David Brin is the author I mentioned on the show yesterday. He suggests reforming the Electoral College by changing the winner-takes-all method of allocating each state's electors to a proportional one.
There is no provision for winner-takes-all in the Constitution.David Brin's The Electoral College: A Surprisingly Easy Fix
This system is far from natural or required. In nearly every state, electors are awarded all-or-nothing because state legislatures -- generally controlled by one party -- have forced unanimity onto their state's dissenting minorities. They have done this simply because they can.
4 comments:
An easier fix -- eliminate it.
There's no reason, in this day and age, that we cannot elect a president based on popular vote.
Brin's solution is good, RB's idea is better.
Another idea is to divide the nation into 4 or 5 regions and hold all the primaries within one month........first week, the Northeastern states, second week the Sountheastern states, etc.
Somehow, though, the elected members of the Country Club that operate, manipulate, and use the system we have in place right now like it just the way it is. Look how people that try to create "change" are treated not only by members of the opposing 'club', but by members of their own 'club'.
Replacing the EC with the popular vote has always made sense to me.
But we need some genuine election changes to eliminate the claptrap of the current system:
>No more private funds.
>No more contributions from donors expecting something for their "gifts."
>A set amount of public funding to each candidate who qualifies through signature acquisition, which would have to be a high enough number to disqualify those who don't have a real possiblity of election-----this still favors the 2 parties but a determined and grassroot-interest generating outsider could get the # of signatures to run. When that money is used up, they cannot spend more, even their own money. Oversight would be by neutral citizen accounting panels.
>The election would run only for the three months preceding the November election. Plenty of time for scrutiny of the candidates.
Campaigning prior to this would disqualify a candidate but they could still as citizens speak their minds on the issues, same as anyone could, they just could not purchase in any way any type of advertising or airtime.
>End lobbying: there's enough temptation for graft as it is.
Our system of government is now less democratic than most functioning democracies.
Yet we boast of being 'the bastion of democracy in the free world'----what is wrong with this?
Time to re-examine term limits, gender-parity representation, and immediate sentencing for malfeasance in office. Time to generate accountability in the system, not just continue to plug in good people to a flawed system.
RB's notion is the only one that should be considered.
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