The other day, a lady was talking to me about how unhappy she was with the way our Legislature was handling an issue. I suggested that she contact her legislators and tell them her concern. She scoffed at that suggestion, saying, “Why would I do that? They never pay attention to what we say. Why don’t they?”
So I told her about what I feel is a flaw in our election system that our forefathers may not have, or may have, felt is a flaw.
Some countries in our world finance elections with public dollars, and some, like ours, leave the financing to the candidates.
A candidate in a country that finances the elections needs only to try to do things such that the voters support him/her. A candidate in a country that leaves election costs to the candidates must either have a lot of money or a lot of financial support from others.
I didn’t know how much money it cost to be competitive in an election until I ran for a state office several years ago. And if a member of Congress wants to be re-elected, he must not do things while in office that will cause the financial supporters to withdraw their financial support.
In America, if candidates are fairly competitive in the way they address issues, the candidate who has the most financial support will win the election a majority of the time.
Obviously, there are people in our country who like the way our elections are financed. But I feel it would be better if a candidate needed only to do what he felt is best for the constituents involved and not have to worry about how the next campaign is going to be financed.
So I feel that the process is flawed.
Fred Ash, Sandy