I don't know about the taxpayer one. What about women at home? Along the same lines though, I think voting should be excluded from anyone on the dole, anyone who accepted welfare et al at any time during the period between the last same vote and this one. You go to the welfare line, and you sign away voting before you get your check.

It would be nice to have voting choices, but remember this: the Electoral College only has DEM and GOP electors making any 3rd party candidates literally and legally unable to actually win the White House. I used to believe in direct election of the POTUS but now have concluded we must keep the EC for if we don't, given the nation's demographics it would be virtually impossible for the GOP to ever win the WH again. Because the East Coast and Left Coast are so left wing, with such large populations, the rest of the nation does in fact become FLYOVER COUNTRY and the votes of those who are more conservative basically don't count.

I like your addition - the committee gets paid only if it produces. And yes again on 'adaptive test'.

Jan

Actually, prior to the bill of rights if you were a Black American or a Women that owned property you Were allowed to vote.

Right now, if you want to donate, you have to attach your name to the donation, as well as your address. For large amounts, there is tracking to see if you donated too much - see Dinesh D'Souza's prosecution. So make all donations use a person's SS number. They have to tie that to tax forms anyway which also cite address - makes it very easy to verify programmatically/automatically.

And it's not a free speech issue at all. "No taxation without representation" can just as easily be turned on its head as "No representation without taxation" - which is one of the points you make and I agree with. Voting ultimately is about individual voters anyway - not corporations, unions, etc. What I get tired of are people with a lot of money going into other states and trying to affect their politics even though they aren't going to be the ones affected by decisions made for that district - like Bloomberg's recent stab at Virginia's gun rights or the Wisconsin education union vs Scott Walker or a hundred+ other such attempts. I want politics to get back to being local because I believe it would encourage more people to get involved and educated - which leads to better decision-making and better life in general.

"I think that the change to only letting taxpayers vote would change things considerably..."

I completely agree, but I would advocate for something slightly more specific: that those who receive welfare checks waive their rights to vote from the time when they receive the checks until the voting year after they stop receiving them.

The dirty little secret is that most of the 'super-wealthy' are limousine liberals... most Republicans are self-made and not 'old money', it's kind of contrary to the philosophies of hard work that conservatism espouses.

How about restricting voting rights on the basis of one's status as tax consumers? Any person who's income is 100% derived from taxes gets no vote. Someone who's income is half tax funded with the other half funded from private enterprise get half a vote. Only those who derive all their income from private production and who are forced to relinquish a portion of it to taxation would be entitled to a full vote.

In other words, only those who are net contributors to the wealth of the community may vote, those who are net consumers of that wealth created by others may not. This also does away with the "education" qualification. Education, certainly in the public school system, is more indoctrination than anything else anyway.

Just dreaming. LOL
-

I'm not a lover of the 12th Amendment either, or the 2 party-system, just stating it would be difficult and unlikely to overcome it. I'm not a fan of coalition governments though, for all the criticism the left (and the UK for that matter) throw at Trump for vulgarism for example, he's really rather tame compared to an average session of British Parliament.

And the democrats voting thing just doesn't hold, while its certainly true that he is very much attracting independents and disenfranchised Blue Dog Democrats, I fail to either see where that is a problem, nor does it significantly change the outcome. He continues to win whether its an open or closed primary, not by as large of a margin, but that only indicates to me that Cruz is just not attractive in a general election.

The other criticism - Trump can't beat Hillary, is also BS, they only poll 'likely voters' for that, not the 65% that don't usually vote... when its really about 1 establishment versus 1 rebelling figure, the 70% that are unhappy with the establishment are going to vote for their preferred, in fact, many Bernie voters suggest Trump is their alternative because they have so much hatred of Hillary.

Nonetheless the numbers that show up continue to be very different from what was polled. Ask Hillary about Michigan. If she can't beat a self-declared socialist, she can't beat a marketing master. Secondly, he hasn't even started on her, he has no personal boundaries, the whole Clinton Bimbo Eruption is coming out, Benghazi, Email, Impeached for not defining 'oral sex' as 'sex', lying to congress, its all coming out... Granted, much of that is 'not Hillary', but it's certainly Bill and he's on the trail for her, so he's certainly fair game. Just wait until the Clinton Foundation donor records are commonly known.... Is it really wise to have a person as President that takes millions from friends of Putin, supporters of Islamic terrorism, or Russian mafia figures?

I would argue that a more likely conspiracy is not that democrats are 'crossing lines' to make sure that Trump wins out of a perception that he is a weaker candidate, rather, I would be amazed if Bernie is not getting significant contributions from Republicans to help keep him in the race and keep clubbing on Hillary... that would be conservative 'malpractice' to not do so... heck, both my wife and I threw him some cash, and I know many who have as well, I think its hilarious. That's just good defense.

