, as a body, would speak.

There are, however, strong arguments for and against this.

And there have been calculations of what-if-when,and it ends up that, except for 1960, 1976 and 2012, the guy who won the election would still have won the election.

Source:

Fun With Party I.D. : Presidential election results by congressional district.

So, in 2012, in spite of having won by +3.86% of the NPV,according to what you propose, Obama would have lost.

In 2012, this is because there are considerably more CDs with decidedly less people in them that lean strong R than there are CDs with considerably more people, which tend to lean D. Not all CDs have the same size, although they are supposed to.

In 1976, we would have had an electoral tie, 269-269.

So, instead of having one electoral backfire in 52 years, we would have had three. No thank you.

Interestingly enough, the states where Republicans are trying to push through elector-splitting are all states that tend to go blue in presidential elections, but deep red states show no interest at this time.

There is also an invisible connection between Nebraska and Texas concerning this, and if you are really nice to me I will share it on this board. There is a reason why Nebraska, which has put forth a law to eliminate elector spliltting 3 times since 2009, has not gone through with it.

If given the choice between mending the EC as I would like, taking your option, or just elminating the EC, I would still take my choice.

I recognize your point about splitting the Electoral votes according to district instead of states. But the votes are set up to correspond with both Senate seats (2 per state, regardless of population) and House seats (allocated by population density). While you seem concerned about rural or suburban regions having more voice than urban areas, I see the opposite as a major problem. If you look at the district breakdowns by state, rather than only the state designation, you can quite clearly see where urban centers, as depicted by their blue color, are vs. rural districts. In many "blue" states, by far, greater geographic areas are "red". This would indicate that less populated areas tend to be more conservative than urban districts. The fact that smaller geographic areas can push an entire state into one party camp, or the other, is distasteful to me. In other words, you seem to prefer allowing a bunch of city-dwellers with little understanding of rural issues to run things.
I would much prefer to see the electoral votes allocated in such a manner so that all constituencies have a more equitable say in government.

Probably no perfect formula for that. In that case, ditching the EC and going with NPV would be the next best alternative. Of course, if the interstate compact picks up enough steam in enough states, then all of this would be moot, anyway.

 

[AVG-JOE]

We can retain a Representative Democracy but make it one that is more inline with how the world works today.

Casting ballots once every couple of years was a matter of what was feasible in those times. Elections were infrequent because travel was arduous and communications were limited.

Today we no longer have those limitations so we need a Representative Democracy that reflects our modern ability to communicate. The Special Interests have already taken advantage of easier travel and faster communication and there is no reason why voters have to be stuck with a horse drawn voting model.

Let's demand that the the Voices of We the People be heard as frequently as the need arises. It is perfectly feasible to cast a ballot with a couple of mouse clicks. Why should our representatives not be able to find out for themselves which way the people of their districts/states want them to vote on a bill on the floor?

Greater involvement by the electorate has got to be a better way than the current system where the Big Money always dictates which way "our" representatives end up voting. Given those alternatives this should be a no-brainer!

Even if there was just a web site where we could go to voice our opinion on which programs deserve funding...

How many of us would vote to continue millions in military aid to Russia and Egypt?

How many of us would vote to continue most favored nation trading status for China?

How many of us would vote for a little more money devoted to roads and bridges here in the USA?

That's exactly the point. Many things that our Government does, it does with advance knowledge that the general public does not necessarily have. They don't realize that there is a game going on behind the scenes, a sort of give and take, over all sorts of things.

Foreign aid is a drop in the bucket compared to our GDP, but we get a helluva lot more out of it than we put into it. We get: overfly rights, base rights in many countries outside of NATO, for example. That foreign aid may be unpopular, but it is necessary. But the public doesn't see the payback, it takes it for granted that we get these things.

And what if an extremist wave hits the public and it decides to cut funding for all public schools, and wins that ballot initiative? What do we do then? Kill off our public teaching workforce?

There is a reason for why we have a representative Democracy and not a pure Democracy. Pure Democracy in Greece brought that small nation to a complete stillstand.

