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An alternative Constitutional Convention [1]

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Date: 2025-04-06

Hi all,

Take this fwiw, and I am watching this from Australia.

And it seems that there's some fantastic elements to the US political and electoral system, and some crappy ones.

The crappy ones have been talked about endlessly, such as the Electoral College and gerrymandering.

And I've also heard about a Constitutional Convention, with Republicans wanting to convene a new one.

So … why not set up a Democratic CC this year? It doesn't have to have legal force. It doesn't even have to be organised but the Democrats. but what it can do is start conversation flowing to what is best political practice for 2025 that will allow the idea of America to be fully realised.



So like I said, I'm watching from Australia, and there are three or four things. Australia does really well that I would suggest or to be included in to a new way of running elections in the US.

Have elections on the weekend. Drop this Tuesday crap. The weekend allows more people to take part in in person voting then not.

Empower a national electoral commission. We have the AEC here in Australia. they are the ones who decide which districts (or electorates as we called them here) exist and how big they are based on population. Maybe one or two other things but population is the big one. so when and the lecture gets eliminated and a new one takes its place, it's not based on politics but on the fair distribution of representation. This cut out gerrymandering.

Make it compulsory. When you turn 18, you are encouraged to enrol with the AEC. once you do that, you have to get your name crossed off to say that you turned up to vote. that's the end of your legal expectation. you can do whatever you want with the voting paper! You can draw a dick on it, you can write a screed about how the aliens are going to take your giraffe. These are called ‘informal votes’, and that's usually between five and 10% of all voting papers counted. So for those who go it's my right whether I vote or not, sure, all you have to do legally is turn up and get your name crossed off.

The great thing about that is that since everybody has to vote, there's no pandering to some extreme base. So that means that yes, the Christian fundamentalist votes, but also the person who no matter what is happening to the country, that they cannot be arsed to vote. Well, they also have to vote/ up to the polling booth.

Chuck out all of the electronic voting machines. Go back to paper. Now we use pencil, which may or may not be a good thing.

And of course we don't have some electoral college.

The biggest one is that we have what we call a preferential voting system, or ranked choice I believe it's called in the USA. So that means that, I can vote for the Greens as number 1, then give my second preference to the Australian Labor Party. Now, if enough people vote for the Greens, then they are the MP for the area. however, if I'm only one of the few were vote for the Greens, and who I would want to represent me instead will be the ALP, well then my vote gets handed down to the ALP. Yes, we've had the same two parties running our country, so it doesn't change that, but it allows people to vote for who they really care about.

And these days, particularly for our election on May 3rd, in my electorate there will be a Teal independent likely to be voted in. And if that happens across the country, then we might have 10 or 12 what we call ‘crossbenchers’ in Parliament, and if the ALP become a minority government, they will have to rely on a Teal or Green to pass legislation. Which in my eyes is a good thing.

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Take ideas from all around the world, and keep some great ideas that the USA has already.

Anyway, if you hold this constitutional convention as a public forum where people put forward what a new constitution could look like and what a new electoral system could look like, hold it over three or four days, come up with an amazing document, who knows where it will take you. Have loads of Youtube/Tiktok commentators cover it. Build up people for it. Make it a huge one. Pay for it through small donors and donators.

Seems like in this day and age, you have to think outside the box a bit and this sort of thing will get a lot of publicity. Particularly if you hold it in Washington DC.

Hope it helps!

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