Muse – Election Shuffle

The election is over and not over. Though, for the most part, the outcome is accepted and there is little chance anything will change drastically, it remains an issue talked about and discussed and fought over.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but so long as we cling to the age old Electoral College and our less than logical means of voting, this is how it will be.

I’m one of those ‘crazy’ people who things we need to abolish the Electoral College. As some have so aptly labored to show, the electoral college is not so easily defended by the common arguments. Anyone who thinks it gives power to small states or otherwise reflects the truth of American opinion is largely wrong. It’s been right more often than wrong so far, but as 2000 showed us, not always.

I’ve thought of a few ways to reform it. One of the more likely is to do as some states do already. Apportion the EC votes so that each one is given based on percentage of a state’s vote that is received. Little would likely change in terms of campaigning and it would closer match the real demographics of America.

Just today I had a wackier idea. Why don’t we have a tournament style election? It starts on the state level. Every one of the fifty states has a primary, where whoever wants to run for Prez and can meet some basic requirements( to weed out the jokers that walk in and want to play around with the people who are serious) registers and fills out a form with their official line on the issues.

Once that’s done, every state has their own little primary election. Once the candidate from each state is picked, the process is repeated, this time with a regional set up.. how that’s divided is debatable. It could be time zone divided or just east and west or north and south. The details can be worked out, but each region has a second election based on the candidates favored in the state rounds. From the field of fifty, a small handful are selected for the final choice. They can post the issues of the candidates on the web, run them in every major newspaper and magazine and give every candidate a set amount of air time, provided by the government, on their choice of channels(making sure all get the exact same amount of air time). No other official campaigning or national advertisement allowed(rules on their parties can be hashed out in detail). Then it comes down to the people picking their top three choices from amongst the last handful.

Whoever gets the most votes wins.

Good? Bad? It’s very rough, but it’s interesting.. mostly because it gives lots of people a chance to impress first the people of their state, then their region, then the nation. It would eliminate the overhead of political parties and their dirty tricks, it would soften the intensity of the campaign season by assigning all candidates an equal amount of exposure, requiring them to make the smartest use of it. Corruption should be largely eliminated and it wouldn’t require a massive war chest of funds to have a chance. No billions of dollars will be wasted on insane advertising campaigns and the lower intensity should help keep from firing up the more insane partisans on both sides.

I think it could work, baring some serious thought on the details and caveats. And provided we could get government to actually push through so massive a change.

Prime conclusion: We have to do something about how we elect our leaders. I’m not pleased with how it’s done now, in part because of the clunky nature of our process and it’s unwieldy nature. A few other things could be done to help matters. National voter registration, in which all Americans are registered and all Americans are given proper notification of their registration and precisely where they can cast their votes to reduce, if not eliminate both fraud issues and double voting(both accidental and intentional). We also need straight up government focus on creating a secure, stable, powerful and traceable electronic voting machine that can be audited and is as hack-proof as current technology can make them.

I see and have always seen government as a prime focus of national organization and execution of core needs. And I see this as an instance where we need straight up organization and execution to make our elections run smoother than they usually do.