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Chapter 25
A Demos-style Method of Electing the President, Senators, and Representatives

The consensus democracy that would be practiced by the electorate within the demos empowers the American people in two fundamental ways:

1) The nine economic issues that we have just finished discussing in previous chapters would give the electorate direct control over taxation and three other economic powers that are too important to entrust to the representative branches of government.

2) In the “demos-style” electoral system discussed in this chapter, the members of the electorate would be empowered to elect to office representatives who resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and who would more truly represent them than do today’s wealthy and wealth-serving representatives.

The demos electoral system automatically results in representative bodies that demographically resemble the entire electorate. Resembling and more truly representing the entire electorate, such bodies would ideally create laws, rules, and practices within government and for the rest of society that are politically and economically fair to the entire populace. However, even these new, improved representatives should never be entirely trusted. That is why taxation and other important economic powers are placed directly into the hands of the entire electorate and should always remain there.

The nine economic issues that would be included in the demos are mathematically-based and interrelated. This is not the case for the last three of the twelve demos issues, the electoral issues, which deal with the election of the president of the United States and of senators and representatives. The new method presented here for electing people to these offices does, however, resemble the demos-style spirit of an ongoing, real-time consensus more than it does the periodic, winner-take-all method currently used.

The comedian W. C. Fields once quipped, “Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against.” This seems to be the best that most of us can manage within the current American system of conducting elections for political office. In our current electoral process, most of us are resigned to rapidly selecting “the lesser of evils” from among a few poorly known candidates financed and, therefore, pre-selected by the wealthy.

The candidates preselected and financed by the wealthy and presented to the voters almost never represent the points of view of most of us on too many issues, particularly after they get into office. Many people feel that they have never been adequately or truly represented by the politicians who populate Washington. We have had quite enough of always having to vote for the lesser of evils.

In the demos electoral process, any number of candidates (who need not be wealthy or wealth supported) may take any amount of time to run for office and build a following. Members of the electorate may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly elect truly representative officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook. Thus, the members of the electorate would be empowered to vote for whom they really want to vote, not for the lesser of evils preselected by the wealthy as is done today, but for their champions, people that truly resemble and represent them.

Keep in mind from previous chapters that: Every of-age, mentally-competent citizen would be a member of the electorate. Disfranchisement would not exist for any reason, not even for conviction of criminal activity of any kind. All members of the electorate would be members of the demos. Voting on the twelve demos issues—the nine economic and three electoral issues—would be a civic obligation, a duty, for each member of the electorate, not merely a right or a privilege. Thus, the whole body of citizens participating in the demos electoral process would elect the president, senators, and representatives, not some minority portion of the potential total electorate as is done today.

The proposed demos-style method of electing the president, senators, and representatives is as follows:

Each member of the demos would vote for one candidate to represent him or her as president, one candidate as senator, and one candidate as representative by selecting a name from or adding a new name to a formal “Candidates” list for each office. Members could vote for anyone they pleased, including themselves, who met the age, residency, and other requirements specified for the office by the constitution.

Elections for offices would not be held periodically as they are today but would run continuously in a manner similar to other demos issues. Each member of the demos would have a vote riding continuously on a candidate for president, a candidate for senator, and a candidate for representative.

Demos computers would maintain a formal, real-time, ever-changing Candidates list for the presidency, a second Candidates list for the senate, and a third list for the house of representatives. Candidates lists may contain the names of hundreds or even thousands of candidates. The names on each list would slowly change over time as the names of new candidates were added to the list and other names were removed. The names of the candidates who possessed the most votes at any given moment would be at the tops of their appropriate lists. They would be followed in descending order by the names of others on the lists that possessed fewer and fewer votes. A person’s name could appear in all three Candidates lists, but the person could only hold one office or seat at a time. If a candidate won enough votes to be seated in more than one office, then the candidate could choose which office.

Currently each state has two senators and, depending on population, a varying number of representatives. Although each state is divided into differing districts for senators and representatives, the senators of a given state as a group and the representatives as a group each represent what at bottom is the same overall geographical area. Although geography is very important and there should be one legislative body tied to geographical areas, two such bodies are really unnecessary geographic duplication. There are other considerations to be made that are as or even more important than geography.

