You want a fair, just and democratic election system?

[JackRiddler]

Cut the country into ten sections of five states each. Each group of five holds party primaries simultaneously. The regional principle cuts down on costs and travel times for candidates, among other advantages.

In other words, there will be ten primary days over ten weeks, each with five states voting.

Randomize the order in which the regions vote. Have secular holidays in the places where they are held.

Registration of voters is abolished - because it is automatic. Everyone is registered for the general election by virtue of residency.

For party registration: every household receives forms in the mail, allowing registration with any party in advance. The non-transferable form is standardized, but the voter can choose to which party s/he sends it, so that only that party knows his/her name. The deadline is as close to election as feasible.

Every year, we all get the phone book, so I know the following is possible:

At public expense, a brochure of the candidates is prepared for distribution to ALL registered voters. Candidates get an equal share of pages in the brochure (the order is randomized). They can do whatever they like with their section, with different versions for each locality if they wish.

There is also information in this directory about how to vote, how to contact campaigns, etc. All directories must include the Constitution of the United States with amendments, the state constitution, local charters, a selection of laws applicable to elections.

CANDIDATES MAY NOT BUY TV TIME

All channels are required to run, twice an hour, a standardized PSA that says: "There is an election on. Turn to Channel X (the campaign channel) to see the candidates. Check your TV guide... Today's schedule includes Candidate A at 4 p.m., Candidate B at 5 p.m., ETC."

Channel X (which may be several channels) distributes most of the time equally to everyone on the ballot, and (in the GE) some of the time to party lines, based on their proportion in the last vote.

Candidates get blocks of time and equal rights to good times; they can trade among themselves, depending on how they like their blocks distributed (five, ten, 30 minutes, whatever).

A further Channel Y (which may be several channels) is charged with covering campaign events live, every day. Time is distributed in a similar fashion.

The schedule for all this is known in advance. It's in the TV Guide.

Every town should furthermore have its own C-Span channels covering all public political events, all state assemblies, city councils, key commission meetings and hearings, etc., but never mind...

Political organizations may buy TV time, but a fair-time rule will apply. Example: for every two minutes I get to push my viewpoint, the station must make one minute available for free to opposing views, as a condition of its license. If more than one organization wants that minute, who gets it is randomized. (There is a requirement that the rebuttal is a direct rebuttal to the ad in question.) We might institute a subsidy for this system, to keep stations from losing too much on the deal.

Everyone who qualifies for the ballot gets a public stipend to further finance their campaign. All other forms of campaign financing are banished. (There might be a modest minimum performance standard in each set of primaries, say at least 2% in one state, to qualify for the next stipend payment.)

Broadcast media are banned from reporting opinion poll results in advance of an election - or from making projections before the polls close.

All voting processes leave a voter-verified trail of paper ballots.

This is kept and recounted automatically for comparison against the machine results.

Any objections to that? I'm sure some of you who actually prefer having money and established interests control and limit the political process will object. I'm sure others will call it utopian, although its technical implementation is a snap and it won't cost more on the whole than the present system. Whereas others will find it very objectionable that this will actually give a fair chance to everyone who's serious about running and winning, and bemoan that it will produce chaos, anarchy... you know, democracy.

Whereas many will correctly point out the Catch-22: how can you mount a visible campaign for a system that wipes out special influences in politics, if it's not already in place?

PS - I'd also like to see a model for proportional representation, or at least of instant runoff voting, but let's leave that for a different debate, since it changes the constitution of government, not just the process of choosing officials.

[Name removed]

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[GodHelpUsAll2]

2. Great idea

I like it! for what that's worth

[jus_the_facts]

3. the channel X shouldn't be on cable......

.....I refuse to buy cable or sat. t.v. and many other folks can't afford it...and lot's of others don't even have televisions at all....so that leaves out multitudes of potential voters! :think:

[JackRiddler]

8. hmm... how to handle

Cable and satellite, for starters, but what about terrestrial?

Needs to be a very strong-signal UHF, I suppose. That might cost seriously to set up. Isn't there now a capacity to bundle several signals into a terrestrial frequency, so you stick a couple of channels into one? (You need a receiver made for that.)

