This should be the standard in every state.
Really excellent news for our side. Notice Eric Holderās role in this (Obamaās involved as well), could be the start of something big.
A Democratic redistricting group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced a $250,000 donation to bolster Michiganās ballot proposal. The money will aid Voters Not Politicians, whose organizers successfully qualified the constitutional amendment for the November ballot.
I think itās well past due to have some serious election reform:
- national standards for voting (including early voting, vote by mail and a mandatory āpaper trailā for all ballots)
- national standards for districting
- national voter registration standards (including auto-registration via DMV, tax returns, post office, et al)
- elimination of the electoral college
- elimination of any and all āanonymous contributionsā to election campaigns, PACs, and anything else designed for political influence
- national funding of campaigns aka ā1 person, 1 dollar, one voteā. (no more 'may the richest/best financially supported/best groomed candidate win. Let them win entirely on the merits of their policy positions)
Feel free to add to, or debate, that list. If we can compose a really solid list, Iād be happy to start a petition, and push it in front of multiple senators and house-crittersā¦
Voting on weekends, with at least 12-hour windows, vote by mail at all times, with receptacles in convenient places to drop them off.
You reminded meā¦
- āElection Dayā should be made a National Holiday.
The GOP is not going to be happy about this development, it will ruin their plans to steal future elections. Good.
Seems very similar to Californiaās Redistricting Commission and process. Nice summary here of how thatās working out in California with an eye to the upcoming vote in Michigan.
Easier registration process too. Itās so easy in California and should be just that easy everywhere. The state knows how to find you when tax time comes so it should have no problem identifying you by taxpayer ID when itās time to vote.
Excellent list.
I might add national standards for equipment used in voting, including a requirement of a paper copy of votes logged by machine.
Iām not yet confident that there are sufficiently reliable voting machines.
What gets me is that gerrymandering has always been thought of as an underhanded tactic to seize power, but there are some who are looking to make it not just legal but acceptable.
Why is this even arguable? Vote by mail, period. Automatic registration is also a no brainer. Oregonians (where only vote by mail has been done for years) look at these discussions with bewilderment. By any measure voting by mail is superior to all the other ways of doing it, whether economics, participation, inability to cheat, and the time to sit down and talk about all the issues on the ballot at home, with friends/family, etc.
When I read about the debate over voting machines and how to protect them from hacking it makes my blood boil. Utter stupidity, and so easy to fix.
All good ideas.
Hereās a crazy one: Since all states draw districts in the same year, how about redistricting is done by a neutral or bipartisan commission in another state? Those states are drawn from a hat so thereās no duplication. I know, itās nutz.
Hereās a totally serious one: Congress should use Art. III, Sec. 2, P. 2, which enumerates cases where SCOTUS has appellate jurisdiction āwith such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.ā to wall off matters of election spending from SC appellate review, thereby obviating Buckley and the right-wing rulings that followed from it without requiring an Amendment. This wouldnāt remove elections matters from Federal civil rights jurisdiction in Art. III courts, but it would allow rebuilding a sensible and bipartisan election spending regulatory regime like we used to have, and improving it. It would allow for the normalisation of rules in most aspects of federal elections as proposed above, something that right now would probably face serious Constitutional challenges under statesā rights doctrines.
I should have added āsecureā receptacles to drop off ballots. Drop it in, and make it tamper proof, with no possibility of anyone removing any. The receptacle then goes to the post office and mailed to local venues where votes are normally counted.
But overall, as @socalista wrote, the CA model would be ideal.
Wow, actual Democracy in action. Even down to the special districts (common interest lines, like Napa grape growers, and the enormous Vietnamese community near Garden Grove).
This is the kind of citizen involvement the pols pay lip service to, but rarely support.
On the contrary, they are insufficiently secure (which I think is by design), and the electronic ones, at least, should never be used. Not in their current form, anyway. This is a glimpse at just how appalling they really are:
I also found out recently, that one of the companies making E-voting machines also make Slot Machines for the gambling industry, and those are designed to be tweaked in favor of the houseā¦ just sayināā¦
I completely agree:
- National standards for voting machines.
I agree, the CA model is working and should be more commonplace.
Iād like to add one more to the list then:
- Paper Ballots only, and buh-bye to hackable E-voting machines.
Itās always useful to have successful ācase studiesā like Oregonās and Californiaās. I agree, thereās no reason not to adopt it on a national scale. Citizen commissions drawing the districts, and Vote by Mail nationally. And no Electoral College.
Wow, weād start resembling an actual democracy if that happened. Not actually what the founding fathers had in mind (many of them were actually against creating a democracy, as it was defined thenā¦ they preferred our Constitutional Republic model), but certainly itās an idea whose time has come, IMOā¦
I love the idea that Congress should use Art. III, Sec. 2, P. 2ā¦! How to capture that in a single bullet point though? Ideas?
And by the way, I remember the time, pre-Reagan, when election spending hadnāt gone so utterly off the rails like it has now. Billion Dollar campaigns? Thatās ludicrous. Weāre funding spectacle at that level, not sober and serious appointments to governmentā¦
Yeah not exactly pithy, is it? But itās right there, Congress has to power to specify matters that are not subject to SC appellate review, which I would think includes Constitutional review. Iād like to hear some lawyersā opinions on this.
My thinking is that all the Congress-critters already spend a huge part of their time fundraising, and every year the need to do so increases. Some of them who prefer schmoozing to working probably love it, especially the ones who look at their fundraising as their money. But I know for a fact that a lot of them chafe at this being such an overwhelming part of their job and would rather work on legislation and investigations and interacting with their constituents, never mind their own families. If there was ever a matter that could unite members across the board, this could be it, because removing the burden of constant fundraising wouldnāt advantage either party over the other, but would make their jobs just that much less unpleasant.
With rulings like Buckley, Bellotti, and Citizenās United, right-wing SCās assiduously tore down decades of progress building reasonable limits on campaign spending and advertising, while inventing new rights for corporations at the expense of the rights of citizens. The conventional wisdom is that the Constitution has to be amended to overcome these, but amendment is the most difficult and perilous way to attempt it, other solutions should always be pursued before looking at amendment.
Present R leadership would shoot the idea right down, McTurtle and his ilk think the more money in politics, the better, but in either house there are ways for the rank and file to force an issue if they want to. The tool is there, anyway, waiting for them to use it.