At this time in our U.S. history, the methodology of our elections and voting are in dire need of restructuring. The main problem in this country now, as I see it, is that a minority group of ideological lawmakers are able to distort established law and regulations against the wishes of the majority of our country’s voters. Those elected leaders are actually making majority rule hard to manifest.
There are the ever present trigger topics: Abortion, gun regulation, immigration policy, the environment and personal rights of the LGBTQ+ population. But there are so many other issues that face our nation: Universal health care, public education, the southern boarder, the country’s infrastructure, living wages for the lower tiers of our population, … there is so much our government should be working and progressing on which could and should be enhancing our lives, but a faction of congressional members in Washington have become obstructionists. They have not only slowed down the progress of our country, they are actually harming our society by placing political ideology above our national interests.
When they can not tweak the system for their benefit at the Federal level, they work their maneuvering in the State level. Our federal Supreme Court is now taking actions along the same lines. Through political gaming of the electoral college, gerrymandering, PAC monies and the filibuster, these leaders are purposely modifying the mechanisms of our elections and promoting their own ideologues. They are abusing old standards that are now obsolete relative to the ways modern society operates today.
I believe that is why authoritarianism is such a world threat now. Authoritarianism is so much easier in managing a population than in a true democracy. I put most blame for the situation in our country today with what Trumpism has ushered in. Future history will eventually have people shake their heads and wonder how we had gotten here, but I’m confident that history will eventually blame our present methodology of elections and dark money, which implicates all politicians.
To me it is simple: National politics today attracts, mostly, the worst kinds of personalities, namely, unethical egotists. I also believe these traits are influencing our present judicial system. We’ve been here before: Pre-Civil War slavery, Nazism, McCarthyism, Segregation, Watergate, the insurrection, The Big Lie, … why aren’t we learning from our own history?
France is on a correct path through their presidential elections. I’m not going to bore you with their entire history, that’s easy enough for one to research. To summarize, the French have elected their Presidents by direct popular vote since 1965, in a standard, two-round system (which it almost always must have). A French citizen may become a candidate if they are able to raise 500 signatures of standing, elected officials from the republic (apparently, that’s harder than it sounds).
Basically, their election is a seven-week process. Seven weeks before the pre-dated second round (when the President is actually elected), the official list of candidates is published. Four weeks before the dated second round, is the official start of electoral campaigning – There is an upper limit on all campaign spending that is monitored by an oversight committee.
When the official campaign begins, each candidate must strictly maintain an equal amount of airtime on TV and radio (Imagine)! Two weeks before the dated second round, French citizens go to the poles and vote for the qualified candidate of their choice. If no candidate in this first round of voting wins more than 50% of the vote, the two top candidates with the most votes move onto the second round of voting. Citizens vote once again on those final two candidates and the winner with the most votes becomes the President.
Only votes for either of the two established, final candidates are counted. France’s Constitutional Council announces the winner within 10 days. Imagine our Presidential elections running for seven-plus weeks, start to finish, with limited spending and completely equal campaigning time and exposure. With what our country is about to face in 2022 and 2024, it sounds almost like heaven. Especially since our country’s campaigning is becoming like our wars: Never stopping, never ending.
The point being, our system for voting, along with all the anti-democratic hurdles in order to be able to vote, should be deemed obsolete. Take the dark money out of campaigning, count each legal ballot from each legal citizen and the majority wins. It can and should be as simple as that. If the transition of power after our elections is threatened or obstructed, accountability and consequences should be carried out swiftly and appropriately. What we have witnessed in the U.S. since the 2020 election is a travesty, and I pray we will never witness it again but fear that it is quite possible we will, and our out-dated methodology isn’t helping.
Here in our country there have been five presidential elections where the presidency went to the man that didn’t have the majority of citizen votes – 1824: Adams over Jackson; 1876: Hayes over Tilden; 1888: Harrison over Cleveland; 2000: Bush over Gore; 2016: Trump over Clinton. And by the way, all those elections had four candidates running.
I started to really scrutinize our electoral system after the 2000 debacle. I often wonder what standing our country would now have if Gore had carried that election. I’m not sure we would have gotten so bogged down with our warring in the Middle East, and I’m certain we would have become world leaders in the fight for the environment. That election broke my heart and I find it ironic that Florida turned that election.
In 2016 I did not want Clinton in the White House, but she was certainly, without a doubt, the lesser of the two evils, as they say, and that fact has now been proven.
I view the upcoming midterms and the following 2024 elections as the most critical in my lifetime; I’m 72. I will never forget Jan. 6; I thought I was observing an insurrection in a third world country. It is past time for a true majority rule in this country. And our citizens should never allow any elected official to be placed in office with out retaining the majority of our vote. Never, ever again.
It is also time now to establish term limits on both our elected leaders and judges … including both the State and Federal Supreme Courts. Our population should now realize that personal ideologies in politics at this point will not go away, or stop being pushed onto us through social media.
Sure, choose your ideology, but if you’re not in the democratic majority do your best to work within that system in a productive way, not purposely working to only hobble it. We are presently witnessing the other option of ultra-conservative anarchy. I particularity hope and pray huge masses of citizens (especially younger generations and people of color) will turn out to vote no matter what obstacles are placed before them.
These up coming elections demand that citizens register to vote and then vote. We must determine who, how and what our true majority stands for and how our majority rule leaders will legislate. We’re in a historic period, in a fight for the USA’s soul, now, not later. If you want social progress, you had better vote in the 2022 and 2024 elections and weed the ultra-conservatives out because they are causing great harm to our country.
Tim and Kristy Wood moved to Beaufort in 1974. He worked as a carpenter in both restoration and new home construction, as well as operating a shop specializing in custom woodwork, Wood on Wood Specs. He is semi-retired, involved with fine woodworking and formerly sat on the City of Beaufort Zoning Board of Appeals.
