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Election in the US - 2008-11
This month, we are going to deviate from More Time for Fun's mission and share our views on the election process. 2008, Americans have to select a new President. I have never voted, in protest of the election process. Let me explain. As a naturalized citizen, I love America for its wisdom, generosity, can-do attitude, and many other virtues. However, these unique characteristics that made America great, has disappeared in recent decades and it's disheartening. America needs a better way to elect its leaders that reflect its citizen's desires and addresses their needs.
There are many flaws in the current election process, here are a few.
- The political parties' primary processes, produces Presidential candidates that's "chosen" for the rest of the country by a hand full of states that holds their primary early.
- As evident in the 2000 Presidential election, the President we elected was not what the majority of Americans wanted; it's the product of the antiquated Electoral College Process
- The Vice President, who has a very real chance of becoming the President, is not "elected", but chosen by the Party elites for us. The 1804 Amendment to the Constitution needs to be removed. Virginia elects its Governor and Lieutenant Governor separately , we can elect President and Vice President separately.
- The amount of campaign money spend, begs the question can the money be better spend?
This antiquated election method was introduced in the 1800s. Its time to update the process for the 2000s!
As with solving any problem, we need to first define our desired outcome. The desired outcome is for the citizens to elect a president that address their concerns. With the goal defined, we can start figuring out how to achieve this goal.
First and foremost, create a national election office under the Supreme Court. This election office, overseen by the Supreme Court justices, will then be charged to manage the election process. The first and most important rule is to set limits on the amount of money each candidate can spend for campaigning. This will give everyone equal opportunity.
Every fours years in January, start by asking the citizens what the issues are that concerns them. With today's communication technology, we can easily do surveys and create an issues list. Examples would be lower college costs, portable medical care, clean air, reduce reliance on oil, space exploration, etc. Once these issues topics are collected, have each person that wants to be President, answer them in detail, and publish their answers on the web.
In April, have the first round of elections using paper and postal mail (why) and reduce the potential candidates down to 8. In July, do another round of survey/responses, and again inOctober. This will keep the issue list "current". Come November, its time for the final election using paper and postal mail, the person that receive the most vote, is the President, the second, is the vice president.
This process may seem radical, yet it will eliminate the problems we have today and achieve our goal. We can implement this new process starting at the State Level.
We as Americans must realize, the actions of the President of the United Sates, not only affect our lives, it affects the rest of the world. A very clear example is the Iraq war started in 2003. Right or Wrong, it changed the lives of thousands of American families, and it changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of families in the rest of the world. Who we select as President, has a GLOBAL impact, let's changes our methods and chose wisely.
We will leave you with this quote by Patch Adams.
"I want to live in a world where people become famous because of their work for peace, justice, and care. I want the famous to be inspiring; their lives an example of what every human being has it in them to do — act from love!"
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