The 2016 election is coming up quickly with the first debate being less than a month away. With any election partisan tensions seem to grow greater and greater as the election season drudges along. As the election moves on, it has become evident that the system has become rigged to support only two of the many political parties in America, most evident in the struggles of America's most popular third party, the Libertarians. It has become increasingly evident that the established parties do not care about a fair election, but it is important to present a list of election reforms that all political parties can agree on.
1. Make information regarding registration more accessible.
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From a technical standpoint it is extremely easy to register to vote. In most states, all you have to do is go online and fill out an application, but there are a lot of options to consider when registering. First, many people do not know that they don't have to register as one of the two major parties, and many people think that registering as an Independent means that you can't vote in the primary; however, in many states independents can actually choose the primary they want to take part in. People also don't know their choices on where they can register. Specifically, college students are unaware that it is deemed their right to register to vote at the address most convenient for them, meaning their college dorm. These rules are somewhat difficult to find and should be made more readily available to the public.
2. Voter Persuasion/Intimidation
If you've ever physically gone to vote you will see the swarms of people in front of the polling place passing out flyers and trying to sway votes from one side to another, which is fine because the first amendment protects that right. The problem comes when it evolves from typical speech to harassment. Anybody in the Philadelphia area remembers the election of 2012, where armed members of the Black Panther party showed up at local polling places to "persuade" people to vote for Barack Obama. I am also sure that members of the NRA have shown up at polling places to with their open carry permits in full effect. It doesn't always take the form of armed protesters, though. To share a quick story, During the primary election, there were people threatening to "smack [me] in the head" if I voted for Donald Trump, along with other verbal harassment. Now, I have never been a Trump supporter, but people are going to be less likely to vote if they have to push through a crowd of people screaming terrible things at them.
3. Election Day Isn't a National Holiday
Nothing gets on my nerves more then when politicians complain about low voter turn out, because they have yet to declare the first Tuesday of November a national holiday. Low voter turn out is a huge problem in this country. In the election of 2012, under 60% of eligible voters actually participated in the democratic process. Voting is one of the core values of our country, and we should celebrate it by giving people the day off to participate in the beautiful privilege that we are blessed with of choosing out government. For Christ sake we have a holiday for a guy who didn't actually discover America.
4. All or Nothing Delegate Assignment
Our election works state by state. If you win an election in a certain state you get the delegates for those state, but this totally disregards the wishes of the blue voters in red states, red voters in blue state, and third party voters in their entirety. Wouldn't it be better to assign these delegates proportionally, meaning that if a certain candidate wins a certain percentage of votes, then they are assigned that number of delegates? Yes, of course.
5. Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is the act of drawing Congressional districts to favor a specific part or interest group. This leads to the creation of "safe districts", which are districts that would take an act of God to overthrow the incumbent part. This should be illegal. It eliminates the significance of the opposing votes in that district and ultimately takes away from vote accuracy. Many states are moving to "non-partisan committees", which is comical because there is no such thing. Instead, the country should move to establish a set way to draw Congressional districts, such as basing districts on grouping close counties together. You know common sense.
6. Debate Participation
Like stated before, the electoral system goes a long way to dissuading third party involvement, and the way that debate participants are chosen is no different. In order to qualify to be in the televised debates, a candidate must poll at an average of 15% in 4 national polls. This is to make sure that the stage isn't filled with hundreds of candidates talking about complete garbage, not that we aren't gonna get that anyway. The problem is that some serious third party options get completely thrown out, because they aren't as visible as others. The rule should be switched from arbitrary polling numbers to something more concrete like getting on the ballot in all 50 states. This year, the only third party candidate to do so was Gary Johnson, and before that the only person to come close was Ross Perot in 1992.