For extremely major issue, I could consider it, but for everything? No way.

I have enough faith in the American people to believe that, if given the opportunity to voice their opinion on what percentage of the budget to devote to education, they'd choose wisely.

I also believe that if the American people had more of a voice in what government programs and policies were presented on the world stage, we wouldn't need to borrow so much money to pay off other countries with weapons and money.

With such a diverse population, I would imagine that 'voting' on budget priorities would allocate just the right mix between guns, butter and infrastructure.

 

[Montrovant]

Even if there was just a web site where we could go to voice our opinion on which programs deserve funding...

How many of us would vote to continue millions in military aid to Russia and Egypt?

How many of us would vote to continue most favored nation trading status for China?

How many of us would vote for a little more money devoted to roads and bridges here in the USA?

That's exactly the point. Many things that our Government does, it does with advance knowledge that the general public does not necessarily have. They don't realize that there is a game going on behind the scenes, a sort of give and take, over all sorts of things.

Foreign aid is a drop in the bucket compared to our GDP, but we get a helluva lot more out of it than we put into it. We get: overfly rights, base rights in many countries outside of NATO, for example. That foreign aid may be unpopular, but it is necessary. But the public doesn't see the payback, it takes it for granted that we get these things.

And what if an extremist wave hits the public and it decides to cut funding for all public schools, and wins that ballot initiative? What do we do then? Kill off our public teaching workforce?

There is a reason for why we have a representative Democracy and not a pure Democracy. Pure Democracy in Greece brought that small nation to a complete stillstand.

For extremely major issue, I could consider it, but for everything? No way.

I have enough faith in the American people to believe that, if given the opportunity to voice their opinion on what percentage of the budget to devote to education, they'd choose wisely.

I also believe that if the American people had more of a voice in what government programs and policies were presented on the world stage, we wouldn't need to borrow so much money to pay off other countries with weapons and money.

With such a diverse population, I would imagine that 'voting' on budget priorities would allocate just the right mix between guns, butter and infrastructure.

I think the average American can barely deal with their own finances, and does a fairly poor job at that.

 

[BlackSand]

I think the average American can barely deal with their own finances, and does a fairly poor job at that.

We could always just vote ourselves a tax break and pay raise ... That is pretty popular and a serious political concern with a lot of people nowadays.

.

 

[oldfart]

You and the posters who have replied obviously have given this considerable thought and for that I commend you! I have a couple of comments about the mechanics of implementing proposals such as this.

A computer, rather than the statehouses, would set the congressional district boundaries. Race, gender, age, social status and partisan breakdown would play no role in the drawing of congressional boundaries, but geographical obstacles would. For instance, if at all possible, a district would not be drawn with a mountain chain splitting it into two halves. Additionally, Gerrymandering would never ever happen again. And for this reason, the Census should be changed from a once in a decade occurence to always be set to be one year before a Presidential election year.

What you are talking about is a linear programming problem on the computational level. I have had some experience in this area and suggest that the algorithms require certain input which can alter the eventual results, sometimes dramatically (Markov processes). So you can randomize and minimize manipulation of the results, but I don't think you can completely eliminate them. There remains an irreducible human element.

The reason why there are currently two Senators for all states is based on a compromise reached while writing the constitution so that the smaller states could feel that their interests were not being steamrolled by the larger states.

I agree that it would be desirable to introduce some scaling in the Senate, but that would require a convention to draft a replacement constitution, as the Amendment Clause in the original forbids any amendment that would deprive any state of its "equal representation in the Senate".

This would not necessarily be a bad thing, as your bundle of reforms could be presented as a package for an up or down vote, rather than letting the states cherry pick among the proposed amendments.

Finally, on other threads I have mentioned an additional problem with a new constitution; that we would have to decide if we were starting constitutional law from scratch or whether we were taking the body of Court opinions that define meanings and interpret nuances as applying to the new language. Does "cruel and unusual punishment" have the same meaning, not to mention "interstate commerce"?

