A NEW WAY TO CHOOSE OUR PRESIDENT THAT COULD HELP US ELECT THE MOST QUALIFIED PERSON
Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 8-26
Recent U.S. presidential elections have centered on whatever candidates think will get them votes, including hero facades and similarities (same state, same social class, hobbies, beer drinking, gossip and dirt, and issues that evoke great emotion). Even issues that receive our focused attention, though, do not receive enough detailed attention to improve voters’ knowledge. We hear only slogans and triggers for an issue that voters can interpret for themselves (so that candidates don’t really have to expose their thinking about the issue). Regardless of how we might try to improve our primary system, the issues would still not receive useful attention. No politician wants to expose his/her true thinking about an issue, since some voters would disagree, and every exposure of his/her thinking on an issue adds to the number of voters who have a possible negative view of the candidate.
The country could benefit from a method of selection of candidates that would give voters more information about what candidates actually think and believe about the various issues and what they would actually do about the issues if elected. If we agree that a candidate’s appearance, media status, and charm are not appropriate justifications for being president, then we need a system of electing the President that requires candidates to expose their thinking and intentions on all major issues. I suggest something that could replace our current primary system.
Our parties could continue to endorse particular candidates (rather than put forth their own candidates) My personal opinion is that parties should not sponsor candidates themselves, since in our two-party system that puts all of our focus on those two candidates and on nothing else. (This could be different if we had five or six parties.) The parties will never give complete and objective information about their candidates to voters, since their purpose is to win elections rather than to benefit the country.
1. First, the Federal government would establish a panel of eight to ten persons to create a list of the major issues facing the country and to pick the five or six issues that are most important. The panel would include persons familiar with politics and the state of the country and will include persons from all parties (ensuring that no major issue is simply overlooked or overlooked on purpose).
2. The country is divided into units of 5,000 voters each. This division will be done by each state. Each unit holds at least one session (attended in person and available on-line, and recorded for further on-line access) in which each self-nominated candidate (each person who wants to be President in that 5,000) has 30 minutes to explain his/her thinking and intentions about all major issues identified by the Issues Panel. (There will be roughly 68,000 base level voting districts.)
A panel of three moderators for each district’s meeting will be appointed by the counties involved in each district.
3. All registered voters in each 5,000-voter district will vote for the person who has presented in the local presentations that he/she believes is best prepared to serve the country as president. Persons presenting will be the only candidates in this election. Registered voters who have not attended or viewed the presentation will also vote in this election.
4. Base level districts are then combined, ten contiguous districts at a time, to form 6,800 new districts of 50,000 voters each, and the same process occurs (with the ten winning candidates from the ten 5,000-voter districts that make up that 50,000-voter district). These ten candidates meet to present for 30 minutes their ideas and beliefs on the same five or six issues.
5. The country is divided into 680 500,000-voter districts (again they must be contiguous), with the same presentation and voting procedure.
6. The country is divided into 68 5,000,000-voter districts, with the same procedure.
7. The country is divided into seven 50,000,000-voter districts, with the same procedure.
8. The seven winners are the slate of candidates for the usual Presidential election on the second Tuesday of November.
The winners will have presented their knowledge and ideas about the five or six issues five times before the final election.
There is no need for any other “primary,” and this procedure eliminates qualifying for state ballots and the money this involves. It replaces these with a meritocracy and direct demonstration of what a candidate has to offer if he/she were actually elected.
If a candidate does not follow the requirements of the procedure (does not reveal to the audience his/her knowledge and solution-ideas about the issues, it will be clear to the voters that he/she does not have knowledge or solution-ideas about the issues (or refuses to reveal them). If a candidate engages in only name-calling and demeaning speech, two of the three moderators may remove him/her from the stage after ten minutes. Some voters may still vote on the basis of the candidates’ appearance, etc., but I believe that most will rely mainly on the knowledge and solution-ideas presented.
Emotional and personality issues are, of course, important, too, in addition to ideas and speech-making, in electing a President, but most people can judge these things, to some extent, from how a person delivers the speeches in this process as well as from the content.
Thirty minutes is a small amount of time for five or six issues, but the time for each candidate could be expanded to forty-five minutes. I doubt that more than five candidates will show up for the initial presentations, out of the 5,000 people in the initial districts, and the forty-five minute presentations would take roughly a total of 4 hours, but if there were ten candidates, then this process would take 8 hours. For the next stages of presentations, there would be 10 candidates each time, taking a total of 5 hours to present. I hope that the excitement of local control of candidates for president would be sufficient for people to stay through the time necessary (or to watch the recorded session).
Theoretically people might not even attend or view the presentations but still participate in the vote, perhaps on the basis of party, etc., and this would be their right.
At one presentation per week and allowing a week for reviewing and voting, it will take ten weeks for the total process. (It would be nice if this were the total of our campaign time!) This series of presentations could start approximately four and a half months before the election, leaving two months for campaigning and politicking immediately prior to the election.
Our fifty states would have to cooperate in adopting this improvement on our current primary system and in setting up the various districts, including districts that had voters from more than one state. Or, states could adopt this procedure only if they chose to. I’m confident that the procedure would prove to be desirable for all states.
Our two major parties will probably do all they can to sabotage or otherwise control this process, since it would take power away from them, but they can advertise, etc. during the final two months. Groups, such as parties, could investigate (“vet”) these seven (finalist) candidates if they wished. Perhaps having these presentations will highlight the fact that our parties do very little to ensure that well qualified candidates are selected and elected. (The parties are more concerned about supporting someone who “can get elected” than they are with supporting candidates who are well qualified.)
This procedure is not perfect, but it would represent a serious effort to select candidates on the basis of qualities that are essential for properly carrying out the duties of our President!
(Equally heretical as these presentations is my view that each of these seven candidates should be given a million dollars from the Federal treasury to pay for their other efforts to let voters know about themselves in the final two months, with all money contributions by individuals or groups banned totally.
This is not a restriction on free speech, since contributing money to people to speak for you is not speech, in my opinion, and contributing money to candidates or parties to do other than objectively inform the public skews elections away from electing the most qualified candidate. Individuals and groups would have total freedom to express themselves about candidates by talking to and with voters, but an advantage in informing the public by individuals and groups with more money to buy more media time would be nullified. Our elections should not be a contest in collecting money.)
(For a discussion of the skills and abilities relevant to the office of President, see my essay “Electing the Best Qualified Person as President” at livewiselydeeply.com under Government.)
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