Let me preface this post by saying I have been thinking about this for a while and that this post in not a response to the results of the recent Presidential Election. Indeed, while many have considered these same thoughts, this post is merely to examine the United States electoral system and potentially instigate thought on potential positive changes and solutions.

Freedom as an American is displayed outwardly in our participation in Government, especially at times of election. The founding fathers of the United States of America were truly inspired men who gave us the means to create a culture of relative peace and justice . Wrongs can be righted, the weak can become strong and the sorrowful can find hope. It is my belief that the system birthed from the Constitution of the United States works.

However, not all parts work well, at least anymore. Although likely inspired by God, the founding fathers themselves were not gods and cannot be held to a regard wherein they could not make mistakes or that their ideas are infallible. Indeed, great men such as Socrates, Leonardo Da Vinci, Copernicus, etc. were not perfect. I find that foundational to political philosophy as Leo Strauss’ “On Tyranny” discusses the idea that nothing political is free from critique. Considering most things can be political in some way or another, questioning should be welcome. So, let’s take the foundation that the founding fathers gave us and see if we can improve upon it.

Favor of our Electoral College system is not optimal. According to the Washington Post it only has a 35% approval rating. This has been the case for many decades now. Most support a Popular or Direct voting method; I will later elaborate on the implications of such a method. The reality is that Americans desire change. Are the desires reasonable? Those who have

read previous posts of mine may recall my study of the effectiveness of the Electoral College a couple of months back. I found that the electoral college does little to really balance the electorate or really achieve many goals at all.

It is important to keep in mind that the goals of the Electoral College were not created to address the concerns we have today. The methods for voting in the United States are spelled out in the U.S. Constitution – a wonderful document of course. However, the Constitution holds no provisions for a party system, let alone 2-party system, nor was it written with 50 states in mind, California holding 1/10th of the nation’s population. The Electoral College is a dated system for a very different country. So why haven’t we already replaced it? Two reasons: It’s in the Constitution and we don’t know what to replace it with. Constitutional changes are extremely difficult and require a very committed congress and senate that can show they are not making the changes for political or re-election purposes. Additionally, when considering what to replace it with, how do you ask Congressmen and Senators to write-up their own re-election method and not insert party or individual bias? Would they not attempt to create an election system that guarantees their own place in government? This is why I think a new electoral system will ultimately come from the people and other experts that can only be fully created outside congress and then supported later as an introduced proposal for amendment. This is possible with an Article V convention of states, but that’s a whole different conversation.

Let’s talk about the different kinds of election systems and figure out why we can’t just use what other countries or systems use. The most common voting method is the direct vote. This is simply everyone casting a single vote, the popular vote that we record in our national elections. Indeed, we actually use the direct vote for our local voting and do just fine with that. The problem is that the winners and losers in such a system are all but guaranteed by their ability to communicate a favorable message to the people. With more money and more resources an individual who may be ill-suited to lead can still nearly guarantee their victory simply because our lackadaisical citizenry will vote on name recognition and hearing things they like and giving it little thought (see Fordham Law Review Issue 76 page 2952). The possibility for corruption is nearly endless in such a system with no prevention against outside interests, greed or overcoming the simple “rock star” effect. Local governments can better avoid corruption simply because there is less need, less competition (although this can also be an incubator of corruption) and likely already have name recognition simply from their friends and neighbors sharing their thoughts. The direct voting system, regardless of how “Democratic” it is, is far too risky. Socrates warned of the Democratic method, indeed in his writings he sites the Democratic method as the concluding phase in a tyrant’s rise to power, convincing a people of his/her good will. Personally I am always cautious of someone’s interest in a direct election.

Most countries in the world, however, do not use direct elections. Rather, their Governments are parliamentary based and have voting based on party lists. Examples include Great Britain and Israel. Many other Democratic countries have a variety of other voting methods including Block voting, Mixed-Member Proportional, etc. But do any of them really work? Is there any system that the majority feels that a fair election was held and they are wholly satisfied with the results? Although satisfaction in the voting methods and the fairness of the elections in countries like Australian may be recorded as higher than normal, the overall satisfaction in those elected remains low. And that’s what it’s really about, right? The fruits of an election system will give evidence to the effectiveness of that election system. One might wonder if there ever could be a legislator that people are generally satisfied with. We know it to be possible though. Most of us can recall a legislator that was very much liked by all. How do we find those optimal leaders that have the interest of the people in mind, who are good listeners, appropriately educated and are full of character strength against corruption?

With that in mind I felt like I should give a stab at coming up with a new electoral system that maybe we can all be in favor of and meets the needs of our new politics and hopefully generates those leaders that we really desire.

