Forum Post: The Lead Domino - Getting Money Out of Politics (Part 1)
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 7, 2011, 4:24 p.m. EST by MortgagedTent
(121)
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The task is so clear, so concise, and indeed, already a basic consensus of disgruntled voters both left, right, and center. Yet this task might represent the largest uphill struggle in the history of our country. Those in power are personally enriched by perpetuation of this viscous cycle and can be expected to fight tooth and nail alongside the big money donor establishment to make sure whatever concessions are made can be circumvented or reversed. I propose the foundation of a strong end-game demand that will no doubt shake the corrupt corporatocracy to its core – reaching as deep into the legislative DNA of our country as the Constitution itself.
Here is the electoral process we should ceaselessly aspire to implement:
A. The New Electoral Process
- Signatory Phase
A relatively large government web site, “USVote.Gov” run by a “Federal Voting Department” would be established, backed by a Federal Election Periodical providing access to those without web access. Any candidate seeking office (fulfilling the legal requirements of course) could register. Each candidate could establish a temporary “campaign petition page” where citizen users, registering with their SS# in combination with one other form of ID (driver’s license or other), could sign up to 8 candidate petitions after viewing candidate’s 20 minute Petition Video posted free of charge on the Federal election site. Petition tallies would be recorded in real time with leader boards for total signees, total signees this month, this week, today, etc., so as to allow potential voters to navigate efficiently. Voters can also navigate via sorting basic mandatory candidate information posted on the candidate’s page. 1) Petition Video 2) Candidate photo 3) Candidate age 4) Family status (single, married, # of kids, etc) 5) Candidate political party 6) Self proclaimed political affiliation: “Libertarian” “Social Conservative”, or whatever. 7) A link listing prior work and political career (2 page resume) – must include all past employers 8) Brief self written bio of <200 words 9) Political “Mission Statement” <200 words 10) Candidate’s detailed net worth, including all securities held, real estate holdings, and private investments (this is not only for transparency with regard to hidden interests, but also it allows the public to see if an incumbent has gotten considerably richer from one election to the next).
Via the acquisition of say 0.20% ‘signatures’ from an electoral domain’s total population, the candidate officially moves on to the ‘Primary Voting Phase’. All signatories must of course be constituents of the domain in question.
(Part 5)
1) All candidates must register on the first day of the Signatory Phase (ie: they can’t delay their entry while they go around collecting corporate backers). 2) Anti-Lobby Law: Any person, group, or company receiving compensation, or promise of present or future compensation in any way, to endorse a candidate will be in violation of the law. Punishment for such offense should be equivalent to the charges of election racketeering. All lobbying groups, including Public Advocacy Groups, Political Action Groups, and otherwise, must take their case directly to the public. No more closed-door meetings and private fund raiser dinners. 3) Anti-Special Interest Law: All candidates who receive compensation, or promise thereof, either past (from the time of the laws passage), present, or future, from a person, group, or entity, will be subject to charges equivalent to election racketeering and immediately disqualified from contention for office sought, and/or forfeit any public office currently occupied 4) Anti-Delayed Compensation Law: Once a candidate has successfully held office, he or she is, for the remainder of their life, bound not to work for salary or other compensation for any corporate or non-profit interest. The new “Oath of Public Office” should declare that all political representatives must subsist solely on their government provided pension, previously acquired investments, or ‘blind’ investments. These blind investments are not ‘blind’ in the current description of the word. They are to be managed by a third party firm and made fully available to the public on a quarterly basis. The Oath of Public Office also includes the candidate’s full agreement to be subject to the Violation of Public Trust Law – the true teeth of the new electoral system… 5) Violation of Public Trust Law: The Federal Voting Department web site will include a page whereby, at any time, the registered voting public can cast vote upon a prior holder of government office for penalization by law. ANY person who has ever held office (from date of this law), receiving more than (say 95%) of the total registered public’s vote for Violation of Trust, shall be subject to life imprisonment, forfeit of pension, as well as the forfeiture of any illegally acquired assets. Serving the public is a privilege, not a right – and all candidates are hereby bound to the people they serve. Political representatives would have to ask themselves how every single one of their actions will serve its people. Imagine the strength and power of a nation’s people where they, not the government elected or appointed to serve them, held the ultimate binding judgment over their leaders!
(Part 4)
A huge advantage of the online system is that it’s so easy to cast a vote. You log on, you thumb through candidate pages, maybe sorted by current standings, and presto, you cast your vote. I think voter turnout will show remarkable improvement, as this easy access combines with a feeling of re-empowerment that brings out voters in numbers never before seen. It might be possible to achieve 80% voter turnout, so long as the system is not corrupted somehow and the registration process is sabotaged with technicalities. There will be strong external forces attempting to facilitate the demise of a system so democratically robust – so significant promotional efforts need be made, at least around launch, to build public awareness and support.
