[transcript of broadcast]
I want everyone to know that my suggestions for building
better elections come from a non-partisan place – or at least as non-partisan
as I can manage. I really don’t care to
discuss the particular policy points of any political party – I just want to
consider how we might get a better result from the general process of electing
people to office. I’m going to assume
that an electoral system that encourages citizens to be informed, that strives
to represent the perspectives of many different types of people, and that
facilitates voter participation – that a system working from those principles
would be worth having. If you can’t come
with me this far, then I can’t help you.
First of all, I think we need to know more about the money
that campaigns spend on paid political advertising – particularly in
television. In the 2012 presidential
campaign alone, a billion dollars (give or take) was spent on TV ads. I have to wonder– given the profits that must
come from political ads – how much television journalists and their bosses are
willing to examine the truthfulness and reasonableness of what all candidates
have to say. It seems to me that
there’s a conflict of interest at work here.
How tough can a reporter be on a candidate when his or her own station
relies on that candidate’s campaign for revenue?
Now, the non-profit news organization Pro Publica has
recently collected, in a very raw form, all the information that television
stations were required to turn over about political ad buys. But this information has not been sorted
through in any way, so not much can be gleaned from it. Not yet, at least. Pro Publica is asking citizens to help them
process the information through their ‘Free the Files’ project, which you can
learn about and take part in by visiting their website – propublica.org. Remember, we’re talking about billions of
dollars directed toward national, state, and local elections. It might be useful for us all to know the
effect that all that money has on how we’re informed – or misinformed – about
candidates and issues.
Secondly, I suggest that the presidential primaries be
redesigned. The current primary system
is a reaction to the messy 1968 Democratic convention, and is designed to
smooth out the process of choosing a presidential nominee. These days, and perhaps even back in 1972
when it all started, New Hampshire and Iowa are not the places to begin the
primary season. Iowa and New
Hampshire? Both these states are far too
rural and far too homogeneous to produce candidates that reflect the more
general and diverse concerns of the rest of the country.
Let me break it down for you. In 2012, over 80 percent of Americans live in
urban areas, whereas both Iowa and New Hampshire still have over a third
percent of their people living in rural areas.
And both Iowa and New Hampshire are overwhelmingly white, about 95
percent. In the United States, nearly 13
percent of the population identifies as African American, almost 17 percent
identifies as Hispanic, and another five percent identifies as Asian. Iowa and New Hampshire, on a fundamental
level, do not look like much of the rest of the United States.
I propose – wait for it – a balanced presidential primary
system – where groups of five or six states, both small and large, are divided
into two week primary periods. We could
get through the primaries with a nice distribution of states over a five month
period. The first round primary, in
February, might include Iowa (why not?), along with Maryland, Wyoming, Arkansas,
Wisconsin, and Florida. You can drop
California by itself in the middle of the sequence. The final round (at the end
of June) could have, let’s say, Mississippi, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, and
Texas. Granted, travel costs would be
higher, but candidates would have to address a more representative range of issues
in having to run for a much more diverse set of voters.
Finally, and most painfully (Florida, I'm looking at you) we need to improve the
voting system itself. The guiding
principle here should be to help more eligible people vote and increase the
efficiency of the voting process. We
need to improve the ease of registration while taking reasonable steps to
prevent voter fraud. We need to create
guidelines and accountability for how ballots are designed, as well as making
sure that ballot initiatives are written so that each item is clear and concise. Forget tradition, we need to move election
dates to weekends – Saturdays and Sundays.
We need to stop treating early voting like a political football and set
a standard early voting period and procedure.
We need to ensure that all voting sites have enough well-trained staff
and enough materials and equipment for people to vote without confusion and
excessive hardship. There’s no reason
why anyone in Florida, the next time we have an election, should be standing in
line for five or six hours just to exercise one of the most basic rights we
have. I understand all the concerns
about the process, but to deny or impede any eligible voter the right to cast a
ballot is to do a great wrong.
So – improve the voting system, rework the primaries, and
follow the TV money. Let’s get started
on that work as soon as we can. We all
deserve better.
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