AMERICANS TO WASHINGTON: QUIT DANCING AROUND

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Myron Stevenson
5 years ago
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2 For Release: Upon Receipt Contact: Javier Perez, Media Contact Phone: (949) AMERICANS TO WASHINGTON: QUIT DANCING AROUND BELLINGHAM, WA: Washington politicians aren't even trying to fix the mess this country is in. No matter which party they're from, all they care about is themselves. So it's time to take the whole U.S. voting system and shake it all about. In One Person, One Vote: How Changing Our Voting System Will Get Us Out of the Mess We're, W. R. Wilkerson III says that we need to take matters into our own hands and vote directly on issues like abortion, Iraq, immigration, taxes, guns, affirmative action and same-sex marriage. The only way to fix this country is to do it ourselves. One Person, One Vote launches a fresh new political movement just in time for the 2008 election explains why so many Americans don't vote shows that when we do vote, our votes are ignored teaches how the United States is a republic not a democracy offers a solution: national voting National voting is do-it-yourself democracy that will shut up all the squabbling in Washington and put the power back where it belongs with the people. THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. W. R. Wilkerson III is a songwriter and the author of How Would You Vote If You Were Allowed To?, The Man Who Invented Las Vegas, All-American Ads of the 40s, Las Vegas Vintage Graphics, and The Monk's Son. Read his blog at To learn more about national voting, visit For more information or a copy of One Person, One Vote, or to schedule an interview with the author, please contact Javier Perez, , pgturnerpub@aol.com.

3 TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE (Feel free to use the following quiz in your upcoming column.) Are You Smarter than a Politician? Test Your Knowledge about How Our Government Really Works Don't you think Americans are smart enough to decide the great issues of the day? W. R. Wilkerson III does, and in One Person, One Vote he shows how changing the way we vote will get our country out of the mess we're in. Take this quiz and prove you're smart enough to figure out a better path for our country. 1. In the United States of America, our system of government is A. A joke C. Overpriced B. A republic D. A democracy 2. True or false: The process for nominating presidential candidates is spelled out in detail in Article II of the Constitution. True False 3. Many stories are told about squeaker elections won or lost by a handful of votes. Which of the following really happened? A. In 1776, just one vote made English the official language of America instead of German. B. In 1868, just one vote saved Andrew Johnson from impeachment. C. In 1941, just one vote saved Selective Service only weeks before Pearl Harbor was attacked. D. In 2000, just five votes made George W. Bush president. 4. True or false: In Switzerland, which uses a form of national voting, voters say yes to practically every initiative that's put before them, especially if it means they'll be receiving expensive government handouts. True False (Answers on back)

4 ANSWERS B: We live in a republic, not a democracy. We live in a country ruled not by its people but by its politicians. False: The Constitution provides no process for nominating presidential candidates. Maybe the founders expected that candidates would always be obvious and unanimous choices, the way George Washington was in their time. (Source: learning.loc.gov) D: Those five votes were cast by Supreme Court Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. (Sources: snopes.com, The Oyez Project) False: In the past 120 years, Swiss citizens have put more than 240 initiatives to public referendum. Voters have approved only about 10 percent of them. In addition, voters have often opted for versions of initiatives rewritten by government personnel. (Source: The Ace Project)