The proposed system is very engaging. All voters will have access to the same information. Every source of candidate hearsay will be at the fingertips of the voter – so media opinion and narrative can be challenged directly at its source by anyone willing. While there would be absolutely no written commentary on the Government run site, some specific unofficial issue polls could be presented so that candidates could see where the public stands on important issues like “Do you favor the war in Afghanistan”, “Should Congress have to sign off on all major foreign military deployments”, “Should marijuana be legal”, “Should we have a more progressive tax code”, “Should Supreme Court Judge terms be restricted to 6 years” etc, etc. and voters could determine how to use their ballots wisely on candidates that have a fair chance of winning. In fact, the polling topics can even be polled for, to prevent a selectivity bias. There will be no advertising revenues collected from the government site – and no space provided for third-party opinion.
B. Keeping Candidates Clean - The Big Challenge
The public is in near universal agreement that candidates must not receive money from private entities. This, we know, is more easily said than implemented and enforced. The importance of enforcement right the start is paramount to the whole success of this new evolutionary voting process, for should it fail, the public will either disgustedly revolt in favor of a dictatorship or go back into a slumber it may never come out of. The whole world would in effect be deprived a golden opportunity to learn from our great new democratic model.
So how DO we enforce this? I suggest the following Laws be written directly into a major Constitution Referendum:
(Part 3)
The Final Voting Phase includes the top 5 vote-getting candidates from the Primary Voting Phase. It lasts 3 to 5 months and is similar to the “primaries” just outlined above, only now candidates each receive $10,000,000 each. As in the primaries, no other money besides this $10 million can be spent. And all candidates must file detailed accounting reports to be posted for public scrutiny.
Candidates can modify both their “Get to Know Me” and “Long Address” for the first time since the Primary Voting Phase submission and continue to release Weekly Addresses of 10-30 minute while participating in monthly debates. Voting occurs online or by mail rather than in the polls. It is much safer than polling machines, which have been increasingly prone to manipulation in recent elections around the globe. Via Soc Sec #’s, all demographic breakdowns of voting results are reported in real time: City, County, State, Age, Sex, and whatever else can be provided. This stratification provides a helpful transparency that makes tampering yet more difficult– and also prevents the media from providing misleading or fictitious poll information which might be interpreted as an attempt to sway voting toward their own interests. As a potential added security measure, the Government Voting Department might have its own subsidiary polling group that will poll 1,000-5,000 people from each State to make sure the statistics track the online results to some measure of reasonable statistical significance. At the conclusion of the Voting Phase the candidate with the most votes wins and the process concludes.
(Part 2)
For purposes of explanation, let us assume from here forward we are talking about a Presidential campaign.
So a person wishing to run for President of the United States, for instance, would need 308,000,000 *.002 or 616,000 signatures to enter the Primary Voting Phase. I think it’s very important to keep this number low so as keep the barrier to entry low and not subject to domination by big-money interests. Assuming that 100 million people register to vote, we might expect about 650 million signatures and perhaps 100-250 candidates making it to the “Primaries.”
Each candidate who reaches this first benchmark would be allowed to post 3 videos on his page; 1) a 10 minute ‘Get to Know Me’ video just covering the very basic outline of the candidate’s positions. This would allow viewers to determine if they were interested in learning more about the candidate. 2) A ‘Long Address’, anything less than 2 ½ hours giving more specific information on the candidate’s plans. And 3) and a ‘Weekly Address” 10 to 20 minute video detailing the candidates ongoing dialogue; whether it include comments on recent developments or defenses against allegations of other candidates. In addition, live “Debate” videos will be produced involving the 10 leading candidates wishing to participate. These Debate videos could be monthly engagements and each participant’s page would contain a convenient link to all that he/she has participated in. In addition, each candidate will receive $1,000,000 from a “Federal Campaign Fund” to conduct a limited speaking campaign. This campaign funding will be increased year to year by either inflation indices or better yet, US GDP. No additional money may be spent in the Primary Voting Phase, either personal or otherwise, as the candidate video posts should be perfectly thorough in getting any message to the voting public.
Registered citizens will vote for up to 2 active candidates in the Primary Voting Phase. No party affiliation declarations are necessary. Although the political establishment will cringe at the mere thought of this, because it’s a huge blow to the existing political oligopoly (monopoly), it must remain a core objective for that very reason. The twin-party collusive system is something we need to eliminate while we have this opportunity. The result will be a much more fragmented, and difficult to corner, political establishment that can better defend itself against the organized money interests.
If one of a voter’s candidates drops out of the running, they will not receive an additional vote (this is important, because otherwise organizations or parties might flood the system with identical candidates and slowly filter the support toward one candidate, or find other ways to similarly ‘game’ the system). In addition, a single political party can represent a maximum of 10 ‘primary’ candidates. This maximum is critical because otherwise noise will be deliberately injected into the system by overwhelming it with republican or democratic candidates in an effort to cause the system’s demise or at least manipulate it to their benefit. In addition to online vote casting, people could mail in secondary votes if they lack access to a computer. Reading candidate addresses in the Federal Election Periodical available free of charge at centralized locations such as libraries, town halls, and post offices.
Read this!
Only vote for people who are totally self sufficient with a family food garden. These people can not be bribed as they have already realised money is a false god. Simple. http://occupywallst.org/forum/family-food-gardens-this-is-the-solution/