Real Election Reform

Our problem goes well beyond voting machines.

The problems with America’s political system run the gamut. Finance. Identification. Voting standards. As well as voting machines.

Everyone knows them. Everyone condemns them.

Everyone has a duty to help fix them.

So here’s the plan. This is at least as serious a threat as 9-11 was, so we start in the same place. A commission, drawn equally from both sides, appointed either by Congress or the parties (I don’t care).

They hold hearings. And they don’t just listen, they speak. When
someone suggests something impossible (like a complex campaign finance
reform plan a la McCain-Feingold) they (or their counsels, one on each
side) should feel free to explain why the solution doesn’t work (it’s
unconstitutional, or we tried it).

At the end of the process, sometime next summer or fall, they deliver their recommendations.

• Standards on identifying and registering voters.
• Standards on voting technology.
• Standards on campaign tactics — what is and isn’t out-of-bounds.
   
• A standard campaign finance system that works.

Then Congress votes on it. And (hopefully) the President signs it.

Some of what comes out will require new law. Some can be set as
standards we aim for, with laws to follow if the standards are not
followed.

The key is that the whole process is transparent, open, and bipartisan.
(If the people putting this together put a Green and a Libertarian on,
even as non-voting participants, it will be even better.)_

This is not something that has to stay a dream. This is not something
it even takes Congress to initiate. It’s something that can be done on
a party level.

And it’s something we need to start demanding on Wednesday. No more crap like the crap we’re putting up with now.