5 FACT SHEET Check out these eye-opening facts about voting and our dysfunctional political system from One Person, One Vote by W. R. Wilkerson III. A record 74 million votes were cast in the finale of the 2007 season of American Idol. This was more votes than have ever been cast for a president in a U.S. election. (Ronald Reagan, who got the most votes of any presidential candidate, is a distant second. In 1984 he received 54.5 million votes.) (Sources: Reuters, Guardian) T he United States has some of the lowest election participation rates in the world. Of the 142 million people who were registered to vote in the 2004 presidential election, 11 percent said they did not vote because they were not interested in the election or felt their votes would not make a difference. (Source: O f the 32 million people who were not even registered to vote in 2004, 15 million (47 percent) reported that they were not interested in the election or were not involved in politics. Four percent said their votes would not make a difference. (Source: M any people feel the lobbyists and special interests are the ones calling the shots in Washington. Since 1998 more than 27,000 lobbyists and 3,500 lobbying firms have been employed by 22,000 companies and organizations to influence legislation. (Source: The Center for Public Integrity) E ven politicians are often excluded from direct action because much in Congress is determined by committees and subcommittees. Do you know that the Senate and the House of Representatives combined have over 200 committees and subcommittees? (Source: Thomas, Library of Congress) D eclining voter participation is a serious threat to the health of our democracy, wrote Phil Keisling, former Oregon secretary of state. Midterm elections are now attracting just percent participation. Far, far worse are primary elections... For these contests, turnout has been truly abysmal in many states 5 to 15 percent of the eligible population. (Source: Washington Monthly) I n Milltown, New Jersey, in November 2005, Randy Farkas was declared the winner in a race for borough council seat by one vote 1,363 to 1,362. Eight days later, after 20 absentee votes were counted, the vote shifted toward his opponent, Joseph Cruz, making him the official winner, 1,369 to 1,368. (Source: East Brunswick (NJ) Sentinel) I n Orange County, California, Janet Nguyen was elected to the county board of supervisors by just three votes. She took office on March 26, 2007, 49 days after a special election held on February 6. On election night she was ahead by 52 votes, but late ballots gave the victory to her opponent, Trung Nguyen, the leader by just seven votes. She requested a recount and won the election by seven votes, four of which were later overturned. (Source: Orange County Register)

6 Q&A QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH W. R. WILKERSON III author of One Person, One Vote 1. Q: Getting Americans to vote is a huge problem. Why do you think more voting is the solution? A: Fewer and fewer people are voting each year, and the reason is very simple: they don't think their votes count. Look at the election of People voted, but the person who won the election wasn't the person who took office. Americans traditionally have let the politicians and the courts make the decisions. By taking back those powers, they will have the peace of mind that comes from being able to settle important issues and disputes once and for all. If we can set up a system in which our voices are heard and our votes count, people will start voting again. 2. Q: The United States isn't Switzerland. Wouldn't a national voting system be unworkable in such a big country? A: If national voting can work on a small scale in Switzerland, it can work in this country. Americans have the smarts and the technology to pull it off. And I believe if given the chance, the people of this country would be thrilled to participate in that. 3. Q: Won't national voting lead to a mob mentality, where the majority group tramples the rights of minorities? A: In national voting, all our votes are equal because, as Americans, we are all equal. I'm not afraid of a mob mentality. I'm more afraid of the system we have which isn't working at all. In elementary school classrooms all over the country, kids vote on what they want to do during recess. Does it matter to them that some of them are white, some Hispanic, some Asian, some African American? No, what matters is that they get to vote, have their voices heard. They know they might lose the vote, and if they do, they'll go along with the decision anyway. That's how the process works, and that's how it will work with national voting, too. You can call it mob rule, but I doubt those elementary school kids would call it that. They'd call it fair. 4. Q: What would happen to the government we have now Congress, the Supreme Court, the presidency and so on? A: Politicians would still represent us. We will always need them to pass highway bills and to make sure that the flow of energy, like electricity, is uninterrupted. They would also be our faithful watchdogs and make sure our votes are not tampered with or overturned. As for the courts, what if the people told the Supreme Court what cases to hear instead of instead of the other way around? The courts would have to listen to the people and carry out their wishes.

