Levelling the Electoral Playing Field

[Thomas Crown]

I was discussing the insanity of the debates and the fact that candidates are running two years before they need to with a friend when I started to put together a list of rules and regulations that I felt should be enacted in order to not only level the playing field, but to make sure that candidates do their jobs as well.

1. If you are a sitting member of the Congress, Senate, a Cabinet member or any other public office holder, you must relieve yourself of those duties prior to the commencement of your campaign.

Reason: This is to ensure that the duties of the offices and positions held by those who are campaigning are not neglected and that candidates are not being paid a salary with public dollars while campaigning.

2. Election campaigns should be publicly funded with equal amounts to all candidates. These monies must be accounted for by public audits which are required by the IRS during the campaign process.

3. All federally licensed broadcasters (TV, Cable, Satellite and Radio) must allot a specified amount of prime time ad time to be distributed evenly among the candidates for free as part of their licensing requirements. It could be argued that these allotments should have content regulations imposed such as no negative spots, etc. That would require more discussion.

4. All party support group ad time buys must be capped across the board as well.

5. All part support group fund raising and spending must be capped.
Reason: This is to prohibit someone who is favored by the likes of a Murdoch or Soros from gaining an unfair advantage simply because his supporters are rich.

6. Campaigns cannot go on for two years. They will start May 1 and extend to thirty-six hours before the polls open.
Reason: This is to ensure a few things. One, duties of elected officials will not be pawned off on deputies and subordinates for two years as well as reducing the watering down of the campaign messages.

7. Since candidates will be campaigning on public funds, they will be required to travel via public means. This means commercial airlines, trains, buses, autos, etc. To assist with this, all federally licensed (DOT) entities such as airlines, train carriers and bus lines will give preference to candidates and staff during the campaign season as part of their licensing requirements. For example, if Obama and his crew need to get to Idaho, they would call a carrier and would be given seating preference. This might bump some fliers, which would suck. It can't be perfect though. Ideally, since campaigns are planned out months in advance, these situations would not occur because the airlines would know how many seats and to where weeks to months before hand.

8. Candidates MUST participate in face to face debates where they are not only asked questions by the public, but will have to actually debate each other. No "ground rules".

9. A standardized list of questions will be provided to each candidate and it must be presented, in whole, in the forms of "yes" or "no" with a summary of their reasons, on their website.

10. Their entire past voting record must be presented on their website.

11. Upon being elected, they must pay me $1.27 for every vote they accrue in the general election.

12. The electoral college should be dissolved as well as the two party election process.

13. There will be a federally developed, maintained and enforced election polling standard. The technology used will be developed by the federal government and not outsourced. This technology will require that each vote be coded with an ID number, paper receipts for every ballot cast (one to the voter, one to the precinct chief, one to the central chief, copies to the county and state directors (most likely attorney generals) and then copies two various agencies in the federal government). This would ensure any discrepancies could easily be verified via ID number and the copies at each seat.

I'm sure there are more very logical regulations, but this is what I have right now.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Thomas Crown

11. Upon being elected, they must pay me $1.27 for every vote they accrue in the general election.

I don't remember that one being discussed

The one thing that I see difficult in this is so closely controlling the way campaigns are run...is that representative of freedom?

[Thomas Crown]

It is really sad that this thread got no attention. You people want to bitch, moan and groan but won't even contribute to a thread on how to possibly fix the problem.