07/30/2015 Let’s discuss rational plans for democratic elections.

TRANSPARENCY AND INTEGRITY

Political Finance: a growing deficit of trust in democratic actors and processes

In the current context of economic crisis, citizens are demanding for more transparency in public life.

In particular, citizens are voicing their concerns on risks to the independence of political actors and public office holders as well as risks of conflicts of interest, undue influence and corruption, related to money in the political sphere.

What are the main trends in regulating democratic politics?

From this perspective, countries have been focusing on regulating political finance in order to ensure the transparency, fairness and integrity of electoral processes.

The key actions first steps taken by many countries were to:

Automatic voter registration; unless you decline registration in writing. 

Elections need to be done by popular vote of all voters and not by an electoral college. Must enforce one vote per eligible voter; no laws of exclusion for non-imprisoned voters; except those that have committed treason or tyranny at any level in government.

Regulating private funding to ensure the transparency of donations, avoid prejudice to the activities of political parties and ensure the independence of political parties.

Certain types of private contributions were banned including donations from foreign states or companies, public authorities including state owned entropies, and anonymous persons.

Increasing public funding to promote a level playing field between political parties and reduce their dependence on private funding. This support could either be a direct transfer of money without any restrictions as to the use of the funds or free access to specific state services (transport, state media (PBS and other non-corporate funded media like Free Speech TV), and government property).

Setting spending limits in order to reduce the overall cost of election and reduce risks of undue influence resulting from strong dependency of candidates or parties on contributors. However, recognizing that these regulations were not sufficient to promote transparency and integrity in political finance, countries promoted further transparency in there must be disclosed by party /candidate financing to enable to promote public scrutiny, oversight and informed voting by citizens by providing comprehensive, detailed, timely, intelligible and accessible data and information. Disclosure should be promoted for contributions received by parties and candidates as well as for their expenditures.

Make Election Day (a Sunday) a federally required non-work day and if health care providers etc. have to work voters must be given formally documented time-off to vote! Breach of this process will cause extreme fines and imprisonment for those that ignore the law!

Eliminate the political party (band) process. Move to a voter centric approach of people submit an application to a non-partisan (voter eligible based) state and federal boards that set state election districts based on the last federal census,  monitors for ethics and accountability in each state and federally, and sets policies for getting on a ballot… The final recommendations would be put to a nation or state vote before they could be implemented and that must be done within 90 days of the publication of the recommendation.

Reduce political campaigning to less than 120 days before an election.

30 days after the application process hold a preliminary election to reduce the field of candidates to the top 10 for each governmental position (elected office).

Before 60 days before an election hold 2 or 3 non-partisan debates (questions and moderation) done by a local, state, or federal election board (described above) and presented locally, state wide, nationally; as appropriate.

Then 45 days prior to the general election hold a primary elect to reduce the field of candidates to 2 or 3.

In the last 30 day before the election there would be public debates of the 2 or 3 non-partisan debates (questions and moderation) done by a local, state, or federal election board (described above) and presented locally, state wide, nationally; as appropriate.

Limit all signs, media ads, etc. to the 30 days prior to a general election of 2 or 3 candidates per governmental position (elected office).

We appreciate suggestions for corrections or comments; that is call realistic communication and respect for the democratic process.