Three Ways to Improve American Politics

I am writing this as a citizen of a world (and also as someone with a degree in Political Science) that no matter where we live are strongly impacted by whatever America does and whatever happens in America.

There are no easy solutions to the problems facing America today as I wrote in THE FIFTH COLUMN: Can America Be Saved.

These are the three most important changes I think need to be made to American electoral politics, although all three would require a tremendous amount of political will to make them happen.

1 – Eliminate politicians from controlling the electoral process

Elections cannot be free and democratic if they are run by politicians that benefit from their results, especially when they have a history of gerrymandering boundaries and suppressing the voting ability of their opponents voters. The United States needs a single neutral non-partisan non-political agency similar to Elections Canada to oversee their federal elections.

2 – Eliminate money from controlling the electoral process

Money should not be a gatekeeper to the electoral process. Elections should not be something that can be bought. Voting should not be like shopping where whoever spends the most on marketing gets the most customers. There need to be reasonable limits on spending by parties and candidates. There also needs to be reasonable limits on donations to political parities and candidates including a ban on corporate donations and the elimination of PACs and Super PACs. If people want to donate they should donate to the candidate of their choice or to a registered political party..

For example Canada’s spending and donation limits are outlined here:

Understanding spending limits – Elections Canada

Limits on Contributions – 2025 – Elections Canada

3 – Eliminate the domination of two parties in the electoral process

The American two party system, which shuts out any other party’s candidates, with a few notable exceptions like Independent Senator Bernie Sanders and a few left leaning Democrats who might be considered Social Democrats, limits the representation of Americans political views to those of the two major parties and leaves many voters not voting for their choice of candidate or party but for the lessor evil of the two parties they do not support, and leaves many voters feeling unrepresented and that their votes do not count.

The solution to this, at least for the House of Representatives, would be the implementation of Proportional representation that would see all Americans political views represented and all votes counting.

Proportional representation would be difficult to do in the Senate with only two Senators per state, although possibly feasible with 4 Senators per state. Alternatively Ranked voting would at least allow voters to select their preferred candidate as their first choice.

And then there is the Presidency with the archaic Electoral College system which can, and has, allowed the candidate with the fewer votes (of the actual voters) to become President. Why there has not been a popular uprising against this I will never understand. Clearly since proportional representative cannot be used for a single position, the obvious choice is a direct popular vote of citizens using ranked voting to elect the President, allowing every voter to vote for their preferred candidate as their first choice without losing the opportunity vote for their choice of the two leading candidates at the end of the process.

Postscript –The Senate

When I was looking at the impact of the two party system on the representation of American voters political positions and philosophies in Congress I could not help but think about the Senate and the issue of Representation by population. I am aware the Senate was not intended to be based on rep by pop but I was not aware of just how egregious the rejection of that principal was, considering that the Senate has as much political power as the House of Representatives and indeed individual Senators seem to be more influential than individual Members of the House of Representative.

As of 2025 the population of the 50 American states is 347.3 million (Source), while the population of the 25 least populated states is under 10 million (Source). The math says the voters in the least populated states have over 30 times the representation in the Senate than the voters in the most populated states. Again I have to say I do not understand why there has not been a popular uprising against this among the 97% of excessively under-represented voters.

I have no solution for this but it seems to me to be an affront to democracy. I sometimes wonder if Americans think their political system is god given and they have no right to change it.

Five Point Plan to Save Canada from the Cons

1. Justin Trudeau announces his intention to resign as Prime Minister to the Liberal caucus and the Liberal caucus appoints an interim leader.

2. Justin Trudeau resigns as Prime Minister and asks the Governor General to select the interim Liberal leader as Prime Minister of a National Unity Government with Jagmeet Singh as Deputy Prime Minister and Elizabeth May in the Cabinet (in order to allow assured confidence and time for a new Liberal leader to be selected before the next federal election).

3. The Liberal, New Democratic, and Green parties announce they will not compete against each other in the next election, agreeing that whichever party (of the three) won the most votes in each constituency in the last election will not be challenged by the other two.

4. After the next election, if successful, the National Unity government will strike a special Parliamentary committee with expert researchers to consider expert and public testimony on electoral reform, followed by a report and legislation, with implementation of a new electoral system by Elections Canada.