7 Q&A Page 2 Under the One Person, One Vote system, the president would be strictly the administrator of the people's wishes. He or she would not be president of the United States but president for the United States. The president would not have broad powers of veto, could not pardon criminals and would be stripped of other executive authority such as leading us into wars without consulting us. 5. Q: How would national voting work? Walk us through the process. A: Here's how the process would work: 1) We make our voices heard by sending our ideas, complaints and suggestions via , mail, fax or phone to a national center. 2) Issues that draw the most calls and mail become measures to vote on. This system is similar to gathering signatures on a petition. 3) Ten issues are voted on quarterly. 4) The ballots are sent to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to be counted. 5) The outcome of that vote becomes law for ten years. 6) Any individual who knowingly goes against the wishes and the will of the American people will be subject to severe penalties. Such acts include any voter fraud or vote tampering, any court or legal challenge and any attempt to overturn the vote or a law the people have passed. 7) All laws passed by the people are up for renewal after ten years. Q: Direct democracy has been suggested before. Why do you think we need it now? 6. A: The American people have to ask themselves, are the issues that are important to them being resolved? People are frustrated by the lack of resolution to their problems and grievances. And that frustration is leading to what I feel is one of the biggest problems facing our country: people are not voting. 7. Q: America is very socially divided at this time over hot-button issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and gun control. Shouldn't these issues be decided by experts on constitutional law rather than by an electorate that can be easily manipulated and swayed by propaganda, fear or hatred? A: Since these issues directly affect the people, only they have the right to vote on them. We have gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble by interpreting 18th-century documents that in many cases do not adequately address 21st-century American issues. The time for interpretation is over. Thomas Jefferson said that the Constitution must be revisited every 20 years. We're way behind schedule. 8. Q: What, if any, type of "checks and balances" would be in place if your idea of national voting were implemented? A: First, our Constitution already has plenty of checks and balances in place, and they don't do any good unless all three branches of government are actually working for

8 Q&A Page 3 the people, which they aren't. So in a sense, national voting is itself a system of checks and balances that will keep our government officials working for us instead of themselves. Second, this book is only the very first step. We'll need to work together to construct a national voting system piece by piece, and part of that process will no doubt include safeguards that the people decide to put in place. If I tried to cover every possibility, One Person, One Vote would be about 900 pages long and very technical. I want to inspire people, not bore them with a lot of fine print. 9. Q: Do you think that our present system of voting was ever effective? When do you think the system broke down? A: It did work in the past, but gradually over the years it broke down. We can point to partisanship and gridlock, but those are just symptoms. The system is broken. It's failed us, and it cannot be fixed. How much time, how many chances have we given politicians and they haven't produced? Something needs to replace the current system that does work, and that something is national voting. When exactly did it break down? It's hard to say. Our system is like the orange sports car I had in college. It was a great little car and I really enjoyed driving it. But it began to spend more and more days in the shop, and a friend said to me, You know, you might love this car, but no matter how much money you spend trying to fix it, it's never going to be fixed. Today, we all have to face the bitter truth that our system like my sports car is broken beyond repair. 10. Q: We have two major political parties in this country that will most likely never endorse your effort. How do you propose to implement this plan? A: My goal is to start a national conversation, not impose my plan on the country. Once we agree that national voting will get our country out of the mess it's in, we can work out all the details. And if the people decide they really want to implement this system, the two major parties will have to fall in line. We've seen it happen before in our history, where the people get out in front of the parties and show them where they want to go. I think we're seeing it today with the environmental movement, for example, which is coming from the people. The political parties have no choice but to follow the people's lead. 11. Q: This political cycle presents us with the first viable female and African American candidates for president. Do you think this will inspire voters to vote? A: Yes, it might, but like the Democrats' promise to end the war, a more diverse slate of candidates will only give people a false sense of security. It's the beginning of yet another broken promise to us. The people of this nation have to realize that the time has come when they must vote and resolve all the issues on their own. Unfortunately, no politician or body of politicians or Supreme Court is going to do that for them.

One Person, One Vote How Changing Our Voting System Will Get Us Out of the Mess We re In

One Person, One Vote How Changing Our Voting System Will Get Us Out of the Mess We re In One Person, One Vote T How Changing Our Voting System Will Get Us Out of the Mess We re In W. R. Wilkerson III For Al Gore, who won the presidency of the United States through national voting in November