To correct defects of the Presidential election system that emerge in practice, to eliminate an unfair natural bias against any candidate outside of two dominant political parties, to encourage voters to participate and vote for their favorite candidate despite political pressure, to select more moderate Presidents who reflect the ideals of the people and not fringe ideology, to prevent a House of Representatives from making an unpopular 3rd place candidate President, to eliminate the conflict of interest by which a Speaker of the House could completely disregard the will of the voters and make himself President, to address the gross disparities of the obsolete Electoral College and "winner take all" policies of state governments, and to make clarifications to various points of previous contention, a Constitutional amendment is needed.
My 2016 proposed Article II is based upon the existing Article II, with parts copied from the Constitution. It's interesting that they capitalized all the nouns, which I think makes it easier to read.
The existing relevant amendments have been included, such as D.C. treated as a state in Presidential elections, and inauguration on January 20.
I made an effort to remove gendered pronouns, though there are a few "he or she's" remaining.
The two largest additions, the bulk of this Article II, are a new Presidential election process, and procedures for appointing Vice Presidents and Presidents as may be necessary.
Outline of changes, mostly in order:
President has one six-year term.
Insist on four or eight all you want, but there's no reason it can't be six like a Senator, and lots of reasons to ban re-election.
A new set of qualifications. A Pres or VP must be 40 years or older, must have one birth parent who was a U.S. citizen, must be a documented citizen living in the U.S. for twenty years, and must have served 4 years in Congress or Governor of a state. The citizenship issue is tricky, I know my rules aren't perfect, but it's based on the Constitution, a sort of careful compromise, and if the voters want a President with a foreign accent, so be it. And I didn't want to exclude Ted Cruz or John McCain or Donald Trump.
May be elected President once. After being promoted and serving less than 3 years as President, followed by at least 3 years out of office, may be elected for one full 6-year term. No limit on VP reelection.
The President will not run for office nor participate in political campaigns.
Parties can hold private caucuses or primaries in the winter if they choose, and pay for it themselves.
A first-round multi-party election will be held for all voters in each state to narrow down the same field of candidates, because we want the President to be chosen by the people, not by a party, or gang, or trick or loophole or mistake.
The 5 most popular parties in a state may each nominate one person to the ballot, so the parties still get some pull. Other candidates will have access by petition signature count. This creates a wide field of candidates to choose from, and creates competition to help prevent two-party domination. The Constitution should encourage multiple parties instead of practically requiring two and only two.
No ballot access fees. Some states are just plain corrupt with their high fees. Like $20,000.
New rules for ballot access uniform in all states, first round election the same day in early June. Presto, every state's spring election matters, and every voter has a reason to vote.
There may be up to 25 candidates on the first round ballot, and states may limit the number only as low as 10. Parties will have to actually beat the competition instead of keeping them off the ballot.
First round will allow absentee ballots, no write-in line, no federal (abroad) ballots. No write-in because it streamlines the counting, and if you cared, you should have petitioned for ballot access. These three items will reverse for the fall election.
Each voter may choose zero, one, or two candidates. The right to vote for two can be thought of as similar to ranking candidates, or voting Yes to one and No to another candidate, but without the negative side effects.
On voting for two, we have seen recent elections where the winner would likely have not won if the system would more carefully gauge the people's preference, 1992, 2000, 2004. In 1996 and 2008, the Republican primary produced a candidate they should have known was too old to run against a young Democrat. Al Gore quite clearly would have beaten Bush if not for Nader taking some liberal votes away, and this is the most damning example, where the second most popular candidate was made President, and a decent candidate is made a spoiler. Simply allowing people to vote for two would greatly alleviate these problems. Realize that the candidates' strategy would change if the rules are changed, parties could allow their people to run as independents if they wanted to, more decent candidates would dare to run if they no longer needed a party nomination or no longer needed to worry about being a spoiler. People should be allowed to vote for Nader AND Gore, for Bush AND McCain, or even Bush and Gore. Let go of the single vote concept, unless you're God, and you absolutely know that one and only one person should be President.
