I read the front-page article Nov. 22 about Rep. Jared Golden seeking an overhaul of the U.S. House.
It included things I have been saying for years. The ranked-choice system helps prevent one party from financing a third party to drain away votes from their opponent.
Another thing is to do away with is winner-take-all selection of Electoral College delegates. In theory, that system can switch up to 49% of the minority votes to beef up the 51% majority side to 100% of a given state. Talk about voter fraud!
And Citizens United allows the 1% of uber-rich people and corporations to toss in many millions of dollars to buy seats for candidates who will protect or enhance their favored positions to make and keep money out of the pockets of the less favored. To my way of thinking, corporations are not citizens with votes. And anyone who makes more money than they can usefully spend in a lifetime should be able to pay a fair amount of taxes to support the country that makes it all possible.
So, to get back to “By the People” we need to do away with unlimited and anonymous funds in campaigns; switching the votes of citizens who are not on the majority side; tax shelters, even subsidies, for rich families and corporations; and start making more use of ranked-choice voting like we have in Maine. Those reforms could be instituted even if expanding the numbers of desks in the House chamber doesn’t happen.
Harvey Versteeg
Augusta
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