A Twist on Public Financed Elections

Over at Slate there is an article about a different approach to public financed elections...

Give every voter a special credit card account containing $25 that they can spend at any time during presidential election campaigns. Voters could use these cards at local ATMs whenever they liked to send their "Patriot Dollars" to the candidate they favor for president.

If 2008 is like 2004, about 120 million Americans will go to the polls. If they could also go to their ATMs, they would contribute $3 billion in federal funds to qualifying candidates.

I disagree with the notion that money is a form of free speech and this idea builds upon that idea. However, the Supreme Court declared people have the constitutional right to use their money as a form of free speech. If it is a decided issues then the idea of Patriot Dollars might just be a compromise that would work. What are your thoughts?