In two principal ways, our current electoral system is a set of loaded dice that overwhelmingly favors the powerful, wealthy few.

First, elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, and two political parties that are mostly owned and operated by the wealthy rather than being within and supported by government where they belong, equally accessible to all of us. In our current plutocracy, long before—often years before—election day, in what is effectively a one-dollar-equals-one-vote process, political pundits and newscasters guess who has the best chance of winning the election, i.e., of buying a win, based upon who can raise the most money from wealthy corporations and individuals. Later, during the election itself, most of us are resigned to rapidly selecting what we guess might be the lesser of evils from among a few poorly known, fork-tongued candidates financed and, therefore, pre-selected by the wealthy. Few run for or win office that did not have the blessings and support of and now owe Big Money big time. (The fact that our political offices are essentially bought like any other commodity as even the mass media blatantly report and yet most people still religiously believe that America is a democracy is one of the mysteries of the universe.)

Second, dividing states into electoral districts and electing only one senator or representative within each of them virtually guarantees that wealthy or wealth-serving candidates will win the lion’s share of electoral offices and that the wealthy will hold a permanent hegemony of power within government while the poor and minorities go vastly under-represented. The senator or representative that ends up being elected to office in each district is usually a money- and media-bought candidate supported by a wealthy and wealth-manipulated minority portion of the district’s electorate. Since many people do not even bother to register and vote, this minority can often be a very small portion of the total electorate. But even most of the minority of the electorate that elects a candidate to office, the (often politically clueless) non-wealthy voters that were enticed into voting for the candidate, are not truly represented by the wealthy or wealth-serving candidate they elected. Oh, the clueless may get something of a bone tossed to them, but they and all other non-wealthy members of the populace pay dearly for it in the form of many other laws, rules, actions, etc. that work against their interests and serve primarily the wealthy. Other portions of the district electorate remain permanent electoral losers that are permanently unrepresented.

By moving the electoral process out of the marketplace and into government, that is, into the demos, and by the design of the demos electoral process, these and other electoral and representational shortcomings would be completely eliminated making the electoral process honest and fair.

In the demos-style elections, the president would be elected by direct popular vote from the nation at-large. The Electoral College system would get the boot it has long deserved. The person whose name was at the top of the “Candidates for President” list would actively sit as president of the United States. Once in office, the president would remain in office for a minimum of three years no matter what his or her ranking became in the Candidates for President list during those years. Demos members who have a vote riding on a candidate at the time the candidate gains office or who vote to further support an already seated president during his or her initial three years cannot change their votes until the three years have ended. Beyond the initial three years demos members may change their votes, and the president would remain in office only so long as he or she retained enough votes to stay at the top of the Candidates for President list up to a maximum of eight years in office. However long his or her term lasted, the individual could never seek or hold the office again.

In the demos-style method of electing senators and representatives, the dividing of states into electoral districts would be scrapped and replaced by elections held at-large. All 100 senators would be elected from the nation at-large, and each state’s allotment of representatives would be elected from within the state at-large. Each senator would represent not an individual state but the nation as a whole and beyond that the national constituency that elected him or her. Each representative would represent his or her state as a whole and beyond that the statewide constituency that elected him or her.

Eliminating the electoral district system and electing a state’s quota of representatives from within the state at-large and senators from within the nation at-large is HUGELY IMPORTANT. At-large voting empowers each member of the electorate to join with others to select their champions. While others voted for their good candidates (who I may consider to be bad) from within these large national or state-wide pools, I and others like me would vote for our good candidates (who others may consider to be bad) from within the same pools.

It is the selecting of several people for a given representative body from one large pool while each member of the electorate only gets one vote that produces a representative body that demographically resembles the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook. Selecting only two people each from state-wide pools, as we could do with senators, is not really sufficient to produce a widely demographically representative senate. However, selecting all 100 senators from within a single national pool achieves magnificently the desired demographically representative result.