Cruz and his people are so arrogant that they can't possibly imagine that not everyone sees his point of view. Regardless of his politics and that question, that standpoint of his is probably his most negative trait. Having a legitimate conversation and debate is a hallmark of our republic, you would think he as a trial lawyer would understand that.

"Allow all parties unlimited vetoes on the questions and a limited amount of time in which to create the test."

I like it. And don't pay any committee member who doesn't produce a functional test!

"Would you have to take the test in the voting booth, concurrent with voting?"

Sure. And make it an adaptive test so sharing answers doesn't get you very far.

I've been shouting for that for years.
Also, persons running for any office, even dog-catcher, should be made to take the test. And they must pass by 85%.

The problem here resides on the efficiency of education. Not anyone can vote, you have to be a citizen and, well; citizenship isn´t easy to achieve in the states. As for Mob Rules scenarios well, that´s one of the problems of the democratic system as a whole; and again I believe education is fundamental in order to defy this. If a district uses one history book, then we´re in trouble. Individual thought isn´t appreciated and, well; the whole two party system is built to sustain Mob behaviour. But, who wants people to think individually and begin demanding the truth? Clearly not the government.

That would be extremely hard to control and would create a free speech issue. I think that the change to only letting taxpayers vote would change things considerably and make the electorate more [not fully but more] resistant to Bullshit ad campaigns. At least they would have enough common sense to earn a living.

People study hard to pass their drivers test - it means something to them. If we had a test that was about that scope and level of difficulty that had to be passed before a person could vote it would improve not just voting but the status of voting.

I can see a way to create a list of questions that 'all sides' would agree on: Allow all parties unlimited vetoes on the questions and a limited amount of time in which to create the test. If it does not get created in that span of time, then dissolve the committee, appoint new people and try again. Do this until a test emerges.

I wounder 'how' this would work, though. Would you have to take the test in the voting booth, concurrent with voting? That would be the only way you could be sure that the person taking the test and the person casting the vote were the same individual.

Jan

I'm not sure I follow you there.

Now one idea I have floated before is to restrict campaign finance contributions to individuals who actually lived within a representative's district. If you - personally - don't live in that district, you can't donate money to them. Can you imagine what that would do to the excesses of lobbying?

"If you split up the electoral vote counts, it quickly becomes impossible to win the presidency."

That's largely a result of the Twelfth Amendment. Prior to its passing, the President went to the highest vote-getter and the Vice-President went to the second highest. I'd like to re-institute that system.

Your concerns about coalition government are well-founded and I am not trying to dismiss them. What I think broadening out the Party system would do is make it much harder for any single Party to run government. That's how we've gotten Obamacare and other similar disasters.

"What is really a fact, is between Sanders, Trump, and Cruz, about 70% of the voters are saying "I've had enough of this BS""

I agree. The people do not feel as if any of the mainstream candidates is truly representative of them. There was a great article I read that was an analysis of many of Trump's supporters and it contended that it wasn't Republicans who were voting for Trump as much as the disenfranchised Democrats!

One way to avoid this is to only allow individuals to vote. That way a corporation couldn't. Very few individuals would have significantly more voting power that anyone else, and we would cut out the deadbeats, dependents and looters. This would more than offset and other disparity.

I agree that there is more to it. What I think the author is pointing out is that the system perpetuates and encourages graft because the looters have discovered they can vote themselves perks. Any move to start cutting them off would be a move in the right direction. I'll take $60 Billion as a starting point. It doesn't mean we have to stop there or that there aren't other avenues to pursue, but we aren't going to make any headway until we can begin to restrict governmental decisions to those who have to pay for them.

I agree completely... I'm not entirely sure which one of the 'geniuses' at the RNC decided that painting potential voters and supporters as 'RINOs', or my favorite, 'A Rathead in a Coke Bottle', is somehow helping them get enough votes to win... It has become kind of an "I'm more conservative than you club", when the real aim should be winning elections.

I generally agree on the spectrum and multi-party thing, but our electoral college system more or less makes a third-party, or multiple parties unlikely. If you split up the electoral vote counts, it quickly becomes impossible to win the presidency. I know other countries do the coalitions to form a government thing, but I don't see how that would work without significantly changing the constitution. For example, would the 'Peace & Freedom Party' or whatever support a Democrat in exchange for a couple of cabinet positions and turning over their 30 electoral votes (?), would the Senate then confirm the cabinet positing, what if it doesn't? etc.

The other argument I'm sick of is "if so & so is on the top of the ticket, every Republican down the ticket will suffer..." Oh really? what does one have to do with the price of tea in China? Romney was the top of the ticket in 2012, and the Republicans gained seats... and you can't find a worse candidate than that guy was. We've had strong Republican presidents that lost seats during the mid-year, so if any Republicans are in trouble, it's the winds of change blowing.

