Campaign and Election Reform
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We reject today's two-party system, dominated by Republicans and Democrats, in which reason takes a back seat to party loyalty and electoral politics and the logical outcome is a forced choice between the lesser of two evils plus a policy that reflects the interests of the dominant party rather than the interests of the citizens.
Election reform must allow the citizens to select the method that best serves their needs, and which best reflects the openess and freedom of choice that our country should exemplify.
Ballot Access
- Grant equal ballot access to smaller legitimate political parties and independents and repeal those laws that restrict third parties from gaining ballot access or official party status. Do not categorize political parties according to scale or stature or otherwise treat them in an unequal fashion.
In identifying candidates on the ballot, experiment with the following:
- Identify the political party of EVERY candidate without exception who declares his or her affiliation.
- Or, eliminate ALL party identifications from the ballot and show only the names of the candidates.
Voting Machines and Vote-Counting
- Do not use voting machines which preclude a recount process or leave no "paper trail" by which to recount and verify the individual votes, such as is possible with traditional paper ballots.
- Require voting by electronic process. Each registered voter must receive a standardized voting smart-card that contains their unique ID and encryption code. Since there can be as many different ones as needed, there would never be any duplication, and no chance at impersonation since no one can figure out someone else’s key.
The great advantages of electronic means of voting include the following:
• Extreme accuracy - There will be no missed counts, no hanging chads or other anomalies, nor would there be any human error, either. The system could create a standardized receipt showing a person’s selections, and that receipt could be stored on the voter’s own smart-card so that they could take their receipt with them as a confirmation of their choices and an automatic independent backup should anyone require a recount of the votes.
At any point in time, a request for comparison with the stored and tabulate vote would only require that one or more outside and independent organizations would request each voter to resubmit the data stored in the receipt on their smart-cards to confirm that the totals matched the original tabulation. Errors should be zero.
• Extreme security - Four or five hardened locations around the country would house duplicate servers to tabulate and store the results. They would continually verify the exact duplication of the information in case of loss at any one place. This would also make manual manipulation of the information impossible. This process would serve to eliminate the possibility of bribery or co-opting the results by coercion.
The information flow would be one way only, except as the President would directly report the results to the nation since only his “football” key would access it, and the data would be confirmed by the electoral college. Since someone must access this data, I think it is reasonable to expect that most citizens would trust an elected official that already is trusted with our nuclear capability.
• Speed - The count and calculation of any voting process is hugely increased to the point of being instantaneous with the proposed system. This would make it possible to know precisely the running totals for each candidate all thru the process. Doing away with absentee ballots alone would save much confusion and the delays that entails. Instant tabulation would eliminate any delays associated with the process.
• Convenience - The process would allow the voter to make his selections from any point in the world. One could log on thru the Internet from any location by means of his uniquely encrypted secure communication. One could do it from a shopping mall or post office kiosk when one was out doing their personal business and simply decided the time was right. A soldier could do it from their location anywhere in the world by satellite phone or any other means of secure connection and be able to do it during the same time frame as all others back home.
Further, it would allow a person to log back in during the voting hours and change their votes should they so choose. The computer servers do not care how many times a person would do so or how many persons are voting in the first place, they simply continue to tabulate until the end of voting, at which time a person’s ballot is set and the voting opportunity ends.
Also, there could be a standardization of the national election portion so that all people could see the same ballot layout. This layout could, once and for all, be done by experts who could formulate that which would be the least confusing.
The electronic process would allow the application of other voting methods since changing the voting method would only entail a small change in the tabulation calculation. This would allow a trial of an alternative method during a regular election should the nation be interested in comparing actual results by different methods in a real setting. One should understand that all a computer and the associated software does in our current system would be to keep a running total by addition and subtraction, which is the simplest process a computer handles. Adding in a comparison as necessary by other voting methods is still an extremely simple process unlikely to entail any possibility of errors at all. Since one computer can deal with millions of instructions per second, the voting process would never tax even a single computer.
• Cost - Huge savings would be made by not having all of the personnel and equipment costs associated with the current process.
• Eliminate Restrictions - This system allows citizens to implement any sort of change they wish with little or no limitations by which we are currently afflicted. No one would be able to complain about cost, personnel, equipment or complexity concerns. We would be moved into the electronic age, and would be able to take advantage of all that offers instead of being continually trapped by outdated processes and mechanisms that continually stand in the way of progress.
Election Period
- A period of time for the election process could be set for the same twenty-four hour period all around the globe, regardless of where the citizen was located. This makes it possible for the voting to end at all locations at the same time, eliminating the difference between polls closing in New England versus Hawaii, for instance. Because it would be a twenty-four hour period, there would be no concern that some start in the wee hours of the morning versus in the evening since all would have twenty-four hours of total time and share equally in the daylight and nighttime number of total hours involved.
Voting Age
- Reduce the voting age to 16, subject to passing a test on one's knowledge of U.S. history, the Constitution, and candidates and issues on the current election ballot, and possibly subject to other conditions also.
Financial Contributions
- Allow political contributions only from individuals and organizations representative of individuals, but not from corporations, which are not representative of individuals but instead shield the individual.
- Permit labor organizations to contribute on behalf of their members, as long as those members are allowed to contribute or withhold their personal funds voluntarily.
- The Third Party will keep accurate and accessible records of contributions made to the party, and individual candidates will also be required to maintain highly accurate and detailed financial records.
Public Financing of Campaigns
- Provide tax-funded support of campaigns, including of minor parties and independent candidates, but do not provide funding to be spent by them on TV and radio announcements, which serve little benefit or even have a negative impact on elections.
- Instead, hold state-sponsored debates on radio and TV, in which candidates face their opponents and address political issues. Also publish a listing of the candidates, in a handbook or posted on the Internet, giving ample space to candidates for their presentations. And provide public support in other ways that do not issue funds to campaigns to be spent on propaganda.
Dissemination of Voting Information
- Require every radio and television network that uses the public airwaves to give an equal minimum of air time to each properly registered candidate at equally advantage times, or to set up freely licensed and especially dedicated channels to continuously stream the information to the public. In the latter case, the networks would be required to advertise the parallel stream.
- Require a government-provided web site that provides a standardized place for each candidate's presentation.