Voting Rights
Voting rights and election fraud is a matter of national security. In the words of Nathanael Greene, a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, "We fight, get beat, rise and fight again." We cannot give up fighting for voting rights and against election fraud. We should also stop relying on those who depend on it to advocate for change. If we spend millions of dollars on space exploration, then we can spend millions exploring new ways to better our democracy!
I am not against the electoral college more than I am for its reform and moving towards establishing a national popular vote interstate agreement. Gerrymandering should be against the law and HAVA (The Help America Vote Act) should be amended to include standards for better security. While we develop greater research into online voting, paper ballots should be used in conjunction with electronic records followed by post-election audits.
The Electoral College. The electoral college was established in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution. The way a state’s electors vote in a presidential election is dependent on who wins most of the votes in that elector’s state. The problem with this system is that while some may argue it works well to represent states with smaller populations, it does very little to represent America as a whole.
As a U.S. Senator, I promise to support legislation in favor of popular vote interstate agreements because only these will ensure that a voter in Gary, IN, for example, is just as relevant as a voter in Los Angeles, CA. The electoral college is a system that must not be entirely eliminated but innovated and updated by and through constitutionally appropriate state-based actions. National popular vote compacts would ensure that winners of presidential elections would at least be individuals favored by most Americans.
Gerrymandering. Now, ideally, we want representatives to “represent” the political views of people across a geographic location or area. I believe in perfectly proportional representation as was intended by our founding fathers. However, some believe that if they are in control that gives them the ability to unfairly create districts and/or draw up district maps that would be neither compact nor fair, giving advantage to themselves. As a future U.S. Senator I intend to work diligently with experts in the field and my colleagues to create and introduce legislation which would provide that partisan gerrymandering is unacceptable and must be countered with national standards.
Ranked Choice Voting. In the United States, voters usually select a single candidate for each position on their ballot. This often allows candidates to be declared the 'winner' despite only winning a minority of votes. In Ranked Choice Voting, when used effectively in many U.S. and international elections, people rank candidates in order of preference. Vote counting continues in multiple rounds until one candidate has at least 50% of the vote or the true majority. This is achieved by removing the lowest vote-getter in each round and awarding that ballot to the voter's next preferred choice, just like a caucus, and always with exactly one vote per voter in the final tally. Ranked Choice Voting better represents the will of voters. I support it.
Ballot Access Laws. Ballot access laws are a form of candidate suppression which remove qualified people from being selected by voters. Absent a serious concern for a candidate's behavior, all candidates should be allowed to run for whichever office they choose. As a senator, I will fight for legislation against ballot access laws which have disparate impact on certain groups of people.
When it comes to money in politics, it is my deeply held belief that political campaigns are nothing more than organizations for individuals who want to lead in some capacity, and as long as they can raise as much funds as they need to, they should be able to have the liberty to spend it how they want, but I also believe in getting dark money out of politics! I will fight for greater transparency.
Finally, I intend to support greater research and development into new online voting systems which would be safer and more secure, allowing Americans to vote from the privacy of their homes since it appears many states continue in their negligence in the upkeep of voting equipment and remain unprepared for natural disasters, such as pandemics. Until then, I am a strong proponent of paper ballots used in conjunction with electronic records followed by post-election audits.