Real Democracy in America

By Alice Stek

The current system is inherently undemocratic. Changes are needed to provide true democracy, including public financing of elections, IRV, proportional representation, and the elimination of the electoral college.

Eliminate the Electoral College. What happened to 1 person, 1 vote? Why should our votes in California be less important? We need to do away with that undemocratic anachronism.

Full public financing of all national and state election campaigns; no private funding. This will level the playing field and stop the deep pocket interest groups and corporations from buying politicians or public opinion.

Free and equal TV, radio, and newspaper time or space for campaign messages.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). In a real democratic system, you would be able to vote for the candidate you really want, and still be able to affect the outcome of the election. Wouldn't it be more democratic if the winning candidate actually had the support of the majority of the population? IRV is like having a runoff election within the regular election. It allows voters to rank the candidates, one, two, three, etc. in the order of their preference, and it requires 50% support for a candidate to win. If no one gets 50% on the first count, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is dropped and that candidate's second choice votes are distributed to the remaining candidates. This process continues until one candidate has an absolute majority of the votes. No voter "throws away" her vote with IRV.

Proportional Representation (PR) for legislatures. PR systems allow a wider range of viewpoints in legislative bodies (Congress, Senate, Assembly, etc.). The Republicans and Democrats do not represent all points of view in our society, and do not have all the answers to our problems. PR gives smaller parties a chance to elect representatives, and avoids the instability of some parliamentary systems. Most countries have proportional representation in legislative bodies. We would be represented by party platforms, not by geographic district. For example, for the approx. 50 California congressional representatives, a party that got around 30% of the vote would get 15 members, a party with around 40% would get 20, and a party that got around 10% would get 5 members. To provide some regional representation, a similar plan could consist of 5 congressional districts, of which two elect ten members each and three elect eleven members each, and we would elect 53 representatives just as we do now - but with a much more democratic outcome. All points of view with any sizeable backing would be represented in the legislature. Instead of the top party forcing things through, at the expense of everyone else, all points of view would be heard, and agreements between parties would be needed to pass legislation. Such legislation would be more representative and probably better. Based on past vote totals, at least some of these representatives would come from the Peace and Freedom, Green and Libertarian Parties, in addition to Democrats and Republicans. No clever changes in district boundaries would leave anyone in a safe district, to be re-elected endlessly without any actual ability. And every voter could go to a sympathetic congressional representative with similar politics. With PR you can vote for what you believe in and win.

The right to vote is the most important tool we citizens possess. It is the one thing we can all use against the rich and powerful interests that are blocking world peace, taking away our jobs, destroying the environment, threatening our retirement, corrupting the political process, eroding our health care, and jeopardizing our future. We need real democracy in the USA.