Election Reform

“The times, places and manner of holding elections, for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof: But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.” (Article I section 4). I got most of these ideas from the America First Party. They have a lot of good ideas. (I hope they don’t mind me plagiarizing their platform!)



Keep the Electoral College. Get rid of the general ticket. Each congressional district would elect its own elector, instead of the statewide, winner-take-all system. The two statewide electors in a state should be elected by the winning district electors in that state, with a separate pool of elector candidates for each of the two statewide electoral seats. Each district elector’s vote (for a statewide elector) should be weighted according to the number of votes that that elector had received. (The purpose being that the voter should only cast one vote for President, instead of having to vote for 3 different electors.)

I favor a repeal of the 17th amendment which allows for direct election of U.S. Senators. The state legislatures should elect U.S. Senators. I am against all term limits. I favor a repeal of the 22nd amendment.

Judicial candidates may be endorsed by any party or political organization, but they should never appear on primary ballots. The name of a political party should never appear next to a judicial candidate’s name on any ballot.

When candidates are running for two or more identical seats in the same election, such as in a county commissioner or State Supreme Court race, then the voters should get to vote for any combination of candidates that they want, with the top vote getters of all the candidates winning the seats, as opposed to having to vote on each seat separately.

I urge voters to carefully consider how public opinion polls can influence public opinion, and the ways in which opinion polls can be manipulated by the choice of respondents, and by the phrasing of questions to get a desired response. While it is the first amendment right of pollsters to publish their conclusions, voters would do well to disregard opinion and exit polls and vote their conscience.

I favor the repeal of all laws which enable non-US citizens to register to vote and fraudulent voter rolls to be created. I favor laws that make casting of a ballot by an illegal alien a felony resulting in immediate deportation with no possibility of return.

I call for an end to use of provisional ballots. The last precinct that a voter had lived in before its voter registration deadline should be the precinct in which he/she votes. If it is not possible for one to vote in this precinct on Election Day, then he/she should vote absentee. If someone is to vote in a precinct in a county other than the one that they live in on Election Day (because they have recently moved), then he/she should always vote absentee. If one shows up on Election Day in the correct county, but wrong precinct, election officials should direct such a person to the correct precinct. Absentee ballots should contain a paper ballot to be processed with other paper ballots. I call for an end to early-return ballot casting. I am against laws that would allow anyone to vote absentee for any reason.

The Federal government shall not require any other language besides English for voting materials. I favor easily read and marked paper ballots.

In each race or ballot issue the voter should be able to mark a specific option to abstain from voting for that race or ballot issue. This reduces the potential of partially blank ballots being tampered with. States should have the option of whether or not they want to include the abstain votes from the overall totals. For races except for the President, they could also require another election for a particular race with all different candidates if there are more abstain votes than votes for any one candidate in that race, with an appropriately chosen temporary replacement holding the office until a winner is declared. I favor the use of recall elections, when this is the will of the people.

I oppose any voting system that gives a voter a receipt, which can be abused by facilitating the sale of votes. I oppose any voting system that does not generate a permanent, easily human-readable artifact that can be used to verify a proper vote count. These ballots shall be hand-counted at the precinct immediately upon the polls closing, and before being transferred to the county elections office.

Except for military voters, all ballots in a Federal election must be received by election officials by the close of the final Election Day. Military votes shall be given to an appropriate designated officer by close of Election Day, sealed and certified by the officer and sent via expedited channels, to arrive no later than 5 days after the final Election Day. Requests for absentee military ballots shall be sent via designated expedited channels. Election results may not be announced until either all eligible military ballots have been counted or it is determined that the margin of victory exceeds the number of outstanding military ballots.

Each state should be able to choose their own poll opening and closing time, as long as it is no earlier than 12:01 AM Hawaii time and no later than 11:59 PM Eastern Time. The polls should be open at least 5 minutes for each registered voter divided by number of usable voting booths in a particular precinct. If unforeseen events occur so that this is not possible, the polls can be kept open past midnight Eastern Time, but only those who got in line to vote before the scheduled poll closing time may vote.

I favor prohibiting all exit polls announcements until all voting has been completed in Hawaii. In the case of contested elections, exit poll results will not be announced until that election is decided by the proper authorities. I call for a congressional investigation into Voter News Service (VNS) out of New York City. This investigation should focus on the role of VNS in calling past elections.

All election return results shall be posted at each local polling place after counting takes place. Consolidated final vote tallies for multiple polling places shall be announced only by a designated election official having jurisdiction over all relevant polling places. Under no circumstances shall intermediate tallies be announced prior to announcing the overall totals. Disclosure of intermediate tallies by election workers or by media prior to official announcement of the final vote result shall be a felony.

I favor administrative changes to be enacted by county elections officials:

1. Every Ballot cast in an election, henceforth will be hand-counted immediately upon the polls closing, at the ballot box by the named poll watcher/officer and witnessed by any resident acting as agents of any Candidate, or any Issue on that ballot. No ballots may be removed from the respective polling/counting site until a public posting, no smaller than 100 pt type has been made on a wall in the election location after poll closing
2. All Ballot Boxes shall be constructed of clear or translucent material. This will enable citizens to see that no ballots have been fraudulently created and placed in a ballot box before or during an election.
3. All absentee ballots shall be delivered by the United States Postal Service directly into a clear receptacle, kept in public view at all times until the election is over. With current technology, a web-video camera should be made available for and monitoring by Internet inspection. No ballots shall be removed from this box until counted. Counting will take place on a table immediately adjacent to the absentee ballot box, also viewed by the web-video camera.
4. Recognizing that computers can be easily manipulated and programmed for a pre-determined outcome, computer generated tabulation of Vote Totals in any election shall only be done as a point of confirmation, and only after all hand-counting has been completed.
5. Assure there will always be verifiable, transparent elections by never allowing Computer Touch-Screen Vote Marking Machines to be utilized, and that Paper Ballots will always be employed in every election.
6. Where these vote marking machines are already in use, if counties refuse to replace them with a verifiable paper ballot counted system, a printer shall be attached so at the time of the vote, the voter can print out a paper document to verify his vote and deposit it into the clear box to be counted on site when the polls close.
7. County Clerks shall recuse themselves from presiding over their own election. It is recognized as a gross conflict of interest for them to be anywhere near the handling of a ballot involved in their race. The County Clerk shall be mandated to hire a neutral third party, approved by a 2/3 vote of the people, by Initiative Process in the off election year.