We have a problem with the election of representatives to the house of representatives. Geography is important, and we want to keep at least one body of congress tied to states. With its much larger numbers of officeholders, 435 or so representatives, the house serves this role much better than the senate. Depending on census results, many, if not most, states have three or more representatives, which is a sufficient number to achieve our demographic ends using state-wide electoral pools. The problem is that some states only have two representatives. We just pragmatically accept this. It’s not ideal, but geography is important and we’ll make do. The overall electoral result will produce quite good demographic representation in the house, way better than the state electoral district system does today.

Thus, with at-large voting none of us would be stuck selecting a lesser evil from a small group preselected by the wealthy as is done today. All voters would support their goods, their champions, those who resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and who truly represent them. The resulting senate and house would automatically demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the entire electorate. No quota systems, political parties, or complex electoral schemes are required. People just get to directly vote for whom they really want. Unlike today’s senate and house, the members of these diverse bodies entering into democratic deliberations would create laws that serve the greater good of the entire populace and the nation.¹ Eliminating state electoral district systems would also end the cynical, embarrassing, laughable spectacle of political gerrymandering.

Candidates earning enough votes to hold one of the top 100 positions on the “Candidates for Senator” list would actively sit as senators in the Senate. Once in office, a senator would remain in office for a minimum of three years no matter what his or her ranking became in the Candidates for Senator list during those years. Demos members who have a vote riding on a candidate at the time the candidate gains office or who vote to further support an already seated senator during his or her initial three years cannot change their votes until the three years have ended. Beyond the initial three years demos members may change their votes and a senator would remain in office so long as he or she retained enough votes to stay somewhere within the top 100 positions on the Candidates for Senator list up to a maximum of six years in office. Once bumped from office or having finished the maximum term, the now ex-senator could serve again if desired after a three year waiting period.

Each state’s allotment of representatives would be elected at-large by the members of the demos living within the state. In accordance with the number of representatives allotted for the state, the people with the most votes in the state’s “Candidates for Representative” list would actively sit as representatives for the state in the house of representatives. Once in office, a representative would remain in office for a minimum of two years no matter what his or her ranking became in his or her state’s Candidates for Representative list during those years. Demos members who have a vote riding on a candidate at the time the candidate gains office or who vote to further support an already seated representative during his or her initial two years cannot change their votes until the two years have ended. Beyond the initial two years demos members may change their votes, and a representative would remain in office so long as he or she retained enough votes to stay within the allotted number of top positions of his or her state’s Candidates for Representative list up to a maximum of four years in office. Once bumped from office or having finished the maximum term, the now ex-representative could serve again if desired after a two year waiting period.

The reasons for waiting periods between terms of serving in the senate or the house are these: Voters would be encouraged to explore other candidates for office, and yet good people, which, as we all know, can be hard to find, could be periodically reelected building experience and wisdom. During breaks between terms of service, those who serve would be able to focus on personal affairs, family, and getting closer to the land, the people, and their constituencies. This would free them periodically from the narrow focus of Washington and keep them in touch with the larger reality of the lives and needs of everyday people.

The demos-style method of electing the president, senators, and representatives would also open doors for candidates and voters and introduces fairness into the electoral process in other ways. Since any constitutionally qualifying individual’s name could be placed into a Candidates list at no cost and reside within the list indefinitely, there would be no monetary or time constraints placed upon candidates who are trying to express and promote their political messages. Money would still “talk” throughout our society and lend support to wealthier and wealth-serving candidates, but within the demos all candidates would have opportunity to be heard and gain support. Even a poor candidate with excellent ideas could be heard and become elected. Poor members of the electorate could work within and outside the demos in support of their champions. As a largely unknown candidate with a growing constituency moved significantly upward in a Candidates list, the always hungry media would likely pick up on “the news,” “the phenomenon” and give the candidate even more free visibility. Voters could take however much time they please to become familiar with various candidates and to express their views to other members of the demos including folks living in their own communities. Slow-building, grass-roots movements could elevate candidates in the Candidates lists over a long period of time. In fact, grass-roots movements started elsewhere could be moved into the demos within the candidate’s demos pages. (Candidate’s demos pages are discussed later in this chapter.) Deep and broad debates over the issues supported or opposed by candidates and much other information including candidates’ actual voting records would have a home and room to evolve forming a convenient historical record.