Happy hunting on the project; America desperately needs fresh thinking about what this document means and should mean as we go forward!

 

[Statistikhengst]

Even if there was just a web site where we could go to voice our opinion on which programs deserve funding...

How many of us would vote to continue millions in military aid to Russia and Egypt?

How many of us would vote to continue most favored nation trading status for China?

How many of us would vote for a little more money devoted to roads and bridges here in the USA?

That's exactly the point. Many things that our Government does, it does with advance knowledge that the general public does not necessarily have. They don't realize that there is a game going on behind the scenes, a sort of give and take, over all sorts of things.

Foreign aid is a drop in the bucket compared to our GDP, but we get a helluva lot more out of it than we put into it. We get: overfly rights, base rights in many countries outside of NATO, for example. That foreign aid may be unpopular, but it is necessary. But the public doesn't see the payback, it takes it for granted that we get these things.

And what if an extremist wave hits the public and it decides to cut funding for all public schools, and wins that ballot initiative? What do we do then? Kill off our public teaching workforce?

There is a reason for why we have a representative Democracy and not a pure Democracy. Pure Democracy in Greece brought that small nation to a complete stillstand.

For extremely major issue, I could consider it, but for everything? No way.

I have enough faith in the American people to believe that, if given the opportunity to voice their opinion on what percentage of the budget to devote to education, they'd choose wisely.

I also believe that if the American people had more of a voice in what government programs and policies were presented on the world stage, we wouldn't need to borrow so much money to pay off other countries with weapons and money.

With such a diverse population, I would imagine that 'voting' on budget priorities would allocate just the right mix between guns, butter and infrastructure.

Possibly, but not guaranteed.

 

[Statistikhengst]

You and the posters who have replied obviously have given this considerable thought and for that I commend you! I have a couple of comments about the mechanics of implementing proposals such as this.

A computer, rather than the statehouses, would set the congressional district boundaries. Race, gender, age, social status and partisan breakdown would play no role in the drawing of congressional boundaries, but geographical obstacles would. For instance, if at all possible, a district would not be drawn with a mountain chain splitting it into two halves. Additionally, Gerrymandering would never ever happen again. And for this reason, the Census should be changed from a once in a decade occurence to always be set to be one year before a Presidential election year.

What you are talking about is a linear programming problem on the computational level. I have had some experience in this area and suggest that the algorithms require certain input which can alter the eventual results, sometimes dramatically (Markov processes). So you can randomize and minimize manipulation of the results, but I don't think you can completely eliminate them. There remains an irreducible human element.

The reason why there are currently two Senators for all states is based on a compromise reached while writing the constitution so that the smaller states could feel that their interests were not being steamrolled by the larger states.

I agree that it would be desirable to introduce some scaling in the Senate, but that would require a convention to draft a replacement constitution, as the Amendment Clause in the original forbids any amendment that would deprive any state of its "equal representation in the Senate".

This would not necessarily be a bad thing, as your bundle of reforms could be presented as a package for an up or down vote, rather than letting the states cherry pick among the proposed amendments.

Finally, on other threads I have mentioned an additional problem with a new constitution; that we would have to decide if we were starting constitutional law from scratch or whether we were taking the body of Court opinions that define meanings and interpret nuances as applying to the new language. Does "cruel and unusual punishment" have the same meaning, not to mention "interstate commerce"?

Happy hunting on the project; America desperately needs fresh thinking about what this document means and should mean as we go forward!

first bolded: yes, but minimal.

second bolded: doesn't necessarily need to be my package, but it is like a jigsaw puzzle. You really cannot change one piece without changing the rest.

I am, in reality, a strong proponent of equality for small states, but the current imbalance is simply not acceptable. That is a key part of the pro/contra argumentation about all of this.

Or to put it a different way:

The state of California, if it could legally divide itself into six equally states in terms of population, then each one of those states would still be 10 times the size of Wyoming. That would be the ratio between Virginia and Delaware of 1800. And then the six "Californias-Lites" if you will, would have 12 Senators instead of 2 for the present dreadnaught-class state.

