Key Points
- Automatic voter registration at 18
- National comprehensive Vote-by-Mail
- Expand early voting hours and locations to reduce election day lines
- Ranked choice voting
- Abolish the Electoral College
- Overturn Citizens United
- End Gerrymandering
Vote-by-Mail
It's time that we making voting by mail the default and standard for all of our elections. The convenience and ease for voters, plus the reduced stress at in-person poll locations, makes the proposal a win for everyone. There would also be financial savings as jurisdictions would not have the need to staff as many poll workers.
Vote-by-Mail removes the hassles presented by election day. Is there a global pandemic when you are trying to vote? No problem, fill out your ballot in the comfort of your home. Received your ballot but you are unable to mail it back due to time constraints or other reasons? No problem, drop it off at a polling place on election day. It's a cleaner and easier system without hampering security or health issues.
Ranked Choice Voting
Simply put, ranked choice voting makes democracy more fair and functional. In this system, voters are able to rank candidates based on their preference which in the end helps represent the full spectrum of voters. In elections with more than two candidates, it often occurs where the winner only gets 30% of the vote. With ranked choice voting, if no candidate has a majority in first choice votes, the candidates in last place will be eliminated one by one. If a voter's first choice is eliminated, their vote instantly goes to their second choice. That way, we can find out which of the top candidates has real majority support.
Major benefits for ranked choice voting are the reduction of negative campaigning, more choices for voters, and no fear of "splitting the vote" between similar candidates. With partisan politics becoming more and more divisive, providing more options to voters for a truly fair vote is something we all need.
Abolish The Electoral College
Let the people pick the president! In the past the Electoral College may have served its purpose, but in a world with such high income inequality and geographic disparities, it's time to move on to a system that makes more sense. The Electoral College introduces unnecessary confusion and complexity to what should be a simple process. Your vote should count, regardless of what state you are from, one vote equates to one vote.
Some states have already decided to do away with the traditional presidential vote allocation of a winner-take-all result for the state. Instead, votes are allocated at the congressional district level, making it more precise, but it's not enough. Make it simple, elect the president based on the popular vote.
Overturn Citizens United
I am a advocate for the 28th Amendment movement which is an initiative to pass a new amendment that overturns the Citizens United ruling and puts the power of democracy back to the people. To address the many issues of our political system today, we need to address the rotten core that is big money in politic
Corporations are not people and money should not dictate elections. The candidate for Congress who spends the most money wins 9 out of 10 times! The total overall spending on elections has skyrocketed to an outrageous number, and where is that money coming from? Special interests, corporations, lobbyists, and the wealthy. When politicians pay more attention to their special interest donors to get elected and stay in office, our government fails to represent us.
To overturn Citizens United we need a constitutional amendment to declare that corporations are not people and money is not free speech. We need to end Super PACs, dark money in politics, and drown out their influence. It's time to stop pretending that corporations have equal rights to people.
End Gerrymandering
Voters should choose politicians, not the other way around. Every 10 years states re-draw boundaries for districts, which is supposed to represent changes in population. The problem is, the party with the majority power gets to draw the maps and of course that never turns out fair. An independent commission needs to be established to draw maps accurately, fairly, and consistently. Our neighbors in Iowa have successfully achieved this for over 30 years with what is now termed the Iowa Model. I fully support this plan and advocate Wisconsin to do the same, you can read more about it here. Citizens deserved to be accurately represented, and not taken advantage by partisan boundary drawing.