The single most important result of all of this is that poor and minority voters would no longer be forced by the electoral system to be joined at the hip as they are today with wealthy candidates who do not really serve them. The wealthy could still use the media to manipulate others, but now other powerful political forces such as community and minority self-education and action, which are ineffectual in today’s periodic money-driven electoral system, are facilitated. Poor and minority voters would be empowered by the free, ongoing demos electoral system to support their own champions and to take as much time as needed to educate similar others as to which candidates truly serve their interests. And remember, voting on the twelve demos issues including the three electoral issues would be a civic obligation. Millions of poor and uneducated people who currently do not vote would be politically educated by their more astute peers and vote in the demos.

Some people idealistically propose that those who populate the electoral seats of government should not be biased career politicians but ordinary citizens selected at random or objective scientists or experts who work together to make high-minded laws and policies that benefit the entire populace and the nation as a whole. But in real life every person has particular world and political views, and there is no such thing as an unbiased or apolitical person.

Many people, if not most of us, lack sufficient wisdom, vision, and capability to occupy electoral office. So, random selection of ordinary people is not a good idea. Many mediocre people would end up in office, and they would create many shortsighted and narrow-minded laws.

And experts and even scientists can often be as biased and subject to poor judgment and decisions as members of the general populace. Not to pick on scientists, but by way of example, anyone who has studied the historical and current feuds among scientists understands well the bias, prejudice, and political intrigue within the scientific community.

Try as we may to be objective, we are subjective, not objective, beings, particularly when it comes to economic fairness, moral, and value judgments. The idealistic wish that governing entities be objective, apolitical, managerial bodies is a pipedream. The best that we can achieve are candidates that pass through a long process of scrutiny and democratic deliberation by members of the electorate and representative bodies that resemble to the fullest extent possible the entire electorate in body, mind, pocketbook, and interests. The demos style of electing the president, senators, and representatives to office would achieve these goals as much as is humanly possible and give us our greatest possibility of finding and electing visionary, high-minded, just, capable people to office.

Although objectivity and impartiality are elusive qualities that in reality do not exist when it comes to moral and value judgments, those who are not convinced of this and who want to elect to office someone they deem to be objective and impartial would, in the form of the demos electoral process, have in hand the tool to do this. Unlike the current electoral system, which for the most part insures the election of wealthy and Wealth-serving people, the demos electoral system would empower the members of the electorate to elect to office any people they want who constitutionally qualify.

The offices of the president and of senators and representatives are surrounded by expert career people whose function, among others, is to guide and aid new officeholders, including officeholders who are not career politicians. This support staff is what makes the election of new people possible. One job of the novice elected officeholder is, of course, to never fail to remember who is the help and who is the boss.

The demos is designed to function not merely as a static entity but as an evolutionary process. Part of this evolutionary process is the truly free election of better and better officeholders chosen from the entire populace who, in turn, choose better and better support staff.

Many kinds of alternate electoral schemes have been proposed or are in effect today around the world that attempt to create improved participation within and representation by government of the entire populace. Attempts are made to remedy or mitigate the ill effect that extreme amounts of money and other resources have on elections, the lesser of evil dilemma, the third candidate spoiler problem, and the lack of representation. Such schemes include electoral money management, term limits, ranked or ordered preference voting, proportional party representation, and others. Ranked or ordered preference voting takes into account each voter’s second, third, etc. choices of a candidate for an office. With proportional party representation, political parties run several candidates who win office in proportion to the number of votes the parties have won. There are many variations of each scheme.

And yet, every country in the world continues to have a powerful, wealthy few that holds a hegemony of power in government and during elections. The reason is that the many electoral schemes proposed and tried so far are really superficial patches that fall well short of correcting the problems they attempt to address. Further, the very complexity of most would-be electoral remedies favors those who are the most sophisticated and educated, and, therefore, usually the most wealthy.

The demos and other proposals made in this book would adequately correct the problems of the hegemony of power held by the wealthy within government, within political parties, and during elections. They would bring true democracy to America. The simple demos electoral system discussed above automatically corrects the lesser of evil and third candidate spoiler problems and achieves fair participation and demographically proportional representation within government without resorting to complex electoral schemes such as ranked list voting and proportional party representation.

