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They are simple but not easy. Then again, things worth doing are seldom easy, especially when entrenched interests are threatened. Nevertheless, sometimes there are simple solutions that can actually shift the political landscape. So, consider changing the dynamics of elections at the state and local level, while recasting the college scene without a dime of additional spending.
Regarding education , I think it would be a great idea if colleges and universities were forced to take the losses on student loan defaults. ( I’ve seen this proposal on Ricochet and elsewhere).
Wow, great ideas.
For all that the Left (and the Right) are always sniffing about the august importance of “the vote”, neither seems to ever care to keep it legitimate.
I think the biggest game-changer for all of us would be to focus on total vote-reform.
If “The Vote” is soooo important (and it is) it should be treated as such. Vote fraud should be a punishable crime.
In our day of computer-aided account organization, a 99.9% accurate vote count should be a standard we can achieve. If we have to go to finger-dipping in blue ink, then so be it. Don’t want to know who you voted for, but we should be able to tell who voted. And they should be proud to have it known.
Perhaps we could make voting day a national holiday; everyone (not self-employed, like me) has the day off. There are Election parties, maybe fireworks. You proudly spend the day in line, reconnecting with old friends. It becomes a thing. It’s once again taken seriously, because it’s no longer seen as pointless or obviously corrupt.
Dead people don’t vote any longer, because the system registered their demise. Illegal aliens don’t vote, because they aren’t in the system.
(Sarc on: Just imagine how much this one part would change the whole open-borders question.)
Felons don’t vote, because their illegitimacy is in the system. Most importantly, every individual voter is only allowed to vote ONCE, in one place.
All early voting, and non-resident voting, is eliminated. If you can’t organize your life to be available on that day to stand in line with your friends and fellow citizens to cast your “all-important” vote, then bow out for this round – it’s not a law that you HAVE to vote, It’s a measure of its importance to you. The only exception would be for those who are under a government-service obligation – all military personnel, others working in public service who must be at their posts that day. Accommodations have to be made for them, as they do not, and should not, have the flexibility to forego their duties at whim. The rest of us can.
Who, who is in favor of one man, one vote, could be against any of this? (“Man” means “person”, in this case “legal voter”, so stop it.)
I’m not much of an accountant, but I understand there are a lot of them out there. With computer software, a system should be able to be developed that can verify the total # of votes that were cast, and match them to the total individual voters who cast them. Any illegitimate votes would be instantly recognized, and turned over to law enforcement.
The Lefties keep claiming these kind of ideas are racist. I say WTF? – they are the opposite of racist. Every individual American citizen, black, white, green, woman, man whatever, as long as they are registered and legitimately qualified to vote, will be included as 1 vote. If you’re black, and you registered, and you show up out of your busy schedule that day and cast your vote, that’s one vote. No hanging chad, no nothing – one vote. If you’re white and you didn’t bother to register, or you are too busy to show up, then sorry, no participation for you this time. Zero racism involved – same rules for everybody, no exceptions.
This should be the one unambiguous time where every individual soul can experience equality before the law – each of us gets ONE vote, exactly as valuable as our brother’s.
Something like this would probably generate strong resistance from both sides, because I’m sure both sides have their fiddles. But maybe it’s time for these particular fiddles to end. Modern technology is changing a lot of things about privacy, lots of ways to track sales and direct advertising and all that. The encryption stuff involved in our credit card transactions are supposedly impossible to break; can’t something similar be set up to make the voting process (at least more) legit?
I have been thinking for years that the main reason college costs went up was because there was no longer any impediment to students getting loans. It used to be more difficult to borrow that money. Then, when it became like an Oprah Show–“You get a loan! And YOU get a loan! And YOU get a loan!” the colleges just got smart and jacked up their prices. “Hey, if every single applicant can get whatever money they ask for, then let’s get some of that.” I was finishing my bachelor’s degree (started 15 years, one marriage, and five children before) in 1991 in California. Each semester, my tuition was significantly increased and I’m pretty sure the costs weren’t increasing at the same pace. And yes, indeed, there is a suffocating number of Assistant-Assistants to the Assistant of the Vice-Dean of Hurt Feelings. Reform Colleges Now!!
And you have a great idea there Bruce Caward about the whole voting mess. I especially second your idea of having all elections held in November–none of this “We’ll sneak one in on June 20th when only our friends are paying attention.”
All great ideas and while I’m ignorant and out of date I don’t want the Feds involved. Federal financial support should be terminated at most, once cleaned up, they could support some specific high cost graduate scientific and highly technical programs, perhaps outside of the universities.
Increasing voter turnout is not a high priority for me unto itself. If it could be demonstrated that the additional voters would be better informed than they are now, sure. But I think the more likely scenario is that a bunch of people who are uninformed and can’t be bothered to go to the polls now will be led to vote us more quickly toward socialism.
I believe all primaries should be closed (limited only to voters registered in that party). I also believe there should not be any non-partisan elections. This is primarily aimed at school boards and the flawed theory that a non-partisan election results in bipartisan support for schools.
In Michigan, school elections used to be held at their own times and places. Now they occur as part of regular elections, at regular polling places. No feds were involved in this change, which is good. The new system has its plusses and minuses compared to the old way. It’s not all for the good, and not all bad, either.
One of my sisters has advocated this for years. I note that this is the case in South Korea.
Even given your view, why support elections strewn over the calendar, when local politicians can rally a small group of voters to make the decisions for everyone? How have local elections been working out as far as your concern about socialism?
I agree in principle. And, I think that the parties have become quasi-public entities. There is so much interplay at every level. States and localities pay for elections, including primaries. Who provides the voting logistics, ballots, boxes, counting…? While private organizations should be able to control their own membership and decisions on leadership, and while there is clarity in making political parties entirely accountable for their own candidates, there is a vast pool of independent voters in every state.
You’ve proposed many excellent improvements to the voting process, such as closed primaries. But here is something to consider: Those of us residing overseas, whether for business or retirement (from the military, in my case), would have a very difficult time participating due to costly airfares. If there were an option to execute the vote at an embassy or consulate, that could be an acceptable workaround.
It’s an imperfect system, no matter how you slice it. But efforts to increase the turn out of uninformed, current-non-voters isn’t an improvement.
I do not know that the number of voters in presidential and off-year congressional elections would be higher, however what I propose would ensure that local and state governments would no longer go for a much lower turn-out of just the voters they prefer.