Under my suggestion, California would just have 2.5 times more Senators than Wyoming.

The point being, even with an enhanced Senate of 160 + National Senators, the smallest states are STILL overrepresented, in the spirit of what the founding fathers wanted.

I would point out that Texas could also do this. In fact, technically, according to the terms of Annexation Treaty of 1844, Texas is the ONLY state in the Union with a firmly-anchored right to split itself into a total of five states, one of which would still have to be called Texas. This is the part of the treaty that Rick Perry either deliberately misunderstood or simply did not want to understand when he made the false claim that Texas had a right to secede from the Union (he made those statements at the end of 2011).


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And yes, I have put a lot of thought into all of this. And I am convinced more than ever that the root of our electoral problems lies with a structural deficit in the entire process of electioneering from the get-go, a deficit that needs to be mended.

 

[AVG-JOE]

That's exactly the point. Many things that our Government does, it does with advance knowledge that the general public does not necessarily have. They don't realize that there is a game going on behind the scenes, a sort of give and take, over all sorts of things.

Foreign aid is a drop in the bucket compared to our GDP, but we get a helluva lot more out of it than we put into it. We get: overfly rights, base rights in many countries outside of NATO, for example. That foreign aid may be unpopular, but it is necessary. But the public doesn't see the payback, it takes it for granted that we get these things.

And what if an extremist wave hits the public and it decides to cut funding for all public schools, and wins that ballot initiative? What do we do then? Kill off our public teaching workforce?

There is a reason for why we have a representative Democracy and not a pure Democracy. Pure Democracy in Greece brought that small nation to a complete stillstand.

For extremely major issue, I could consider it, but for everything? No way.

I have enough faith in the American people to believe that, if given the opportunity to voice their opinion on what percentage of the budget to devote to education, they'd choose wisely.

I also believe that if the American people had more of a voice in what government programs and policies were presented on the world stage, we wouldn't need to borrow so much money to pay off other countries with weapons and money.

With such a diverse population, I would imagine that 'voting' on budget priorities would allocate just the right mix between guns, butter and infrastructure.

Possibly, but not guaranteed.

But statistically...

`​

 

[Statistikhengst]

I have enough faith in the American people to believe that, if given the opportunity to voice their opinion on what percentage of the budget to devote to education, they'd choose wisely.

I also believe that if the American people had more of a voice in what government programs and policies were presented on the world stage, we wouldn't need to borrow so much money to pay off other countries with weapons and money.

With such a diverse population, I would imagine that 'voting' on budget priorities would allocate just the right mix between guns, butter and infrastructure.

Possibly, but not guaranteed.

But statistically...

`​

haaaa!!!


Please be sitting down when I tell you this:


42!!


Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program:


Actually, I have no idea (statistically), no one has tried to measure it. Gotta have some inches to make a yard, you know....

But just to assuage your synapses, I will bullshittify for the fun of it:

52.97% not guaranteed.

Now, you make the check out to...

 

[Knightfall]

This thread is a project I have been working on for months, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Putting it out on USMB is a promise I made to [MENTION=32163]Listening[/MENTION].

From the moment a US-Representative is sworn in, he or she is already planning and fundraising for the NEXT election. Huge PACS and Super-PACS are scrounging for money all year long. The media machine for all political parties is set to full-blast 24/7. Polling for the next presidential election started quite literally on the day after the last presidential election! We are now living in a permanent election cycle that literally never ends. This is not healthy for us.

Liberals complain that voter suppression is happening. Conservatives complain that there is voter fraud. Both sides have some very valid complaints. The last three presidential election have seen long-lines of people waiting to vote at polling places not equipped to handle that many people. Gerrymandering has literally made about 80% of the House of Representatives „safe“. And the list goes on and on.

In fact, it is just crazy.

In many ways, we have an electoral system that is designed for failure. That was surely not the intent of the founding fathers, but this is how it is working out and I think the time for some real common sense changes has come.

In this report, Conservatives, Moderates and Liberals are all going to find some things that they like and things that they don't like, but I ask of you to read all of it and digest it before commenting.