The most fundamental of all political issues is the distribution of power. One must first obtain political power before one can achieve any of one’s other interests in the political arena. The demos with its nine economic and three electoral issues and the other proposals in this book achieve a fair distribution of power for all members of the electorate.

Now holding a sufficient measure of political power, what should be one’s next most important interests in the political arena? Each member of the electorate should hold uppermost in mind and action his or her economic interests. All of one’s other interests should be secondary. One should feed, clothe, and shelter one’s family first before chasing political-social dreams and pet peeves. The wealthy already know the truth of this. The cunning wealthy politicos always go for the gold while using the secondary “hot-button” social issues to politically manipulate others into forking over the gold. Empowered by the demos to act in their self-interest, all other members of the electorate would need to learn to focus on the gold as well and not be distracted by the hot-button social issues.

Thus, whatever other qualities one desired in a candidate, first and foremost one should be sure that a candidate truly represents one’s economic interests. If one’s candidate gets elected to office, one should make sure the officeholder does not stray from representing one’s economic interests. If the officeholder does stray, then one should vote for some other candidate instead.

One could not be quite so resolute in one’s secondary issues. No candidate would resemble one entirely or vote entirely as one would like. Therefore, it would always a matter of judgment as to how well a candidate satisfies one overall and as to whether some other candidate would be more satisfactory. While a voter could not perfectly juggle many criteria, one should usually be able to judge fairly well whether or not one’s economic interests are represented adequately by a candidate or officeholder.

While one’s economic interests have several facets, let’s simplify the discussion by saying that one’s economic interests are most simply determined by the amount of one’s annual income and total accumulated wealth. One should vote for candidates who look after the interests of people with one’s level of income and wealth.

If each voter did, indeed, know his or her true economic interests and vote according, the house and senate would end up populated by representatives who represent economic interests in demographic proportion to the actual income or wealth levels of the general populace. As discussed above, one’s vote must remain with a selected candidate during the initial portion of his or her term in office. But at all other times one could change one’s vote as often as on wished over time. If one saw that a candidate who does act in one’s economic interests has many more votes including one’s own than is absolutely needed to become elected to or stay in office, then one could switch one’s vote to some other candidate who looks after one’s interests and who needs more support to win or stay in office. Thus, votes would flow like water, so to speak, moving toward candidates that support interests in direct proportion to the self-interests of the voters.

Most of the vote shifting would occur among candidates already seated in office and several candidates not currently in office but sporting a goodly number of votes, thus having the greatest potential to win office and serve one’s interests. It would likely take some kind of active political movement within or outside of the demos to cause a candidate possessing only a few votes to gain a sufficient number of votes to enjoy a position within the group near the top of a Candidates list and a serious possibility of actually winning office.

Now, a wise demos voter would unfailingly keep the matter of economic self-interest above all other considerations. But there would be many candidates running for office and a voter would have other interests that he or she could and should factor into the equation. To a woman, it may and should be important that the number of women seated in office be in proportion to the number of women in the electorate, about 50%. Therefore, from among the candidates who look after her economic interests a woman may and should select a woman. One could further refine or fine-tune one’s selection considering race, moral views, etc. Electing senators from the nation at-large and representatives from states at-large creates large enough pools of candidates to strongly enable voters to reach out to each other in support of candidates who truly resemble and represent them. Each voter could at any time evaluate his or her votes to see if they are being used most wisely for self-interest and freely change them as desired.

(While one may feel most comfortable voting for a candidate that resembles oneself in economic class, gender, race, ethnicity, etc., it is not absolutely necessary that one do so. It is most crucial that one votes for people that truly serve, as demonstrated by actions and voting records, the economic and other interests of those who share one’s own demographic characteristics. A wise voter understands that a candidate who demographically resembles the voter does not necessarily support the voter’s interests.)

Keeping in mind that the demos electoral process is not periodic but ongoing, the overall result of our freely changing our votes as wisdom and self-interest dictate would be a ripple effect of some ever shifting portion of voters seeking and finding the right candidates and a senate and house that resembles in several general ways the demographic distribution of the populace in body, mind, pocketbook, and interests and that truly represents the broad interests of the entire populace. As the distribution of wealth, physical features of individuals, and moral and other values of the populace and of its votes shifted over the decades and centuries, the demographics of the house and the senate would automatically and peacefully follow those of the nation as a whole.

