How To Overhaul Our Elections...

Since there's SO MUCH yammering about it, every time the topic turns to elections in the news.



             For Voters:

1. Voting Machines must be secure. Current electronic machines can be hacked with a Palm Pilot (!) and don't have any kind of accountability, and current paper machines don't produce ballots that are in any way distinguishable or accountable, leading to fraud.
2. Voter registration should be centralized, and consist AT LEAST of photographic identification, preferably including biometrics. The technology exists, and wouldn't be difficult to implement. Centralized registration allows much better cross-checking to prevent the same person from voting in two districts, or in two polling locations in the same district.
3. Voter registration should be renewed annually, in person. There is no security substitute for "you gotta be there in person." The mail can be intercepted, and any renewal conducted through the mail depends only on the ability of a piece of paper to convince the official that the voter is alive / still a resident of the district, which isn't hard. Personal presence is much more difficult to fake.
4. Absentee ballots should be distributed by personal appearance, require voter registration validation at the time of pickup, and have much more stringent requirements for application. (Military deployment or permanent employment outside the USA counts; being on a cruise that week does not.)
5. Absentee ballots should be picked up by personal appearance, and require voter registration validation prior to acceptance. You ought to have to physically put it in the hand of the election official, and show them your registration ID before they take it from you. There is FAR too much fraud with absentee balloting, as the last 4 elections clearly proved.
6. Each vote cast ought to receive a receipt from the voting machine directly. Not just the end-of-poll "summary" that the current machines print out, but an additional, individual slip for each voter recording their votes. This slip could easily be made verifiable; have the machine generate a random, and really long, code when the poll opens, and insert it on each receipt as well as the summary. Then, in case of a recount, the voters' receipts can be checked against the summary, as well as the summary against the electronic record.
7. Upon completion of polling, your voter identification card ought to be deactivated at the polling station, preventing multiple votes. It has to be renewed next year anyway, so make it like a one-shot deal: you vote, you're done. No more card for you, until next year.

             For Candidates:

1. Each and every position on the ballot ought to have a "None of the above" option. If "none of the above" gets the most votes, ALL the candidates for that position ought to be removed from the ballot, and barred from running for that post again. If you're so terrible the voters will pick "no-one" rather than you, we don't need you, ever.
2. Each and every position on the ballot ought to have a space for write-in votes. There's no reason not to have this, even with electronic balloting; if they can figure out how to have you "sign your name" at the grocery store for a credit card purchase, which they can and do, there's no reason the balloting machines can't manage it.
3. Each and every ballot ought to have the right of referendum. If you can get 10,000 people to agree that something should be on the ballot, up it goes - and the will of the people becomes the LAW, unless it violates the Constitution.
   
   
4. Each and every electable position in government, from the local to the federal, ought to have a strict, no exceptions single term limit. You can get elected mayor of Denver exactly one time, period. In the case of a post such as Deputy Governor, Vice President, or Deputy Mayor, in which you are set to fill in for the main official if they are incapacitated, election to a term as the associated main official should bar you from the junior post, because if the mayor (for example) became incapacitated and you stepped in, you would be violating the term limit.
5. A candidate should be barred from standing for election to a single position more than two times. Candidates should not be allowed to run again and again and again. Similarly, ballot measures such as local ordinances should only be allowed on the ballot twice before being permanently barred; if the citizens dislike a law enough to vote it down twice, then they don't need it.

             For Campaign Finance:

1. All campaign contributions, from any source, should be limited to $1,000 from a single donor, and PACs and corporations should be considered single donors. This severely limits the ability of companies and interest groups to buy elections.
2. All candidates should be required to maintain an itemized list of contributions, listing dollar amounts and sources, and rejecting any and all anonymous donations. We do NOT need foreign companies financing the election of candidates who will give them preferential trade treatment, and that happens quite a bit now.
3. All contributions should be required to come only from contributors in the USA. This also helps with the aforementioned foreign companies.
4. Full accountability of campaign finance should be the LAW. If you can't tell where your money came from, you ought not to be allowed to use it. There are too damn many instances of "I don't KNOW where THAT came from, hmmm..." in recent history to make anyone feel comfortable. Just look at the last few elections' finances on OpenSecrets.Org, you'll see what I mean almost immediately.

             For The Electoral College:

1. All electors should be required by law to vote with the candidate who won the popular vote in their state. That's not the case now, and contrary to popular belief, is the only serious flaw in the current electoral college system. Someone "winning the popular vote" shouldn't win the election if everyone in the damn country except two states voted against him; it's not the fault of people living in Montana that there are an assload of people in California.

             For The Elections Themselves:

1. All elections should take place on the same day nationwide, that day to be a federally-mandated holiday. Because Wal-Mart workers have enough problems without getting ignored at the polls because they couldn't get off work.
2. All polls should be open for 24 hours - from 00:01 at night (12:01 am, for you non-24-hour-clock-understandin' mofos) to 2400 (midnight, for those same folks.) There should never, ever be lines of people standing outside a closed polling station.
3. 100% of all exit polls should be disallowed. The effect of the media, and their prognostications, upon the last several elections is clear and undeniable. That ought not to be allowed; our country deserves better than having voters stay home because they were told their candidate had already lost.
4. Propaganda pests - be it campaign volunteers, signs, pickets, WHATEVER, ought to have to remain 100 YARDS - not feet - from the ENTRANCE to the polling location. This means if the polls are in a school building, they ought to have to be 100 yards away from the entrance to the campus, not the individual building. Preferably across the street, but you can't really legislate that, because it's not always possible.

Now, is this a flawless system to ensure 100% security? No, I'm sure you could figure out a way around it if you really tried, but this would sure make it a hell of a lot harder.



Anyone got any other suggestions?