the reality is, we can do much better than we are...
The American people are discontent with out election process. Some of us prefer to "pick and choose" our particlar issues, especially the left and right wing pundits. But the fact is that our whole elcetion process, from start to finish needs a makeover. A big extreme makeover.
Let's start with campaign finance. It is a big issue indeed. One one hand, you have the people that believe money = free speech. In the other camp, we find the "regular people can't afford to run for office" crowd.
McCain - Feingold was a disaster overall, as it turns out. Which is a shame. Both Senators are good and decent men in my view and did have some good intentions in their legislation. Unfortunately, their well intended legislation ended up being loophole rampant. But that doesn't mean we can't try again. It is apparant that campaigns, are getting increasingly expensive to run. And as our 2008 Presidential fundraising is showing, the escalation is getting ridiculous. Not that every single person should be given a huge satchel of money and sent on his/her way to campaign for leader of the free world. But there has got to be a better way than billion dollar campaigns. even the most hardened pundits have to realize that money has to have aless than positive impact at that level. People who can afford to get candidates to those dollar levels aren't the types who just toss money around. They expect return for their investment. Not that they don't all believe whole-heartedly in their pet causes, but the investments are made with expectations. And that needs to change if our government is going to remain sound for the 21st century.
Then there's the electoral college. Which is 100% obsolete at this point. A lot has changed since our days of being 13 new states in a land where it took 3 days to get from Pittsburgh to Washington.
The trip averages about 4 or 5 hours now. And a few other things exist now that weren't even conceptualized then. Things like telephones, faxes, the internets and so on...Things that can instantaneously convey results. Things that make a delegate to represent a segment of a population useless. We may not be ready to abandon our representative democracy as a whole, but I think we can do better than the antiquated college to determine our Presidential winners. I'm all for tradition, but let's move on. I really think if the founders had our tools at their disposal, the electoral college wouldn't be a consideration. The system simply isn't fairly democratic. 1 electoral vote could represent as few as 100,000 people or as many as 1/2 a million. So each person's vote is by no means equal. This is wrong, in my view. This needs to change.
And then there is voter fraud, in all it's forms. Voter fraud is one of the hardest crimes to prove. The evidence is usually slim at best, and the people who commit fraud usually are fairly hardened to their cause. And it's not like their getting the Abu Gihrab treatment by the CIA to fess up usually.
But that doesn't mean we can't do things that keep our elections fair and honest. Electronic voting is more accurate than paper ballots. But there are legitimate fears about hacking. So, it doesn't take an expert to figure out that perhaps electronic voting with a paper trail is the answer. Of course, we need to ensure everyone's privacy rights at the same time. But that's hardly an impossible mountain to climb.
And where we can debate on the merits or demerits of a tamper proof ID card for all Americans being required just to exist here, do we have to avoid making tamper proof documents? We already have a social security card. Is it so unconstitutional to make that card tamper proof? And is it so unconstitutional to make state id's and driver's licenses tamper proof? Or at least as tamper proof as something can be? And i've thought long and hard about the arguments of requiring id to vote vs. the right not to have an id and be allowed to vote. And again, I have to conclude, that this isn't 1776. And if anyone has to have an ID to cash a check, open an account, buy a beer or see an R rated movie, then this isn't such a big deal anymore. I do acknowledge that this might be a hardship in isolated cases. But if the people who do voter drives really care, then maybe they will just need to expand their services to include helping the ID-less get an ID so they can vote. Just like technology has helped in the other examples of our election problems, it can here too. Like a lot things, despite what the opposing pundits claim, it isn't a one-way street.
And there are other areas where we can improve. Like dropping the nonsense of Tuesday elections. In colonial times, a weekday may have been better for whatever reason. But today, with the pace of our America, we need to move it to a weekend. And a 24 window would suit our 24 hour world better in my view as well.
And I won't even untap the genie bottle that is the fraud of our "Presidential debates."
Where tradition is a great thing, holding on to traditions for their own sake while people use and abuse those traditions is hardly worth it. Where technology allows us to do better, we should. Where we can reasonably make elections more about the issues and at least less about the fundraising, we must. Not everyone will be happy, and some will surely make a lot of noise. But most of that will come from the camps more interested in power than country.