By being taught at the high school level—something which will be discussed later—and by long participation in the demos, each voter and each generation of voters would become increasingly politically “street wise.” To politically survive, officeholders would need to serve honestly and well.

Adam Smith used the metaphor of “the invisible hand of the market” to explain how under capitalism when each individual seeks wealth by pursuing his or her self-interests, the economy is stimulated and society as a whole benefits. Under consensus government, the demos and the nation as a whole would function in a similar manner. As the members of the electorate pursued their self-interests directly in the demos and indirectly through representatives that truly serve them in the other branches of government, “the invisible hand of consensus democracy” would benefit society as a whole. The demos consensus on its economic and electoral issues would result in a balance of self-interests and a political-economic steady state that peacefully evolves over time and benefits everyone and the nation as a whole.

How would the demos electoral system deal with the “lesser of evils” and the “third candidate spoiler” problems? The lesser of evils problem only exists in America’s current, two-party electoral system which is essentially left to the marketplace. Virtually all candidates are wealthy or they are financed by the wealthy and are, therefore, wealth-serving. In the demos electoral system, one would not be picking a stranger from a short list pre-selected by the wealthy. One may pick directly from or add to a long list of candidates the name of someone that one has long studied, knows well, and trusts to be a champion of one’s interests. One may discuss one’s choice with others: family members, friends, co-workers, other demos members, etc. And one may change one’s vote at any time in the light of new knowledge and greater wisdom.

In today’s third candidate spoiler problem, one dares not take one’s vote away from one’s lesser of evils between the Republican and Democratic candidates in favor of one’s favorite third party or independent candidate because that helps the greater of one’s two major evils to win. However, in the demos electoral process, particularly with one’s choice for a senator and a representative, one’s focus would not be toward “the evils” but toward one’s favorite candidates. With senators elected from the nation at-large and representatives from states at-large, why would anyone focus on “the evils”? If one could vote for only one candidate for senator with a hundred positions to be filled and one for representative with several positions to be filled, beyond voting wisely one can’t prevent by voting what one perceives as “the evils” from being elected. Of necessity, one focuses on and votes for one’s favorites, one’s champions.

Although each demos member can only vote for one candidate for each office, during demos deliberations one can still participate in arguments for and against any number of other candidates, thus attempting to influence other people’s votes. And, to counteract “the evil lies” being spread in the mass media by cynical, crafty others, one can “enlighten” one’s family members, friends, co-workers, and others in the community.

With just one office to fill, the presidential race may retain some of the lesser of evils and third candidate spoiler problems. But at least the candidates will not be only wealthy or wealth-serving. A candidate will likely remain within a small group in the upper regions of the presidential candidates list for a long while being well studied and deliberated by the electorate before gaining office. To win office a candidate would likely have to appeal to a very broad spectrum of voters and have a long track record proving his or her service to the entire electorate and to the nation as a whole.

With the demos method of electing the president, senators, and representatives to office, what would happen to our current two principal political parties? The two major parties would almost certainly die the inglorious political death that they so richly deserve. Their wealth-serving hegemony of power would become fragmented and would be replaced by slowly shifting constellations of several parties, interest groups, and others that are vastly more representative of the entire electorate than the current parties ever have been.

The changes to the American government proposed in this book would only create the opportunity to move away from plutocracy. They do not guarantee that people would know and act in a way that best serves their true self-interests. Basically, we depend on the fact that there are many politically astute people within the bottom economic half of the populace who under our current political system lack sufficient power but who would be empowered by the demos electoral process to educate and lead those who need help toward understanding and actual achievement of their true self-interest. Such astute people would include old political war horses; friends, neighbors, students, and co-workers who share similar economic conditions; bright young people, etc. And let us also include those in the upper economic half who are of right mind and heart.

With their wealth-supported basically unknown candidates, political media blitzes, and severe time constraints, today’s periodic elections effectively bar the non-wealthy from an extended educational and candidate selection process. The unending demos electoral process gives non-wealthy (and all other) candidates and members of the electorate an unlimited amount of time and inexpensive ways both within and outside of the demos to educate and gain the support of others with similar interests. The non-wealthy are empowered to use extended deliberations within the demos and neighbor to neighbor and nationwide movements in support of their own candidates and interests, counteracting and counterbalancing the political advantage that the wealthy hold by using the expensive mass media and using their private and public offices as political platforms and bully pulpits.

