A Better Democracy

Figures vary slightly from source to source, but the voting stats for the 2024 presidential election looked something like this:

Only about 71% of the eligible voting population were registered to vote.

Turnout was high, though, for registered voters—88.5%, equal to about 63% of the eligible voting population.

About 50% of those that voted voted for Donald Trump. The others voted for Kamala Harris or a third party. That 50% equals about 44.25% of all registered voters, about 34% of the eligible voting population; I estimate about 25% of all US citizens; and about 22% of the US population as a whole.

My proposal: Require that only two candidates be on the final ballots for all congressional seats and the presidency. Do away with the Electoral College, which hasn’t accomplished jack squat since its inception. And require that all congressional seats and presidential candidates receive the votes of at least 55% of all registered voters in the congressman’s district, or at least 55% of all US registered voters in the case of the presidency.

The goal: What this will do is take back some of the authority from the political parties, as now a voter can have influence by simply not voting if they are unhappy with their available choices, hopefully resulting in the election of politicians that more people believe in. And hopefully it will then increase overall voter turnout for the elections of US congressmen and presidents as better candidates come along.

More details: In the event that the 55% requirement is not met during a particular election, an interim congressman, or interim president, could be appointed to fill in while the election process continues to play out. And the only voters allowed to re-vote will be the ones who were registered to vote at the time of the failed election in a particular district, or just plain registered to vote in the case of the presidential election. (This is, of course, to keep any possible physical movement of people from interfering with the ongoing election).

In the event there is controversy over whether or not the 55% requirement has been met, a judge could review the situation and decide quickly whether to uphold the results of the election, if it is clear that there are no issues that would come close to affecting 5% of all ballots.

It should be noted that the 88.5% turnout of registered voters for the 2024 presidential election is a national figure and does not apply to every state or congressional voting district. Some states and/or districts tend to have low voter turnout. So the 55% rule would no-doubt cause a greater “shake-up” for some congressional seats than it would for the presidential election, meaning a lot more people in those districts are going to have to get off their duff and vote for a change when it comes to their senators and representatives—good.

Commentary: As the late comedian George Carlin once pointed out, our government is a reflection of the US population, which poses the question: How do we elect better politicians, politicians that more people believe in, politicians that will serve the United States’ interest as opposed to only serving the rich and running the country into the ground, from the same old gene pool? A very good question, I’m sure you will agree.

So I would be lying if I said I knew this was going to fix everything, but raising the bar certainly is not going to hurt.

There is a catch to all this, of course, and it is a true “chicken or the egg” problem: Since our politicians make the voting rules, we are going to have to only vote for candidates who support changing the rules. So an overnight fix it is not, but I think I think it is so imperative that we give it a try that I created this web page dedicated solely to it.

Potential problems: It would be stupid not to think of potential problems that might arise. One problem I could imagine is, as opposed to a relatively small group of intelligent and thoughtful voters holding up an election by not voting, a relatively small group of radicals with a nefarious agenda could also hold up an election by simply not voting. I see two ways out of this situation: either a candidate comes along that even more of the “normal” voters approve of, thus gaining the necessary 55% by shear popularity; or, remember, only about 63% of the eligible voting population are voting. So there is a large number of people who could potentially get off their butt, so to speak, register, vote, and correct the situation.

Arguments: I can almost guarantee that there is going to be a campaign to discredit my idea—if enough people ever get behind it--and I can even predict what their (the naysayers) main argument is going to be. The ones that want to discredit the idea will probably adhere to the standard modus-operandi and hire some so-called experts to appear on national news programs and social media platforms to exclaim how such a vote requirement is an example of a direct democracy and will be the doom of us all. And they will keep repeating the message until they manage to get inside the head of people susceptible to such propaganda, even when they fail to produce any specific historic examples.

My idea is not a direct democracy, of course; it is still the election of a government of representatives, representatives who will probably still not represent even half the eligible voting population unless more people begin registering.

Anyway, I will close with something Mark Twain once stated, "If voting made a difference, they wouldn't let us do it."