5. The National Unity Government will be dissolved and a new election held under the new electoral system and a truly representative government that reflects the votes of the Canadian people will be elected.

Tories Going To A Lot of Trouble To Hide Their Innocence

Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims that the Tories “in and out scheme” was in accordance with Canada’s election financing laws.

"Our position is that we always follow the law as we understand it," the prime minister said in response to a reporter's question at a joint news conference with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in New Orleans.

"We were following in the last election the interpretations that had been put on that law in the past," Harper said. "If those interpretations change, we will of course conform, but we will expect the same rules for every single party."

If they were so innocent why the elaborate attempts to cover-up the scheme, including the use of forged documents.

Even before last week's raid, Elections Canada had obtained numerous statements from party candidates and invoices from the Toronto-based advertising agency Retail Media.

Investigators also talked to Retail Media executives, including chief operating officer Marilyn Dixon, who when shown one candidate's invoice, speculated that it must have been "altered or created by someone" since it didn't conform to the appearance of the company's invoices.

Why was it necessary for Elections Canada to call in the RCMP and require a search warrant to get access to the documents regarding the scheme.

RCMP searched Conservative party headquarters in Ottawa on Tuesday (April 15) at the request of Elections Canada.

Elections Canada spokesman John Enright confirmed that elections commissioner William Corbett requested the assistance of the Mounties to execute a search warrant, but he wouldn't say why.

Elections Canada is probing Conservative party spending for advertisements during the 2006 parliamentary election campaign. Corbett, who enforces the Elections Canada Act, launched an investigation in April 2007 after chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand challenged the spending claims.

The Tories have done, and are doing, all the things that someone trying to hide a fraudulent scheme would do and none of the things that someone who is innocent would do.

Of course they would have you believe that there is a conspiracy of people out to get them. The only conspiracy will be at the next election when the voters conspire to put them out of office.

The Canada Elections Act - CLARIFICATION

It appears that I have been duped into believing that the Prime Minister actually understood the legislation that his government proposed and passed.

The amendments to the act do not establish photo identification as mandatory.

Bill C-31 states:

SUMMARY

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or error. It requires that electors, before voting, provide one piece of government-issued photo identification showing their name and address or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing their name and address, or take an oath and be vouched for by another elector.

And for more certainty it states:

21. Sections 143 to 145 of the Act are replaced by the following:

Elector to declare name, etc.

143. (1) Each elector, on arriving at the polling station, shall give his or her name and address to the deputy returning officer and the poll clerk, and, on request, to a candidate or his or her representative.

Proof of identity and residence

(2) If the poll clerk determines that the elector’s name and address appear on the list of electors or that the elector is allowed to vote under section 146, 147, 148 or 149, then, subject to subsection (3), the elector shall provide to the deputy returning officer and the poll clerk the following proof of his or her identity and residence:

(a) one piece of identification issued by a Canadian government, whether federal, provincial or local, or an agency of that government, that contains a photograph of the elector and his or her name and address; or

(b) two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer each of which establish the elector’s name and at least one of which establishes the elector’s address.

The Fifth Column apologizes. It should know better than to take Stephen Harper at his word.

The Canada Elections Act and "Reasonable Accommodation"

The Canada Elections Act has recently been amended to require photo identification of voters. Elections Canada, the body responsible for enforcing the Act, has ruled that "electors wearing face coverings for religious practices" do not have to provide photo identification when voting but can provide two pieces of "authorized" identification or be "vouched for" by another elector. Is this a reasonable interpretation of the act. Requiring photo identification becomes rather redundant if one cannot compare the photo to the elector.

What is "reasonable accommodation in these circumstances. According to the Globe and Mail a number of Canadian Muslim organizations have criticized Elections Canada's handling of the issue. "Mohamed Elmasry, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, which says it is the country's largest Muslim organization, said Muslim groups were not consulted about the rule change. If they had been, he said, he would have told officials that the small minority of Muslim women - perhaps as few as just 50 of Canada's 750,000 Muslims - who wear the niqab would have no problem showing their faces to a female election worker to verify their identity."

It seems that all that was required was consultation with the people affected and a much more reasonable accommodation, one that does not conflict with the spirit, if not the letter of the law, could have been made.