Further, by its consensus on its economic issues, the demos would likely moderate the distribution of wealth in America away from its current extremes, reducing somewhat the hegemony that the wealthy now hold over media access and other political advantages. And demos-elected bodies of legislators that now demographically proportionally resemble and more truly represent the entire electorate would likely alter the rules applying to the political use of the media, reducing somewhat the advantage currently held by the wealthy.

Realistically, perfect representation of the entire populace is an ideal that can be approached but not fully achieved. Under the demos electoral system, the house and senate would evolve toward a more just representation of the entire populous and yet likely not achieve it completely. Even so, the demos would place the populace in a much better position than it is in today. A great deal of headway would be gained, and the potential would always exist to do even better.

Even at its best, the very idea of representation must, unfortunately, be distrusted. If true representation could be fully achieved, then the demos would need to consist only of the three candidate electoral issues. The nine economic demos issues that deal with taxation, etc. would not be necessary. For truly representative officeholders would, by definition, create a system of taxation and economic, business, work, and other laws and rules that were just. Since representation, even the greatly improved representation that would be achieved by the demos electoral process, is always less than ideal, certain issues simply couldn’t be entrusted to representatives. These most central political-economic issues needed to be included in the demos and decided directly by entire electorate because there is no other way to insure a just outcome.

In brief, to the extent and in the best way that such ends can be achieved, the demos 1) empowers the entire electorate to directly deliberate, vote, and achieve consensus on nine economic issues that are simply too important to entrust to representative bodies, 2) overcomes the current hegemony over the electoral process now held by the wealthy, 3) eliminates the “lesser of evil” and “third candidate spoiler” electoral problems, 4) significantly levels the political playing field by giving non-wealthy candidates and members of the electorate an unlimited amount of time and inexpensive ways both within and outside of the demos to come together and achieve their self-interest, counteracting the mass media and other advantages held by the wealthy, and 5) achieves demographically proportional representation of the entire electorate in the house and the senate.

In Joseph J. Ellis’s marvelous book “Founding Brothers,” Ellis discusses George Washington’s Farewell Address, printed in a Philadelphia newspaper near the end of his second term as president. Ellis writes of Washington’s “plea for a politics of consensus serving as a warning against single-issue political movements, or against the separation of America into racial, ethnic, or gender-based constituencies.” Others since the time of the founders have reiterated this plea.

And yet, there is a difficulty with this argument. During the time of our new, fragile national government, the argument may have had some merit. But our government is much stronger now and can readily tolerate such constituencies. Moreover, the centuries have demonstrated that such constituencies are a natural and necessary part of the political process.

The founders’ creation of a government populated by a single constituency, the wealthy, to the exclusion of all others has proven disastrous for all other Americans. And it has not eliminated constituencies either, for, divided by interests and regions, the wealthy themselves fall into constituencies. There is no getting away from constituencies or interest groups. It is by the wheeling and dealing and horse trading of constituencies that laws are created and the business of government (and, indeed, the whole world) is conducted. By eliminating all other constituencies from government and allowing only the constituency of the wealthy to do the horse trading within itself, all that has been accomplished is to cut everyone else out of the deal, much to their detriment.

This work attempts to put other American constituencies into the political arena inside government where they may effectively wheel and deal and horse trade with the wealthy constituency currently there. A demos would create a single body constituted of the entire electorate. Therefore, it would include every constituency, and, moreover, guarantee by the very nature of its structure and function their achieving a moderate consensus on the demos issues. This would be a politics of consensus. Electing senators from the nation at-large and representatives from within states at-large would allow various groups of people to come together to elect, as it were, one of their own. To the constituency of the wealthy currently populating the senate and the house many more would be added, giving all of the major constituencies in America real horse-trading power on a level playing field where they could achieve a much broader consensus then that achieved today.