A Proposed New Election System:

Note: This is a pretty widespread change and might not be entirely feasible in implementation. I write this so it may serve as an example of the potential options we have. I will break this up by periods of electing: General Rules, Campaign, The Election.

General Rules:

The changes won’t seem very substantial at first, but later on it will.

4-year terms for House of Representatives members – 1.5 years offset from Presidential elections. Terms capped at 2. Mid-terms already are known to be crucial to adapt for failed Presidency, so this would maintain that. It would also reduce the necessity for Congressmen/women to need to campaign so frequently as well as encourage better voting since you can’t remove them as quickly.

4-year terms for Senators, – 2.5 years offset from Presidential elections. Terms capped at 2. A second mid-term allows us to “check the pulse” more frequently and offer up a check on legislative bodies.

Parties are eliminated. Maximum number of candidates: 12

Candidates cannot use their own money to facilitate an election. Rather, they are required as an entrance to candidacy to contribute 5% of their net-worth to a special election fund managed by the Federal Government which will take the pooled money and divide it equally among the 12 candidates. Individual donations are allowed but must be recorded with social security numbers to prevent group donations. Individual donation cap of $25,000. Candidates can only spend the money received by individual donations on policy development expenditures.

Elections will be held the first weekend of July to amplify the spirit of the 4th of July which will allow for better scheduling around a typical work schedule as well as precede the Budget timetable which is supposed to be completed in October. This means that a President-elect will not be stuck with a previous Presidents budget the following year basically giving the duties of arranging the budget of the next FY to the President-elect.

Eliminate mail-in ballots except for military personnel or overseas citizens who have lived in the United States at some point within the past 3 years. An attempt at reducing fraud.

The Campaign

General campaigning can only begin a year before the election. This won’t be too difficult to follow since finances will only allow for so much campaigning.

Primaries become null and void.

Party Conventions will become null and void.

A Score-card system will be developed to enhance endorsements, reduce buying of the Presidency and increase voter education. Essentially, any entity which wishes to endorse a Candidate will not do so monetarily, but do so by declaration and therefore add to a point total for their category (Education (Private), Health (Private), Industry, Commerce, Cultural (Non-Profit 501(c)3), etc.). Each candidate will then receive a rating based on these endorsements, each endorser only providing so many points based on factors such as net worth of business, contribution to GDP, etc. Rating will be a AAA system. A scorecard for each candidate will be developed by the FEC to reflect these endorsements. This will allow not only the real understanding of which groups prefer which candidate, but it allows for a lesser-known candidate to receive higher ratings as well to be comparable to the better-known candidates. That is as long as endorsements can be made for multiple candidates by a single entity. This would also enable the layperson to be able to quickly check the FEC information on a candidate and quickly ascertain a “grade” in multiple categories for each candidate and become aware of other higher-scoring candidates – which in turn promotes strong candidates.

The Election

Note: The Electoral college will necessarily be removed. The new system that will be outlined is deemed an Approval-Plurality Runoff Hybrid election system which will be outlined. Keep in mind that much is based in political theory, but no where is this found in the world today for government elections.

The Approval-Plurality Runoff Hybrid (or APR) system will essentially allow you to vote for three of the 12 candidates. You will assign points, 5, 3, or 1, never assigning the same number of points, to three of the candidates listed. This means that though you can attribute 5 points to candidate A, you can then also give 3 points to candidate B, and then 1 Candidate C. This would ultimately curb the tendency to gravitate back to a party-based system. Vote counting would also be much easier since it would be more numerical.

This system is still Plurality, or winner-take-all, but it does include a Run-off of the top 3 candidates. This means that a week later another election will be held just between the top three of the previous weeks election. This is an attempt to unify the county a little more after being given the chance to actually support smaller or “other” parties. Winner of this election becomes President.

Individual who is 2nd in the Run-off becomes Vice President. This is to encourage cooperation between candidates since you may end up working with the individual you are trying to defeat and keep “agendas” in check.

Votes will be counted by a committee within the Judicial Branch of government. The judges will need to be non-partisan, and it could be likely that the process of admitting judges to the courts might have to be overhauled slightly to address this, but a third-party is quite necessary in maintaining legitimacy of elections.

Conclusion

The changes might seem somewhat radical and too severe for 250-year-old country and that might be true, but we have to start somewhere. The American people are clearly unhappy about the current method; we hear about it every year. Voter turnout I fear will continue to diminish as satisfaction in Government approval diminishes as well. As a minor step toward administrative recovery, whether Republican, Democrat or otherwise, I do feel elections can be improved and should be and the American people would like to participate if given the chance.

In the future I may share some ideas on an entirely new form of Government, opposing the view of philosopher Hegel who deemed the dawn of democracy as the conclusion of our political journey; indeed, the “end of history”, but I figured I would just start with the American system.

What do you think of these ideas? Do you have your own?