The primary system suppresses the democratic process and it’s important that we take a look at fixing this. Despite what we get from the media coverage, we must remember that the primary election functions as more than a selector for each party’s candidate for president. We qualify candidates for both chambers of the U.S. Congress, state Assembly, state Senate, and most city and state offices to the general election through our primary system. Our current system:

• Makes some voters more important than others;
• Suppresses the independent vote; and
• Gives damaging levels of power to the two teams controlling our political process.

Evolve the primary system – get better candidates. Get better candidates – elect better officials. Elect better officials – save our sinking American ship. And we must save our sinking American ship.

Here’s how to fix it:

1. A national primary date. 

All states need to have the same primary date instead of the 20 or so different voting days we have now. This will help in two ways. First, it eliminates the voting advantage of the states that go first for the presidential election, making voters in California and New Jersey as important to candidates as voters in Iowa. Second, it will improve voter turnout. We all know about election day in November, but with more than 20 dates for primary elections, it’s difficult to keep the population informed on a state-by-state basis.

2. Open up the two corrupt parties with more open primary elections. 

The biggest obstacle for almost half of these United States is the closed primary which refuses to allow voters who aren’t registered with the party to vote. Forty-five percent of Americans identify as independent and they are routinely barred from voting in our current primary system.

3. More nonpartisan, blanket primaries for congressional, state legislative, and city and state offices. 

A handful of states already use nonpartisan election systems, including California and Louisiana. The gist is this: Everyone runs and the top two or three vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, qualify to the general election. This helps dispel the “spoiler” myth that the two-parties have concocted (if you run as a progressive independent, you help the conservatives and vice versa). The nonpartisan primary improves the democratic process by eliminating the disqualifying condition of party affiliation.

Read more at: IVN.us

The post Dealing With Our Broken Primary System appeared first on Follow My Vote.

The GOP primary debates in August and September were ratings blockbusters, in large part because the Republican Party has degenerated into a drunken circus. But notwithstanding the fact that three of the candidates on stage Tuesday night—former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley; former Senator Jim Webb; former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee—have negligible support among Democratic voters, and thus a big incentive to make an impression, the first Democratic debate is expected to be a more sober, and lower-rated event.

An obvious, but undermentioned reality of U.S. politics at the moment  is that making a splash in the Democratic party doesn’t require grasping for reactionary, unpopular policy positions, while in the Republican party, it does.

But just because the Democratic candidates don’t deny climate change, or promise to build walls along our borders and deport all of our unauthorized immigrants, doesn’t make them immune to trafficking in fantasy. And that makes it incumbent upon us in the media to clearly distinguish between the candidates’ ideological preferences, and the promises they’ll reliably be able to keep.

The gloomy truth about the 2016 campaign is that while Democratic candidates, like Republican candidates, must campaign on aspirations, all of them are aware that if the country elects a Democrat in 2016, he or she will probably inherit a Republican House, and perhaps a Republican Senate as well, significantly limiting the potential scope of liberal reform.

Democratic candidates can draw strong ideological distinctions between one another, but their presidencies will be circumscribed by less lofty constraints like political strategy and technocratic imagination.

For instance: Bernie Sanders wants college to be free for everyone; Hillary Clinton wants to means test tuition subsidies. This tells you something important about the different roles the two candidates think the federal government should play in our higher education system, but almost nothing about how higher education policy would change in a Sanders or Clinton presidency.

Tuesday night’s debate is an opportunity to sort abstract preferences from the likely governing constraints a Democratic president will face in 2017, and to assess the candidates’ strategic thinking about how to work through or around those constraints.

We already know how the leading candidates propose to grapple with polarization and gridlock. Clinton has consistently argued that making progress in our system of government today requires an appetite and instinct for partisan combat—a theory bolstered by the massive resistance with which Republicans responded to President Barack Obama’s promise of accommodation and bipartisanship.

Read more at: newrepublic.com.

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Birgitta Jonsdottir, who was previously a member of Iceland’s Parliament for the Citizen’s Movement, helped found the Party in the wake of Iceland’s financial crisis. According to the same “The Independent” article, Ms Jonsdottir said, “To be completely honest, I don’t know why we enjoy so much trust, we are all just as surprised, thankful and take this as a sign of mistrust towards conventional politics.”

The party campaigns for internet and data freedom, as it was partially formed by several prominent internet activists, including Smari McCarthy. The party exists in over 60 countries.

In 2013, the party won three seats in Iceland’s parliamentary elections and they have also been using their European Parliament seats to pressurize the European Union into changing copyright laws. In two months the party nearly doubled in popularity. According to RT, even though the Pirate Party has the smallest faction in the national parliarment, it is currently almost as popular as the two most powerful parties, the Independent Party and the Progressive Party. According to an opinion poll cited in the article, “the Pirate Party would score 30.1 percent of votes if elections were held today.” From the same poll by Icelandic market research company MMR, the ruling Independence Party had fallen from 25.5 per cent to 23.4 per cent.

“People are starting to realize that the whole system is corrupt, not just a few politicians,” Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, Pirate Party’s chair and one of its three MPs told Vísir news website in March. “They don‘t trust it at all. I think they appreciate it when someone points this out.”

In the US, the Pirate Party, whose chapter was formed in 2006, aligns its goals with the International Pirate Movement. It has eight main values, including transparent government, individual privacy, egalitarianism, and an individual-over-institution mindset. In reference to their name, their site states, “For our rejection of authority and profit-seeking when it does not serve the common good of all people, we have been called “pirates”. We reclaim this label of “pirate” and abjure its derogatory, incendiary implication. We are Pirates. We stand for the liberty, equality, and solidarity of all human beings, and against all threats they may face.”

Follow My Vote is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to bringing light and transparency to the world of politics. With the Pirate Party, who campaigns for those same values, gaining ground in countries all over the world, including the US, clearly the world of politics is experiencing a movement in that same direction.

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Ever wondered why the Democratic Party’s mascot is a donkey? How about an elephant for the Republican Party? Kind of a funny story… and it involves cartoons!

Way back in 1828, Presidential candidate Andrew Jackson was labeled a “jackass” by his opponents and later in 1837, was depicted in a political cartoon riding a donkey which was said to represent the American People. But it wasn’t until 1870 that it was popularized by cartoonist Thomas Nast and became associated with the Democratic Party. It is commonly referred to as the “unofficial” party logo.

Democrats have since embraced the donkey as strong-willed, smart, and brave.

The Republican Party’s elephant was born in 1874. The same cartoonist which popularized the donkey as the symbol for the Democratic President is credited with its creation. In a cartoon original published in Harper’s Bazaar, the democratic donkey was depicted at the zoo in lion’s skin & scaring all of the other animals away. One of the animals was an elephant labeled “The Republican Vote.” That seemed to stick as Nast & other cartoonists continued to use these two animals as symbols for their respective parties well into the current era.

Republicans have since embraced the elephant as strong & dignified.

We here at Follow My Vote, however, don’t take sides or subscribe to either of these political parties or any other political party for that matter. We are a non-partisan organization that simply favors the popular vote among the people.

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