SECTION III: ELECTIONS

A. Voting

1. Every U.S. citizen shall have the right to vote.

2. Voting shall be mandatory for all U.S. citizens. A U.S. citizen who does not vote in a public election shall be fined $25. Funds collected from such fines shall be applied towards the financing of campaigns.

3. To increase voter turnout, Election Day in any county, state, or federal election shall be declared a holiday.

4. The Electoral College shall be eliminated to give the proper one-person, one-vote representation in Presidential elections.

5. Exit polling shall be mandated in every election with an automatic recount if there is a two-percent discrepancy from official results. Exit poll results shall be withheld until all polling stations are closed.

6. Election records shall be freely open to the public. U.S. citizens shall monitor elections and election records, including, but not limited to, ballot counting. Access to records must be timely—before elections are certified. (credit: blackboxvoting.org)

7. Equal and non-discriminatory access to voting shall be assured for all voters. Personal identification shall not be required to vote.
 

8. Voting shall be private. There shall be no opportunity for any party to ascertain how a citizen has voted. Barcodes on mail-in ballots shall be prohibited because they may expose a citizen’s voting choices to polling officials or others.

9. No person or entity shall be allowed to interfere with, stop, or intimidate a registered voter from casting a ballot. Anyone found guilty of intimidating voters, interfering with an election, or tampering with votes shall be sentenced to a minimum of 5 years in prison.

10. Members of a national party convicted of tampering with elections, intimidating voters, or obstructing voting shall lose all votes in the county of occurrence. If tampering occurs statewide, said party will be forbidden from soliciting votes in the state during the next similar election.

11. The President, Vice President, and every appointee of the President, including Supreme Court Justices, shall be immediately removed from their positions if it is found that the President, Vice President, or members of their party committed fraud in the election of the President.

12. All ballots for city, county, state, and federal elections must be preserved and available for recount for a period of five years.

13. Neither private companies nor publicly held corporations shall manage or operate elections, vote counts, or election information.
    At minimum a private election management company shall be subject to the same Freedom of Information Act requirements as public agencies and shall be subject to citizen oversight and monitoring of election records, and ballot counting. FOIA transparency shall include proprietary software and all internal communication pertaining to elections.

14. Private election management companies shall be forever prohibited from doing business in the United States if it is found that any officer, director, employee, or representative of the company is convicted of tampering with the vote.

15. The U.S. Elections Assistance Commission shall be eliminated.

16. County, city, state, and federal elections shall use an Instant Run-off Election system if a candidate does not receive more than fifty percent of the vote.

17. Voters shall be allowed to express their dissatisfaction with candidates or choices of candidates. The category, “None of the above,” shall appear on ballots and these votes shall be tallied.

B. Campaigns

1. The U.S. Treasury shall finance Presidential and Vice Presidential elections. Financing for U.S. Congressional campaigns shall come from the treasury of the state in which the candidate resides. States, counties, and cities shall mandate public financing for those running for elected office. Public monies shall be divided equally among all qualified candidates. Qualified candidates may come from any party with more than 100,000 voting members across the United States, and not just from the Democratic or Republican parties.

2. Money or support shall not be contributed to any political campaign.
    Until a ban on lobbying is implemented, political action committees, corporations, Section 527 non-profit organizations, and lobbyists shall be banned from giving money, seed money, soft money, and gifts or in-kind contributions of any kind to a candidate or campaign, and shall be banned from working for or against a candidate.
 .

3. A U.S. citizen may make a maximum contribution of $50 in seed money to a candidate or as regards an election issue.
 

4. A citizen must collect 100,000 signatures to qualify as a Presidential candidate. A qualified candidate for any other office is a citizen who can raise a to-be-determined threshold amount of seed money and/or signatures on a petition.

5. Television and radio stations shall give free and equal campaign airtime to qualified candidates.

6. The non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates, controlled by the Democrats and Republicans, shall be replaced. The federal government shall establish a Commission on Debates comprised of all qualified parties. Qualified parties shall be those that have more than 100,000 voting members in the United States.