But you'Re right, this must be made to work for everyone who watches TV, without exception.

(One day soon TV & Internet will be combinable into one super-broadband over the AC!)

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. I like the Campaign Channels. The process, I would crank up a notch

If you live here, you vote. voting happens over a period of 2 weeks, maybe 3. If you don't have a coupon, you can pick one up anywhere. You can vote anywhere. You can vote at the convenience store.In areas with lots of poor/elderly, polls come to you. Or you can TIVO. You can phone it in, email it, nobody cares. There's a digital trail, and a paper trail. ID with thumbrpint. Campaign, party, international monitors everywhere.

Every candidate gets an equal amount of money for his/her campaign. That's it. If they have millions in the bank, if they use a cent of it to campaign, they're out. If they don't have a cent in the bank, doesn't matter. They don't need one.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. No substantive objections

Any objections to that? I'm sure some of you who actually prefer having money and established interests control and limit the political process will object. I'm sure others will call it utopian, although its technical implementation is a snap and it won't cost more on the whole than the present system. Whereas others will find it very objectionable that this will actually give a fair chance to everyone who's serious about running and winning, and bemoan that it will produce chaos, anarchy... you know, democracy.

There are a few things I would nit-pick here and there, in order for it to be consitutional (like automatic voter registration, based upon housing status), but other than that, I haven't any objections in principal. I would also add in that candidates may not directly advocate other candidates, as parties would just line up a hundred people, each getting their own free resources to tout the main candidate. Also, I would suggest that private groups and main party headquarters cannot advocate for or against any specific candidates, but may inform the public of the pros or cons of certain issues (while still not mentioning or implying the candidates). Other than that, sign me up.

[forgethell]

6. Only citizens should vote

So I dislike your no-registration clause. How do you keep people from voting twice or in more than one location? I think there is too much opportunity to fraud.

[JackRiddler]

7. You might be right about that...

But registration needs to be easy and possible right up to Election Day (depending on feasibility).

I like the idea above of candidates not allowed to advocate for other candidates, but that's a speech issue. Besides, under this system you won't find 50 volunteers to go out and qualify for the ballot (there will still be hurdles there, and there should be) just to help out "their" candidate.

I'd also like to restrict what the party HQ does, but on the other hand, who cares? No need for unenforcable (and unconstitutional) rules here. The primary issue is media coverage and distribution of media time/space.

[LWolf]

9. Interesting.

I'd go for it. Of course, I'm for proportional representation and IRV, too.

What would the current primary election look like with this scenario?

[Leilani]

10. Wow, you've really thought about this

I agree with most of your points.

I would like to see more time than 1 week between primaries. 5 states is an awful lot of ground to cover.

[JackRiddler]

11. True.

Make it two weeks. Let's see, 18 weeks total would be from oh, Jan. 15 to start of June... in between there can be a round of debates.

Speaking of debates, I would love to see those involve only 2 to 4 candidates each. So instead of 9 you have 3 debates of 3 each, with the line ups randomized.

I realize some of this involves legal changes, some of it changes in party rules (which may be even harder to get!)

[demdave]

12. How do you handle the thousands of candidates?

What is the requirements to run. Even in the system we have today, there are over 100 candidates. http://www.politics1.com/p2004.htm How is this handled with your mailings and your TV time?

[JackRiddler]

13. I don't know, let's brainstorm around this...

You can't really have 282 candidates, can you?

Some ideas...

Getting on the ballot still requires doing it under the rules of the state in question. I think I'd be for making it at least as difficult as it is today, to avoid the problem you raise.

Many candidates is not necessarily a problem with the brochure, that can be thick as a phone book if it comes to it. But the TV time?

Should there be a high fee for registering as a candidate, to discourage joke candidacies? A deposit, perhaps... you only get it back if you win a certain pct. That's the British system.

Perhaps we need to work out some kind of elimination process from primary round to round. Like some proportion are forced out at each stage. But that doesn't allow anyone to gain momentum.

Oh, I got it. Losers must do two years community service in Alabama.

Back to you, demdave