UPDATED 8 Nov 2011 to bury. This is the original that everyone ignored, now that Electoral Reform Act of 2012 has gone viral courtesy of Reddit and YouTube, the updated versions of the proposed Statement of Demand and the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 can be found at http://tinyurl.com/OWS-ER-HO.
UPDATED 29 May 2011 to add top-level link:
Seven Promises to America–Who Will Do This?
Electoral Reform is the “fast track” toward restoring the Constitution and the Republic (We the People must be sovereign or it is not a Republic). As long as the Executive and Congress are led by unethical politicians working for unethical corporations, public intelligence can and should be used to expose each individual, each transaction, each transgression. That is the “slow road.” However, if the Independents, Greens, Reforms, and the honest Libertarians (not faux Libertarians like the Koch Brothers) can get together on this ONE THING, the “fast track” is possible in time for 2012.
Full text of one pager below the line.
Updated 7 November 2010
Electoral Reform Act
Phase I
01 Open Ballot Access. Proposed, that ballot access requirements should be the same for every candidate, irrespective of party affiliation. This helps end Two-Party Tyranny. See Free & Equal.
02 Holiday Voting. Proposed, that to avoid undue hardship to the hardest workers in America, the working poor, national and state elections shall only be held over a week-end or on a holiday. If held on a Saturday, Orthodox Jews should have the option of voting in person on Sunday or by ballot in person the week prior, to be opened and counted on Election Day. Unconstrained Early Voting should be universal.
03 Honest Open Debates. Proposed, that to end the current monopoly of the debates by the bifurcated two-party alliance against independent and third parties, that the League of Women Voters be restored to their role as the managers of honest open debates, to include third, fourth, and fifth parties.
04 Expanded Debates. Proposed, that to end the charade of one individual being up to the task of managing America, that the debates be expanded to include a minimum of three Cabinet officials to be announced in advance, and generally to include the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of State. Should the League of Women Voters desire, the Transpartisan Policy Institute would undertake the scheduling of substantive policy debates engaging all announced candidates for specific Cabinet positions, and shall provide, on the basis of open source intelligence from the Earth Intelligence Network, and budgetary costs and implications from the Public Budget Office, a range of viable policy options for debate and deliberation.
05 Instant Run-Off. Proposed, that to ensure the election of a winner elected by a majority, that the instant run-off concept be adopted for all national and state elections.
Phase II
06 Full and Balanced Representation. Proposed, that to ascertain a properly representative balance in the House of Representatives for each state, that Open Registration be provided and that all parties having at least 10% of the voters registering a preference for their political philosophy, shall be eligible for assigned districts proportional to their number, and also to a proportional share of leadership positions in legislative bodies at all levels from local to national (the latter cumulative across the States).
07 Tightly-Drawn Districts. Proposed, that we end the corrupt practice of gerrymandering, replacing it with compact computer drawn districts similar to the kind used in Iowa. See Fight Gerrymandering.
08 Full Public Funding of Diverse Candidates. Proposed, to eliminate all federal and corporate financing of campaigns, and all political action committees, that we institute a Campaign Contribution Tax Credit up to $100 per candidate (pending the elimination of the personal income tax and enactment of the Automated Payment Transaction Tax (APT)), while creating a public Big Bat for longer term.
09 No Legislation Without Consultation. Proposed, to eliminate special interest dominance of the legislative process, and to end the practice of passing legislation such as the Patriot Act without its actually being read, and to end all earmarks, that all legislation without exception be published on line in Wiki format, with an easy to understand one-page summary, one week prior to its coming to a vote, to include explicit geospatial pointers for all “earmarks” each of which must be publicly announced and offered for amendment to the voters in the relevant district at least one week prior to the passage of national, state, or county legislation affecting them. Similarly, no public privileges should be granted to any corporation or other entity without full public consultation and public polling or balloting.
Created by Robert Steele and Jim Turner based on long-standing proposals by Ralph Nader.
See Also:
Citizen in Search of a Leader (4 Reforms)
Smart Nation – Safe Nation – Reformed Nation (Various Links)
Democracy 2008 (Failed Attempt to Get Bloomberg Past the Two-Party Tyranny)
Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