My main contention is that there is a severe structural flaw in our system of electioneering, namely, that very little of it is set in stone in the US Constitution. What was considered checks-and-balances has now become gridlock. And the rest, because of Federalism, is left up to the individual states to decide. And out of this, a hodge-podge patchwork of electioneering has evolved into a money making-monster.

So, I am a proposing a complete overhaul of our electoral system, but not an elimination of the „Electoral College“, as we like to call it. I am going to do this in four parts. Because of the length of this all, and to make it easier for you all to quote only one section, these four parts will be spread over postings 2-5 of this thread:

I. The Legislative (posting no. 2)
II. The Executive (posting no. 3)
III. The Judicial (posting no. 4)
IV. Election rules and timelines (posting no. 5)

Many of these things are things that Larry Sabato has also suggested in his book „Toward a more Perfect Union“, but many of them are also orginal ideas of mine.

The goal of all of this is to

a.) increase the amount of undisrupted time for governing between elections.
b.) streamline the actual time frame of electioneering.
c.) unify the rules for electioneering.
d.) reduce the money chase.

I am not saying that this is the only way to do this, but I do think that much of what I suggest is worthy of real adult debate. As I already wrote, each person will probably find some things he likes and some things he doesn't like, and that is good, for such sparks intelligent debate. Furthermore, I deliberately left out a lot of the reason for WHY I feel this way about many things. I did this to spur people to question or to come up with reasons themselves.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A friendly shout-out to all of these good people, from the Right, the Left and the Middle. I hope very much that you read all 5 opening postings and then comment. This could become one of the best discussions of the year.

[MENTION=31258]BDBoop[/MENTION] [MENTION=42916]Derideo_Te[/MENTION] [MENTION=40495]AngelsNDemons[/MENTION] [MENTION=41527]Pogo[/MENTION] [MENTION=26011]Ernie S.[/MENTION] [MENTION=9429]AVG-JOE[/MENTION] @Mad Cabbie [MENTION=42649]Gracie[/MENTION] [MENTION=20412]JakeStarkey[/MENTION] [MENTION=25505]Jroc[/MENTION] [MENTION=38281]Wolfsister77[/MENTION] [MENTION=21679]william the wie[/MENTION] [MENTION=23424]syrenn[/MENTION] [MENTION=43625]Mertex[/MENTION] [MENTION=37250]aaronleland[/MENTION] [MENTION=36767]Bloodrock44[/MENTION] [MENTION=36528]cereal_killer[/MENTION] [MENTION=40540]Connery[/MENTION] [MENTION=30999]daws101[/MENTION] [MENTION=46449]Delta4Embassy[/MENTION] [MENTION=33449]BreezeWood[/MENTION] [MENTION=31362]gallantwarrior[/MENTION] [MENTION=24610]iamwhatiseem[/MENTION] [MENTION=46750]Knightfall[/MENTION] [MENTION=46690]Libertarianman[/MENTION] [MENTION=1322]007[/MENTION] [MENTION=20450]MarcATL[/MENTION] [MENTION=20594]Mr Clean[/MENTION] [MENTION=20704]Nosmo King[/MENTION] [MENTION=43268]TemplarKormac[/MENTION] [MENTION=20321]rightwinger[/MENTION] [MENTION=41494]RandallFlagg[/MENTION] [MENTION=25283]Sallow[/MENTION] Samson [MENTION=21357]SFC Ollie[/MENTION] @Sherri [MENTION=43491]TooTall[/MENTION] [MENTION=25451]tinydancer[/MENTION] [MENTION=31918]Unkotare[/MENTION] [MENTION=45104]WelfareQueen[/MENTION] [MENTION=21524]oldfart[/MENTION] [MENTION=42498]Esmeralda[/MENTION] [MENTION=43888]AyeCantSeeYou[/MENTION] [MENTION=19302]Montrovant[/MENTION] [MENTION=11703]strollingbones[/MENTION] [MENTION=18988]PixieStix[/MENTION] [MENTION=23262]peach174[/MENTION] [MENTION=13805]Againsheila[/MENTION] [MENTION=20342]Ringel05[/MENTION] [MENTION=38085]Noomi[/MENTION] [MENTION=18905]Sherry[/MENTION] [MENTION=29697]freedombecki[/MENTION] [MENTION=22590]AquaAthena[/MENTION] [MENTION=38146]Dajjal[/MENTION] [MENTION=18645]Sarah G[/MENTION] [MENTION=46193]Thx[/MENTION] [MENTION=20614]candycorn[/MENTION] [MENTION=24452]Seawytch[/MENTION] [MENTION=29614]C_Clayton_Jones[/MENTION] [MENTION=18990]Barb[/MENTION] [MENTION=19867]G.T.[/MENTION] [MENTION=31057]JoeB131[/MENTION] [MENTION=11278]editec[/MENTION] [MENTION=22983]Flopper[/MENTION] [MENTION=22889]Matthew[/MENTION] [MENTION=46136]dreolin[/MENTION]

