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Public Televisions's NOW is airing show called "Votes for Sale" this Friday at 9:00 pm. The show discusses how clean elections are working in Arizona and 7 other states. From NOW's website...
check out our special hour-long investigation into the fight to keep American elections free and fair across the country. Airing less than three weeks before Americans go to the polls, "Votes for Sale?" will spotlight the so-called clean elections movement, a radical public-funding experiment adopted in Maine and Arizona to revolutionize how campaigns are conducted. It works like this: candidates for public office receive a flat sum of money from the government to finance their campaign. In return, the candidates agree to use almost no private funds to run their elections.Here's a preview of "Votes for Sale."
Pushing special interest money out of the election process may do more than clean things up. It could also open the door for a variety of people who care about democracy to run for office with realistic hopes of winning.
4 comments:
Wow, this sounds like a really sweet plan. The only thing I don't like about it is that the money comes directly from the government. Taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for candidates they don't agree with. And the government shouldn't be forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars to any schmuck who wants to come and run for office. Maybe their parties should have to nominate them for the payment or something.
If this ends up working out though, Arizona is quickly getting it's political act together. They are *gasp* demanding people have a photo ID to vote, and getting tough on immigration. I just might move back to the desert if they keep flexing that common sense!
uh, the photo id law is not such a great idea... why don't you check out the other NOW episode called "block the vote"?
Actually, they say in the NOW piece that most of the money comes from fines on traffic violations, an optional donation on tax returns, and donations to a fund.
Anyone who thinks asking for something as simple as a photo ID to vote is a bad idea, is out to mess with votes.
I can think of no decent reason to not verify people's identity.
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