Election Reform
I'm discouraged. How do we get politicians to represent ordinary citizens instead of billionaires, media companies, and rich multinational corporations? Reform has been made nearly impossible by the destruction of the electoral system, which has now become clearly dysfunctional. It is a money-driven system for protecting the current rulers.
In the current electoral system money is the single most important factor in success. This has debased and corrupted our political system. Most Americans know this and want reform.
However, most current office holders have their positions because they were able to raise the enormous amounts of money required for a winning candidacy. As a result, most elected politicians now (correctly) believe that their political survival depends on access to this money. In fact, as long as getting elected requires the enormous expenditures that it now does, elected officials will always be indebted to the sources of that money. The fact that big business, the military, and the rich nearly always get the legislation and political favors that they want is a perfectly rational and necessary consequence of the way that elections are financed. Even when a public-spirited president or member of congress gets elected, the large majority of our so-called representatives still do the bidding of the powers that put them in office and prevent any real reform
For our current government, politics is always more important than the welfare of the citizens. It is clear that the reform of the system will be blocked by the best efforts of those who profit from the current system. It now seems clear that nothing can be done until conditions get much worse. It may take a major economic and social disruption on the scale of the great depression of the 1930s to get most people to understand how badly they have been represented and to demand the major reforms that we need.
Possibly, a new third party will arise from the anger of the exploited majority and sweep most current officeholders out of office. Then we could get a new political majority that is not yet bought and paid for. There would then be an opportunity to make fundamental changes in the electoral system and to limit the uncontrolled power of corporations.
A necessary first step to clean up the system and restore political representation to ordinary citizens is to completely eliminate the need for raising money in elections. This is not easy, but it can be done. The key is to get the necessary exposure without the necessity of big money. It would also be good to limit the time devoted to the campaigns, perhaps two months for a presidential election and one month for all others.
All election related ads and debates should be carried on TV and radio without charge as a condition of the broadcast license. Paid political ads should be outlawed. The so-called "issue ads" placed to influence public opinion for the benefit of a particular candidate or party must also be banned during election periods
Obviously, airtime must be allocated in a fair and reasonable way. Candidates should qualify for minimal basic airtime simply by meeting the signature qualification for listing on the ballot. This would be a low fixed percentage of those who would be eligible to vote in that election. In order to avoid having the air time dominated by the many marginal candidates yet still permit them to be heard, it will be necessary to have unequal shares of air time. Here is one suggestion. The major parties should each start by sharing about 50% of the total time. The remaining airtime would be divided among the minor party candidates. Each week the airtime would be adjusted proportionally based on the preceding week's impartial polling results plus a basic allowance. In this way, a minor party candidate whose message resonates with the voters will be able to increase his or her air time each week and will have at least a fighting chance of beating a major party candidate.
In addition to the broadcasts, a taxpayer financed mailing containing statements from each candidate should be sent at least weekly during each election cycle. In these mailings each candidate will be free to comment on the positions and records of the other candidates as well as explaining his or her own position. This will result in a kind of running debate in print that everyone has access to. Each candidate can have equal space in this mailing, as the limits of airtime do not apply. The final mailing, arriving just before the election, should be devoted to candidates' final statements. At this point attacks on the opposing candidates and new charges should not be allowed because the other candidates will not be able to respond to them before the election.
The content of all of this material should be screened by a nonpartisan committee composed of nominees from membership supported watchdog groups of all political stripes such as the League of Women Voters, Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Common Cause. If a candidate's material contains false or unverifiable statements then the screening committee will include a commentary pointing out the problem statements and include it following the candidate's material before publishing or broadcast. This should help to keep all the candidates honest. Censorship of the statements would be undesirable and possibly unconstitutional, but the constitution does not guarantee anyone's right to lie without being exposed.
It would be difficult to completely eliminate advocacy for particular parties or candidates outside of the formal structure of the campaign as outlined above. First amendment considerations preclude banning such things as print advertisements by individuals. Controlling advertising by corporations is a problem due to the fact that corporations are now considered to have the rights of actual people. That right is not in the constitution, and can be changed, but, given the present power of corporations, that will not happen anytime soon (with our current crop of politicians).
People should recognize that the credibility of such advertising is suspect compared to the fair treatment given to the candidates and their positions within the boundaries of the regular campaign. Since the broadcast media are owned by the people and are, or were until recently, required to be operated in the public interest, political broadcast advertising outside of the free airtime can be banned.
An important reform would be to get rid of the Electoral College system and adopt direct popular elections. Unfortunately this system is in the constitution, and, despite its dysfunctional nature, the states that benefit from it will do their best to keep it. A popular vote on it would probably get rid of it but that seems unlikely.
Another improvement would be to adopt the system used by several other democracies and have the voters rank the candidates. If there is no top rated candidate with a majority of the vote then the candidate with the lowest total vote is eliminated and the ballots recounted. This process continues until someone has a majority. This eliminates the spoiler effect of minor party candidates and the consequent reluctance to vote for them.
The result of these reforms will be the election of a candidate who is not indebted to big money contributors. The cost of running elections in this way would certainly be a trivial amount compared to the cost of even a few of the corrupt legislative favors that the large contributors now receive as the reward for the "election help" that they paid for.
The integrity of the election process must be insured by having voter verified paper trails for all voting and by having the process run by non-partisan election boards composed of citizens interested in keeping the process fair.
Election reform is an extremely important problem in America today. The importance of money in politics has crippled democracy and has resulted in a government by and for the wealthy and powerful.
Bill Isecke
