Follow My Vote To Sponsor United We Stand Festival

Will Long — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 20:21:13 +0000

Follow My Vote will be sponsoring the United We Stand Festival and Open Presidential Debate at the University of Colorado Boulder on Tuesday October 25th. In addition to the debate, there will be speakers and performances by more than 10 different bands and artists.

Tickets are free to public and students get priority. More info here.

The festival is put on by the the Free and Equal Election Foundation. Free and Equal’s mission is to broaden electoral choices through education and direct positive action. They are a non-profit, non-partisan organization that works to give all ballot-qualified candidates the opportunity to debate important political issues in public forums. Free and Equal continues to help level the political playing field and to inspire more independents and alternative party candidates to run for office. They strive to empower and encourage more people, especially young people, to get involved in the discussion, participate in the political process and hold their government accountable. Free and Equal believes that “more voices, more choices” will help shift the political power back to the people, away from the control of a few corporations and political elites, creating a more balanced system where all are free and equal in their ability to participate.

Keynote Speaker: Kweku Mandela

The grandson of the famous Noble Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela. Kweku continues the work of his grandfather in Africa by empowering the country’s youth. Kweku Mandela will present the “Mandela” award in honor of Civil Rights Activist Amelia Boynton-Robinson.

Other Speakers:

Mr. Ed Asner (Emmy Award Winning Actor)

Mr. Ramsey Clark (Former US Attorney General)

Music

The following bands and artist will be performing at the United We Stand Festival:

The Flobots, known for their hit “Handlebars“.

PE 2.0 “The Next Generation of Public Enemy”

Xiuhtezcatl of Earth Guardians

Aaron Ableman

DJ Cavem and Alkemia Earth

Eddie Keaton of Freedom Movement Rhymes4theTimes.com

Gordon Turrisi of www.watchermoon.com

Jill Knight of www.jillknight.com/

Hani Naser of haninasermusic.com

Jon Nash of “Beautify our Lives”

Samuel J of samueljmusic.com

Spragga Benz

Tom Neilson of www.tomneilsonmusic.com

The “One Note Stand Acapella” at University of Colorado, Boulder will perform The National Anthem prior to Presidential Debate.

Electoral Reform Experts To Speak

Adam Kaleb Ernest, CEO & Cofounder of Follow My Vote

Frank Atwood of Approval Voting

Hunter Scarborough of Voter App

The Debate

The following presidential candidates have been invited to participate in the debate:

Libertarian Party – Gov. Gary Johnson

Green Party – Dr. Jill Stein

Republican Party – Donald Trump

Democratic Party – Hillary Clinton

Approval Voting

Drb5880 — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 19:29:14 +0000

The United States Voting Method is flawed, and I doubt anyone would argue otherwise. With unsecured voting systems in place in many states, we don’t even have technology to redeem us. It is simply unacceptable that in our day and age that we have to choose what many would call the lesser of two evils. The fact that third party candidates are unfeasible due to a lack of funding as well as their ability to split votes between them and the major party they spun off of, it’s a mess. There are many voting systems that have been proposed that seek to eliminate the thought process of, I should just vote for the less-damaging candidate. One such system proposed is approval voting.

What is Approval Voting?

Approval Voting is a single-winner voting method in where a voter can approve of any number of candidates. The candidate that gets the most approval votes wins office. This would help eliminate some of the disadvantages third party candidates have. They no longer would be splitting the vote and voters will be more likely to throw their support behind someone they don’t think it will be wasted on. Approval voting can be considered a form of score voting, with two values, 0 and 1—or a form of majority judgment, with grades restricted to good and poor. Approval voting has been adopted by the Mathematical Association of America (1986), the American Mathematical Society, the Institute of Management Sciences (1987), the American Statistical Association (1987), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1987)

Other Options?

Ranked Voting is in which the candidates are ranked in the order of their fitness for the job. The lowest ranked person gets dropped and then all of their votes go to their second choice and so on and so forth. This ensures that the most popular candidate wins the election whereas in the orginial instance of approval voting, it might be the least suitable approved candidate.

Why this matters?

Our current voting system is flawed as I pointed out in the first paragraph. The only way we can change that is by electing people who support changing the voting system and its technology. You can help by joining our Beta signup list and helping us bug-test our code before we try to market it. Through your help, we can make our voting technology more secure and keep candidates who are the least popular out of office.

About the Author: David Brock is a marketing intern at Follow My Vote.

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