The top 4 candidates from each state advance. Detailed rules in case of tie. If it seems wrong to drop the votes of 5th place and lower, realize that the old primaries are often winner-take-all, not just dropping 2nd place, but also stealing their votes.
Having the top four from each state advance is also a rare taste of proportional representation, though only as part of an election process. Americans may not be familiar with proportional representation. An example would be if each state could have three Senators, the Senatorial election would produce three new Senators at the same time, so one would be conservative, one liberal, maybe one ethnic or religious minority, and in this way more people than just the largest voting bloc get to be represented in government.
Congress tallies the first round vote among the advanced candidates of each state, and the top four in the nation are made Finalists for the fall election. The fall ballot won't be random weirdos who clawed up to the top of their party, it will actually be the four top candidates, depending on how much the parties choose to restrain their own people.
Finalists choose official running mates.
The fall Presidential Election Day is made a national holiday, partly because absentee ballots will not be allowed. Many people are concerned that absentee ballots can be fraudulent, also we should ideally be voting the same day instead of gradually over several weeks, also absentee ballots create counting issues.
I moved it into October as a suggestion, I want our friends in Florida to have plenty of counting time before Christmas, which was apparently a factor in the appointment of a recent President. Also less chance of snow storms when people will be voting in person. Columbus Day turns out not to be a good day because it coincides with Canadian Thanksgiving.
States are permitted to check voter identification, because it would be silly to not. Voters will have plenty of warning and opportunity to get ID, and it should be free of cost, which I did not include in Article 2, because it would be more properly placed into an Article concerning people's rights, rather than the Presidency.
No absentee ballots (in the fall) for President, and the Federal government must provide polling for Americans abroad in its service.
Any who vote on two ballots will be prosecuted for a felony.
Election officials must not infringe on the right to vote, must obey orders of federal judges, and may be subject to charges if in violation.
The fall ballot will have 4 finalists, plus one write-in line.
Each voter may vote for up to two candidates.
Write-in candidates must receive a minimum percent of the vote in a county or state in order to be counted. It would be hell to record every single clown's vote for comic strip characters. And the write-in option could allow a candidate to bypass the entire process, so they better be really popular.
States report their votes to Congress. Same as before.
A new formula, based on a percent of the U.S. population, will be used to calculate state bonus votes. I estimate the vote of a person in Wyoming will count for 70% more than that of a Californian, instead of 200% more as it stands today. I'd rather make it all popular vote, since one American should have one vote regardless of what state he is in. But this is my offer of compromise, and if my formula isn't liked, it can be adjusted. Compromise is needed, because the states would never ratify a drastic change to a pure popular vote.
It is ridiculous to say that a million acres of dirt should outvote a million people, but that's what we do.
A state's bonus votes will be limited to the number of individual votes cast in the state. This prevents the last guy in Alaska from having 200,000 votes. He will have 4 votes at most.
Congress tallies the popular and bonus votes, and the candidate with the most votes wins. If it's too close to call (which shouldn't ever happen but we know how people are), the bonus votes are dropped and the winner determined by popular vote (a built-in tiebreaker). If still tied, the acting President breaks the tie (which really should never ever happen, a tie is like a one in a million chance, but to be responsible, we need a rule to cover it). Of course, the Supreme Court can always step in and do whatever it wants as long as the Constitution doesn't say they can't. There is no perfect system.
A bunch of new contingency rules, checks and balances, in case the President-elect dies, in case there is no VP-elect, etc. I have the President, the President Pro Tempore, and Speaker of the House involved in one-man decision making, which might seem undemocratic, but if we can't trust these guys, then what's the use. Let them be fully and undeniably accountable for once. The Senate votes to confirm, not the House (with the House Speaker still 2nd in line for the Presidency, we wouldn't want to continue a ridiculous conflict of interest). When anyone fails to act, they will be bypassed.
The section on nominations, specifically Supreme Court, is modified to require a vote of disapproval of the Senators (not "the Senate") to stop an appointment, to prevent Mitch McConnell from abusing the system. If the Senators don't vote against the nominee, the President has the authority to appoint.
