Civics, My Way

I've been swapping email with my bro in Houston about the sorry state of affairs created by this country's insistence on allowing pretty much every citizen over 18 the right to vote. About half the eligible voters can't be bothered to go out on election days, but the ones who show up tend to keep things fucked up. Politicians know their best chance to win depends on limiting turnout to people who are voting purely out of anger, since they'll likely vote based on personal prejudice rather than any particular comprehension of the issues. The result of this system is that we end up with too many people like Rick Perry and Pete Sessions in public office.

Getting into e-mail exchanges with my bro is one of the few activities in my life that causes me to let my imagination roam freely, and that's how I reached my decision on what the country REALLY needs.

Under my plan, all elections would be held according to the established schedules and cycles. However, rather than being determined by popular or Electoral College voting, all federal and state elections would be based on coin flips. My bro and I, being of sound minds and reliable to a fault, would be in charge of flipping the coins and calling heads or tails. We would alternate flipping and calling every two years. In the years I was flipping, the Democrats would be heads and Republicans tails. Vice versa in the years my bro was flipping. There would be no more third party candidates since they never win a goddamned thing anyway, and just clutter up the political landscape with their foolishness.

This system would ensure that public offices were divided fairly evenly between the parties, allowing our constitutional system of checks and balances to actually work. Even better, politicians could actually vote their consciences rather than pandering to ignorant fucking yahoos in their districts. There would no longer be any need for the legal bribery known as campaign contributions, since everyone seeking office would understand everything would be coming down to the toss of a coin and a 50/50 shot.

When all was said and done, federal and state governments in which every elected officeholder was chosen by a coin toss would be at least as effective as the ones we have now, and quite possibly more so. A lot of the factors that now breed corruption and dishonesty would be eliminated since the only votes that politicians would be chasing would be those in party primaries. The odds would no longer favor incumbents holding a seat forever, and existing term limits would still apply. Inbred yahoos would no longer have the power to keep people like Michele Bachmann in office year after year.

Every other year my bro and I would be really busy flipping and calling, and election days would probably need to be expanded to election weeks since there would be hundreds of seats in Washington and the state capitols to be filled. We would require an annual salary of at least 2.75 million dollars apiece to compensate us for the interruption of our normal routines in the even-numbered years, and a small staff of attractive young secretaries to tabulate the results of the coin flips and mail out the notification letters to the winners and losers.

Voters would still cast their ballots in all elections below the state level, and could focus on the issues that were most likely to affect them directly, like school taxes and potholes in the street. This would hold down the risk of widespread national damage created by universal suffrage. I'm reasonably sure that Americans would become so satisfied with governments chosen by coin toss they'd wonder why we didn't change sooner.

Added 10:12 pm, same day: My bro has noted, astutely so, that the 2.75 million proposed above is probably on the low side. Since so much money is being saved elsewhere, we need to jack up that compensation package to at least 4.5 mil apiece annually.