Election Law

On our recent family vacation, my dad, brother and I were discussing, among other things, national elections, our screwed up political process and our grand ideas for fixing it. (We have ALL the solutions, unless we don't.... )

A one point during the discussion my brother mentioned "state's rights" and I said something to the effect of "screw states rights!"

Now, I do think to a certain degree states rights are very important.

However, when it comes to National Elections, states rights need to go out the window. For Presidential elections there should be 1 primary date. There should be the same laws and rules applying to all states.

Every state should adopt a percentage based distribution of electoral votes with the majority getting any votes that needed rounded up.

Currently the "winner takes all" approach means that many people's votes literally do not count. In Illinois, this past presidential election was the first time my vote actually counted. I'm sorry, you can say my vote counts, but when my state gives all the electoral votes to 1 canidate, that means my vote actually didn't matter a bit.

I am NOT in favor of a straight popular vote. Voter fraud is easy enough, lets not make it any simpler.

Also, there needs to be a "secondary" vote option. I first heard this idea from my dad and it strikes me a good one.

Since our system is currently set up to exclude anyone who is not from one of the two major parties, a vote for a 3rd party is literally throwing your vote away.

If you vote 3rd party and your canidate doesn't get elected, your vote defaults to your "second" option if you choose.

With the Supreme Court's allowing corporations, foreign countries, and flying ducks to donate money to campaigns now, we need more than ever term limits. BUT, we also need 1 electoral process for the entire country.

Allow states to run their state and local and even legislative elections however they want. But for presidential elections it needs to be a case of everyone playing by the same rules.

I'll rant on the desperate need for people to take part in elections another time. And term limits. We need them so badly that I can't even begin to state the importance of this. Then, only then can we hope to inact some of the lobbying limitations that need to happen.