Download Rethinking American Electoral Democracy (Controversies in Electoral Democracy and Representation) epub

I agree with 85% of his proposals.
I especially like his idea of repealing all electoral reform, abolishing the Federal Election Commission and similar laws, and let candidates for office at the local , state , federal level raise and spend whatever money they want. The only requirement would be the candidates who receive the money (contributions over one thousand dollars in any one year)[my proposal] must indicate who gave them the money, and how much they received during a calander year from each person. Only living people can give money to candidates. No unions , corporate , or foreign nationals contributions permitted. PAC's could support a candidate or an issue, but could receive only donations from living human beings U.S. citizens. That way the voter can decide who is influencing whom and whether they wish to vote for the candidate or not. This will also allow elected officials to concentrate on governing and researching policy options instead of phoning for campaign contributions every week in order to finance their re election campaigns.
Ballot access for third party candidates is important. But ballot access for first time candidates is also important.
The author wanted closed primaries. I disagree. We need open primaries so that independents can vote and chose a nominee. I also want a three ballot election system and eliminate party primaries and the electoral college. This should ensure that whoever wins the office was supported by an actual majority of the voters in the district, city, state, or nation, instead of only a plurality of the voters as is the case with the current voting system used in most states known as the 'first past the post' election method which most states currently use.
The author suggests a Single transferable vote remedy to reduce elections and ensure majory rule, but I am not sure his proposal would achieve what we both desire. Becasue psychology plays a part in human actions in elections, I like my 3 ballot election proposal better. But we should test both the author's ideas and mine to see which is the most efficient and effective method to achieve results. My other idea is to return to having the state legislatures elect U.S. senators , but have them elect one man and one woman per state and give them a 4 year term with a 20 yr. limit as a means of improving the performance of the U.S. Senate. I would also modify the filibuster to mean that whenver a member stops talking about a bill, then a vote could be taken. But they or their collegues would have to continuously talk 24 hours a day to maintain a filibuster. They would eventually tire and we could then vote on the bill or nomination. Also it should require 10% of the Senate to put a hold on any bill or nomination. Only one senator should not possess the power to do that delay. Also , the names of the 10% should be published in the Senate journal with a reason stated for their delay of the bill or nomination.
I urge my fellow citizens to read this book and consider both electoral reform and additional constitutuional reform to eliminate the current political gridlock in Congress between the ultra liberal left who will spend us into bankrupcty and the moral majority right whose main goals are preventing abortion and raising taxes on the rich. Neither party is willing to cut spending to reduce entitlements which we simply cannot afford at any price given the current tax and spending policies both parties have supported for the past 50 years. We must live within our means and / the middle class must pay more in taxes too to finance the existing programs of : medicare, medicaid, and social security as all 3 progroms will go bust in the near term future without radical reductions in spending on them and much higher taxes for the middle class to pay for the benefits their rotten members of Congress voted to give them!

Had to read for class and barely opened it and my professor could tell we did like this book