Bypassing your points and just living in fantasy land for a moment, I would love to see a politician stop campaigning. Seriously, what's the function in the modern world of doing all the typical stump speeches, visiting of the countrysides, town forums and even debates? All I want to know is, What do you believe, what's your voting record and are you honest?

In theory, a candidate could let his views be known by writing up a detailed list of his views and posting them on a campaign website. When subsequent challenges to his position are made, he can address them in the same way. Voting records are free to find for anybody interested in looking, and watchdog groups could easily compile vital information. As far as the moral background, that's the medias job.

Instead of this, we have politicians spending more time trying to keep their job than they do actually working their job. They go around the country to make speeches as if this is the only way we can find out who they are. It's just not necessary in the modern age. Many people seem to think we learn a lot from the debate cycles and constant scrutiny on the campaign trail, but it seems to me that we rarely get more than a series of gaffs the importance of which are usually negligible and will be embraced or ignored depending on whether you have previously decided that you like the given candidate. The whole electoral process does nothing but give the advantage to the guy who presents himself best, and unfortunately due to the severe amount of ignorant people in our society who spend no time paying attention to politics, the candidate with the better ability to spin usually comes out the victor.

All that to say that in my perfect world, candidates give me a resume and then go back to doing their jobs. I'll let them know if they are hired on November 15th and until then they can go away.

All right, now I'm going to read the posts. I'll be back.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Well I wasn't invited. But I will respond anyway.

All your points in all your areas require Constitutional amendments. What that means is unless you convince enough Representatives and Senators to recommend each of the specific Amendments and then get 37 States to agree to them you would end up with a mish mash, assuming any were ever even created at all, of your ideas.

And they all drastically change the procedures, term periods, election system and numerous other functions.

Reality is that you will never get the Congress to agree to any of these proposals and if somehow they were created as amendments then it is unlikely you would get 37 States to agree to all of them.

Sounds good, might even make sense, though I disagree with most of it. Reality is you will never see this even brought up in Congress.

Edit.... increasing the number of representatives does not require an amendment, Taking the control of their districts away from the States does.

 

[BobPlumb]

Well I wasn't invited. But I will respond anyway.

All your points in all your areas require Constitutional amendments. What that means is unless you convince enough Representatives and Senators to recommend each of the specific Amendments and then get 37 States to agree to them you would end up with a mish mash, assuming any were ever even created at all, of your ideas.

And they all drastically change the procedures, term periods, election system and numerous other functions.

Reality is that you will never get the Congress to agree to any of these proposals and if somehow they were created as amendments then it is unlikely you would get 37 States to agree to all of them.

Sounds good, might even make sense, though I disagree with most of it. Reality is you will never see this even brought up in Congress.

Edit.... increasing the number of representatives does not require an amendment, Taking the control of their districts away from the States does.

I've been thinking the same sort of thing about this thread. However, I didn't want to be a party pooper for those that want to live in fantasy land. This is too big of a hunk of meat to chew on. It might be more realistic to consider small but doable reforms.