The basic point he makes is that not enough of us vote. There are about 226 million of us who are eligible to vote. But the candidate who is nominated will have amassed only about 10 million votes in the campaign; this represents 4+percent of those eligible. For the election itself only 153 million will have been registered; about 130 million, a little more than half of those eligible to vote, will probably vote. So, it is the activist groups and the political extremes that will elect the president, and not the broad population of the country.
Penn has some ideas for improving the system:
- When kids are born in the hospital, give them a voter card and not just a Social Security card. Leave no child behind when it comes to being registered to vote and having voting ID.
- Election Tuesdays come from the horse and buggy days — we need to move voting to weekends, allow voting from the internet or from secure accessible facilities like ATM machines. I am not a fan of early voting because it tends to mute the effect of the last two weeks of a campaign, which can be pivotal in many elections. I would rather have extended voting all day Saturday and Sunday.
- Third, caucuses need to be abolished. Often without even the secret ballot and open only to those with time on their hands, this is not a fair process for picking a president in the 21st century. Usually turnout to a caucus is only one-fourth of the turnout to a primary.
- Fourth, we need to rethink the party primary process to bring in far more voters, and we need to rotate the geographic order so that no one bloc of voters becomes a permanent gateway to the presidency. If we are going to have just two parties, then almost everyone has to be welcome to vote in one of them.
Something has to be done.
1 comment:
All good ideas, and get rid of that Electoral College at the same time.
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