What is really a fact, is between Sanders, Trump, and Cruz, about 70% of the voters are saying "I've had enough of this BS"... and are voting for something completely different. It's not 65% voting against Trump... I still have yet to figure out that math on that bullshit when he's getting the high 40's pretty regularly in a 4-man race. It's 70% are not happy, period.

The smart thing to do would be to understand that, embrace that, and maybe start realizing that the guys that have been there for 20, 30, and 40 years need to go back to being a 'citizen' as the elected government was intended. I'm not in favor of term limits if someone is doing a good job, but the gerrymandering of districts to makes sure the same person always wins is really a problem for me. I live in a district that literally follows a freeway lane (one freeway lane) for 30 miles, connecting two very conservative districts and skipping over 30 miles of very liberal political leanings... consequently, we have Tom McClintock. I happen to like Tom McClintock very much, he's very ultra-conservative, does he necessarily represent the general political direction of Northern California? Not really. He's also impossible to defeat even if the district wanted to change direction, he didn't even have an opponent in the last election to my knowledge. That's not good for the Republic. Tom uses the term "Rathead in a Coke Bottle" by the way. I think I first heard it from him actually.

The problem with putting any restrictions on voting is that those restrictions could too easily be turned against us.

It's an interesting rant, but he missed a few important points. The first is that the welfare cheats are gouging us for only about $60 billion per year. The real pros are taking us to the cleaners for about 15 to 20 times that. Certainly, if you haven't gone to the bar W ranch (put your ass on the line in the military) or are a non-looting businessman, or at least own property and pay taxes, you shouldn't be allowed to vote. Just make sure that you're not getting subsidies, set asides and other loot from your neighbors. The poster child for looting is the welfare recipient, but the real looters are the folks getting corn subsidies for an unnecessary fuel additive, corporations who can't get a foreign contract without government loan guarantees or ex-im bank loans, companies who are hiring illegal aliens to work for them on the cheap, etc., etc. THEY are taking us down faster than the penny ante welfare recipient; they aren't stealing enough to bring this country down - their ambition level is too low. Anyone who thinks he's getting over by getting an apartment subsidy and food stamps doesn't have the smarts to destroy the richest country on the planet. Let's stop ALL the mooching. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

No insult taken.

But I question the wisdom of aggregating both political power and money in the same hands with no counterbalance. If you were to suggest one portion of the Legislature to be voted on based on property and another to be a popular representation... Oh, wait: you'd get back to the original Senate and House.

In a very real sense, however, the country is already being ruled by the rich. It's called Lobbying. And what has been the result: laws passed that favor a few at the expense of the many. Your suggestion is interesting, but basically leads to business oligarchies running the country and we can pretty much see that in Japan with the keiretsus. Their economic meddling led to their meltdown in the 90's from which they haven't really recovered.

"Who gets to be the person that determines what those questions are"

You are correct, of course. Most of this is a merely a thought experiment. But it's also an interesting commentary on how far our nation has fallen into mob rule.

"obviously, there is a combination of both new primary voters, as well as established primary voters"

I happen to believe that there is an even simpler answer: that there aren't two ideologies/parties which can sufficiently cover the voting spectrum. I think that the Democratic Party figured this out twenty+ years ago when they started moving their party toward hard-core progressivism and ignoring the large "blue-dog Democrats" that were so popular around Reagan's time. It's no wonder that the Democratic Party now votes almost entirely as a party because they are only supporting and campaigning for those who share progressive/socialist values.

The Republicans stupidly assume that this gives them a larger voting base. It doesn't. It is impossible to appeal to everyone at the same time. Anyone who has taken Marketing 101 in college will tell you that the secret to successful product marketing is segmentation - focusing on specific/targeted markets. This is where the Republicans are absolutely awful and why they get in so much trouble: being a Republican in today's age means absolutely nothing ideologically! It used to be that the Republican party was largely conservative in nature. That hasn't really been true for two decades at least, but is one of the reasons RINO is such an common pejorative. RINO really means anti-conservative Republican.

What really needs to happen is that we need more choices in the political landscape. We have only two choices right now and together they only barely represent about 50% of the voting public and that number decreases every year. I think we need more market segregation so that there are more options for people to pick from. We need a Libertarian Party (Rand Paul). We need a Constitution Party (Ted Cruz). We need a Business Party (Donald Trump). We need these to fill in the holes left by the Republican Party (Marco Rubio), the Democratic-Progressive Party (Hillary Clinton), and the Democratic-Socialist Party (Bernie Sanders).

They actually don't pay that much tax compared to the bulk of the middle class....But even if they did....why shouldn't the person who pays the piper call the tune anyway.....that sort of suggestion sounds like something a looter might say! By the way....I am not meaning to be insulting to you.

An interesting idea, but do you really want George Soros and Warren Buffet running the country?

The questions on such a test would need to be changed at short unannounced times.
Dems who'd oppose such a test as well as picture IDs would surely circulate cheat sheets.