Starting over: fixing the whole system

There's a lot of talk about campaign finance reform, lobby reform, etc. and I see that as simply treating the symtoms, not curing the problem. The way to solve the problem is to fundamentally change the system, so that perhaps, one day, we can have leaders who actually work for the betterment of the whole, not just themselves.

Some suggestions:

1. Change all elections to 'rank choice voting', also called 'instant run-off'. This creates more of an honest choice for people; they can actually vote for their favorite candidate first, not simply vote against the one they hate. It would also eliminate the need for these stupid primaries. (see below).

2. Rotate the 'who votes first' system. It's ridiculous that New Hampshire and Iowa are always the first to vote, and thus candidates spend huge amounts of time talking to every Iowan and NHer, while all the other states get ignored. Break the country up into 5 different groups of 10 (it's an interesting debate to decide whether to have it by region, or specifically break it up so that it's evenly distributed... I can't decide) and space those elections out by say 2 weeks. Every election, a different group of 10 would get to go first.

3. Create a blind trust campaign finance program. Robert Reich came up with this, I think. Every candidate gets a blind trust that supporters can put money into. The candidate doesn't get to know who gave how much. Support whomever you want, but don't think it's going to buy you influence!

4. Go to public radio and public TV to create long, serious, actual debates between candidates. Don't allow them to buy commercial time, it's simply garbage anyway.

a. Have actual debates, where candidates talk until the subject is exhausted. The moderator would be there to keep it civil, and to fact check. I hate how they get to make crap up and use it in their arguments.

b. Have like a final four debate series: two candidates face off, the winner goes on to the next round...

5. Please, Please, have voting over a whole weekend. We should be able to go to the polls from Friday morning to Sunday at 9pm.

6. Skip all this money and time on electronic voting. Use an old, reliable system. Who cares if it takes 4 days to count it all? With my rotation system (#2) it'll take 10 weeks until everyone votes anyway. This way, not only do we avoid hackers, mistakes, and ill-spent money, how they voted in one state won't affect how they vote in another. Who in the world votes for someone simply because they're already winning?



I bet I can come up with more, just give me a little while.