Would you change the way we vote?

[Mordan]

The Founding Fathers wrote the constitution to protect us.

Do you think the democratic system we have to select the president should be

1) improved
2) radically changed
3) kept as it is.

imagine you have to devise a new constitution for a new state.

The sheeple phenomenon was not known back then in the 1790.

Should we accept online voting (can we make it secure and open source ?), use of referendums for all laws like in Swisstzerland , poll access based on tests ratings. Judges have more votes on issues like the Patriot Act than ordinary citizens.
I'm ready to give more weight to someone more educated than I on certain issues. Would you?
Someone with a degree in Economics will be able to get a higher rating and more votes for economic issues. A servicemen would have more votes for War issues.

[Jeremy]

Well the two-party system can be annoying...

[nate895]

I like the way it is setup, just make it more open and fair. Count the paper ballots in public that everyone would use in public and I am fine.

[Broadlighter]

Return our country's economics to sound money and forbid the government from borrowing money. Chop the special interests off at the knees.

It's indebtedness to monied interests that creates the inequities in our electoral system. Fix that first and then we can talk about reforming the election process.

[Kludge]

Make it federal law that one person gets one vote for both nominations and in the G.E. Disband the "super delegate" system and the electoral college, they undermine "democracy".

[Exponent]

Get away from plurality voting (at this point, I feel that just about any other system would be better), and ensure that voting methods are designed in such a way that they can be publicly critiqued before, during, and after the voting process by anyone who wishes to do so. Also, remove all legal recognition of parties, and instead recognize individuals only.

[Xenophage]

The system of voting is ultimately irrelevant. Democracy itself is no more a guarantee of freedom than a monarchy or dictatorship when the majority of voters is one that conspires to impose tyrannical government upon themselves and the minority.

The Bill of Rights was an effort to to limit government, but as we've said so often on these forums: the Constitution is only as effective as our society is willing to let it be. Unfortunately, our society today is one that extols socialist ideology.

If it were really up to me, I might change the voting system to allow only people with IQ's above 120 to vote, certified by independent organizations (not the government itself). I might also require a 3/4 majority in congress to pass any law, while only a 1/4 vote to repeal a law (e.g. Starship Troopers). I might implement weighted approval voting and scrap the plurality voting we currently have.

The real problem facing us though has nothing to do with our system of voting, or how well written the Constitution is. The real problem is the philosophic weakness of our country. People hold inconsistent political opinions that lean toward government interference in every aspect of life, just as they hold inconsistent ethical and epistemological positions that they have acquired second-hand without really thinking about it. The society itself is decayed and crumbling, and I wish I could see a way to reverse the trend.