Political Reform

Election Reform

Ensuring fair elections, and getting the best candidates


There are several problems with our current election system.

    Campaign finance is a problem.  Politicians end up being "bought" by big donations.  You end up with an elected leader that owes more to a rich business, union, group or individual than he does to the voters that elected him.  One of the challenges of campaign finance reform is structuring it in a way that reforms the process without limiting free speech.  Obama recently had an argument with the supreme court over a ruling that struck down his campaign finance reform bill.  The problem is that the supreme court was absolutely correct.  Obama complained that the supreme court was helping businesses, but the plaintiff in the case was just a group of normal people who got together to push for reform.  This group is exactly what Obama said his law was intended to protect, but the law was actually used to take away their free speech.
    Third party spoilers.  When more than two people run, no one is sure if we really get the person that the majority wants.

        The winner may have just gotten lucky because the third candidate took some of the votes.

     Elections are based almost entirely on propaganda campaigns, generalities and advertising.  Candidates avoid giving any specific information on what they plan to do and how they plan to fix problems.  Short motivational catch phrases are used rather than give people any meaningful information.  An example of this is how much pressure it took to get Obama and Romney to actually admit what their stance was on Gay marriage.  They both wanted to hide it so that voters in states that disagreed with them would not dislike them.  Voters deserve to know what a candidates position is on every subject that is important.
    Dishonesty, corruption and all the other problems of government.  Politicians care more about keeping their job than they do about fixing our country's problems.  Political parties may use certain topics to get votes, but they often show by their actions that it is all just talk.  An example of this is the Republican parties talk about limited government and reduced taxes and spending.  During the bush administration Republican's had the house, senate and the presidency, so they had total control.  Did spending go down?  No! it went up!

Now for the solutions