Open Left

All I was asking (4.00 / 1)

was what are our alternatives, which is what I think you were intimating also.

It would take years and possibly decades to change the system by trying to change electoral laws, voting rules, etc.

We should of course keep trying to make these changes, but if voters can be empowered by inventions like mine to set the agenda and basically play the role that political parties play of gathering voters together under a common policy agenda that will induce them to vote for party candidates, then my proposl is a more efficient and effective way to go.

Voters using my invention can do the exact same thing that political parties do while keeping control of policy agenda-setting, building consensus about policy priorities, and using their agenda to drive electoral processes.

Since the voters decide the agenda and who runs and gets elected to implement the agenda, what do political parties do that voters using my invention can't do? In the case of my invention, it is infinitely scalable so that any number of voters can join together to consensually build shared agendas at any level of government and run candidates at that level.

Voters using the invention can use it inside existing political parties, which would be the idea strategy, but if the major parties cling to their special interest financiers, voters can also break away from them and start their own parties and build an electoral base across party lines.

This is a far more democratic way to determine policy agendas and pick candidates to run on these platforms than the convoluted, obfuscating methods used by the two major political parties.

While I know that the primary system evolved and grew out of historical circumstances, the comical, undemocratic and agonizingly prolonged primary and general election processes in America are a national disgrace because after all the time and expense they entail, they result in the election of lawmakers who chronically flout the popular will.  

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by: Nancy Bordier @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 19:17:18 PM CDT

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