If government by the wheeling and dealing and the horse trading of constituencies is seen as an evil, then it is a far greater evil that government includes only one constituency, the wealthy. If it is not the notion of constituencies per se but single-issue constituencies that disturbs one, then one should consider that the most persistent and powerful single-issue constituency of all, Wealth, has reigned supreme and alone throughout human history.

And yet, when the constituency of Wealth is examined closely, one finds many shades of gray, though narrowly focused around a common interest. This would be the case as well for most of the other constituencies that earned a place within government. Each constituency would present something of a unified agenda even as it warred within itself. The argument against constituencies simply doesn’t hold water. They are and always have been an ever present political reality.

The three demos pages pertaining to the election of the president, senators, and representatives and the hierarchy of pages beneath them would contain an enormous amount of information including Candidates lists and the buttons and tools necessary for deliberating and voting. A brief description of the constitutional qualifications for each office or seat should, of course, be prominently displayed.

The names of both those running for an office and those currently seated in the office would be on its Candidates list. The number of votes cast for each candidate would, of course, determine the position of his or her name on the list. The list’s page would contain tools for adding and removing names from the list, for searching for names, and for browsing through the list. Selecting a name on the list would display the candidate’s individual demos-style page.

Each candidate’s page would follow the same layout and format set by demos officials including a brief position statement by the candidate, brief pro and con and counter-pro and -con statements, and buttons leading to a hierarchy of pages beneath it. These pages would contain standard demos information about the candidate, his or her actual voting record from current or previously held offices, the candidate’s position paper of any length, campaign information, and pro and con discussion and debate by the candidate and others. Centered around the candidate’s own views, a combination of member voting and a mathematical round robin (described in the chapter entitled The Demos Would Serve as the Predominant Place to Study and Debate the Included Issues) should be used to organize and present the views, discussions, and debates offered by others.

Unlike demos issues, which would remain permanently, an officeholder or candidate for office might die or become unable to serve for one reason or another. With the cooperation of demos members, it would be up to the officials and technicians who maintain the demos to verify three things for each name in the Candidates lists:

• The name is that of a real, living person.

• The person wants to be a candidate.

• The person constitutionally qualifies for the office being sought.

While the demos could, when necessary, engage in a simple, standard search procedure when contact with a candidate has been lost, the responsibility for maintaining some means of communication with the demos should be borne by the candidates. When a current officeholder or any other person in a Candidates list died, was removed from a list for lack of qualification or simply could not be located after standard search means had been used and a standard length of time had passed, or the candidate removed his or her own name from a list, then every demos member currently voting for the person would be notified as follows: A trigger would be placed into the voting terminal system. Whenever any demos member voting for the person used any voting terminal to connect to the demos system, which, you may recall, would be required at least once a year, the voter would be automatically notified of his or her need to cast a new vote for a president, senator, or representative. Also, a demos member could opt to receive e-mail notification when his or her vote for president, senator, or representative requires updating. For the more prominent persons on Candidates lists, demos voters may well learn about a name removal from a list via other sources and know to recast a vote at that time.

The consensus of the demos on demos issues would serve as our “social contract” and set some parameters within which government, businesses, and individuals must conduct their business and live their lives. But what if elective office or seat holders of the representative branches of government attempted by their action or inaction to ignore or sabotage the consensus of the demos, which, after all, represents the will of the people? The principal reason for creating a demos-style method of electing (and, when deemed necessary, removing support from) the president, senators, and representatives was to address this issue.

Some time ago an unusually candid elected official was asked to whom he must pay attention when making decisions on issues. He responded (without being publicly identified) that he must first attend to his own needs, and he must attend to his sources of money, but he may safely ignore the people who contribute no money to his campaign.

Given our current manner of conducting elections, the wrong people easily gain office and evade and contradict the will of the electorate. Given 1) the demos-style method of conducting elections described here with candidates slowly gaining votes and marching up the Candidates lists over time; 2) the demos member’s increased interest, knowledge, and ability to select not just someone put on a short list by the elite but anyone he or she thought truly worthy and capable; 3) all of the ready information, candidates’ expressed views, actual voting records, and pro and con debate; and 4) the voters ability to change a vote at any time; candidates and officeholders would as a matter of survival be less responsive to the money of the elite and more responsive to the will of “we the people,” all of the people.