A Proposed Voting Act
Under the First Amendment to the Constitution Americans have the right to
petition Congress to pass laws. In the case of improving our political system
a national petition could be circulated to ask Congress to pass an Equitable
Voting Act along the following lines.
THE PETITION
We the undersigned ask Congress to pass the Equitable Voting Act as
proposed by the American Coalition for Election Reform. We further
state that we intend to take into account our representatives’ actions
on this request in our voting in future elections for the House and
Senate.
THE EQUITABLE VOTING ACT
GIVEN the need of the American people for a more equitable voting system
and given Article 1 Section 4 and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution
and the precedent in Oregon v. Mitchell, Congress hereby mandates the
following for all federal elections:
1. Henceforth, federal elections for president and vice-president and
for members of Congress shall be conducted by approval voting. Under
approval voting, voters can give one vote each to the candidate or
candidates they support with the candidate having the most votes
winning.
2. Henceforth, five political parties shall be present on the federal
ballot, four occupied by the top four in terms of the number of votes
cast for their candidates for president in the previous election for that
office or by the number of votes cast for party candidates in the previous
congressional mid-term election and the fifth position filled by a nation
wide competition open to other parties and groups. In addition, no
state shall deny the right of three write-in votes for each office on the
federal ballot.
a. Following the passage of this act, the Democratic Party, the
Republican Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and
the National Renewal Party shall initially appear on the federal
ballot.
3. The Federal Election Commission shall be responsible for
administering the nation wide competition for fifth place according to
the number of legitimate signatures on petitions for ballot access.
a. To assure that access is for a party of national importance,
no signatures from a single state in excess of 20% of the total
collected shall be used in calculating the valid totals for each
petition effort. The party with the highest number of legitimate
signatures so calculated shall be on the federal ballot.
b. In carrying this out, the Federal Election Commission shall
set reasonable conditions and a reasonable time period and
deadline for the petition process which are fair to parties and
groups in terms of organizing their efforts and fairly allows the
winning party to effectively participate in the following federal
election.
c. The Federal Election Commission shall be compensated by the US
Treasury for the costs entailed in carrying this out.
4. No nominee for president and vice-president of the five political
parties on the federal ballot shall be denied the right to
participate in the national debates held under the aegis of the
Commission on Presidential Debates or any other appropriate entity.
5. The procedures for nomination of party candidates for federal
office whether by primary elections, by caucuses, or by party
conventions or rules shall, consistent with the observation of
democratic norms, be determined by the political parties themselves.
But in the case of public primary elections for congressional
candidates, the voting shall be by approval voting on each party’s
ballot.
a. All federal incumbents not on any of the official party ballot
lines but eligible for reelection shall be guaranteed their own
ballot line for reelection unless they inform the U.S. Secretary of
State of their intention not to run. In the latter case, no tallies
shall be made for them nor considered for them in the election results.
The rights of representatives in this matter shall not be prejudiced
due to redistricting following the decennial census.
GIVEN the desire of the American people to elect their president and
vice-president by popular vote and given Article 1 Section 10 of the
Constitution, Congress authorizes the creation of an interstate
compact to allow the allocation of state electors to those of the
candidate with the most popular votes nationwide as long as that
candidate has at least a 50% approval rate nationally.
Could such a petition effort give the American people the tools to get
a less partisan and more ethical political elite in our federal elected
offices? We won’t know without trying, something that has not been
tried but clearly is sorely needed as the 2016 election well illustrates.