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RAISING THE PEOPLE’S VOICE
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When taxes are forced upon the public without elected
officials asking the public for their input, isn’t that
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION? The problem is that there
has never been a way to ask everyone how they feel about
taxes and other issues—until now. The area group, for
"One Voice Now", has figured out a
user-friendly way to make "asking the public" a tangible
reality. |
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Here is the basic idea: |
1) YOU THE PEOPLE raise the issues to make your community
better.
2) YOU THE PEOPLE watch debates on those issues on TV.
3) YOU THE PEOPLE vote on those issues with any touch tone
phone
(the calls will be received by a computer to safeguard
against one person voting twice). |
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Fixing America starts locally. The fix isn’t in Washington,
Indianapolis, Lansing, or any other state capitol. The
people in each locality, communicating and working together,
provide the only way to build a bright future for our
children and theirs. |
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Here’s a more detailed description of how the issues will be
raised, debated, and voted on. The process is as follows: |
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1) After the computer system is in place and people start
receiving their voter I.D. number, the computer will pick
ten people every week at random. The reason for this is we
need a filtering system for our issues. We do not want to
watch or debate issues that do not have merit. The ten
people picked will be replaced every week for the same
reason that the judicial system replaces a jury after every
issue—to lower the chance of influence and bribery affecting
the system. This will give people an opportunity they would
never have had under the former arrangement. |
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2) When the people of the community have ideas that they
believe will make things better, they can present them to
the ten members chosen through this random filtering system.
If the majority of the ten believe that the idea in question
should be considered by the community at large, the
presenter goes to the next step. |
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3) The next step is videotaping the presenter and his/her
issue, after which the issue is presented over an area TV
station such as WNIT PBS channel 34 for a period of ten
days. There will be two phone numbers shown on the video
presentation. One number people can call and be part of a
"lobbying group" for the issue and the other number they can
call to lobby against the issue. When they call either one
of those numbers, information will be given as to where and
when these two lobbying groups will come together and
prepare. |
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4) Thirty days later, there will be a debate by these two
lobbying groups. The debate will be videotaped and replayed
over the television station for ten more days. A new phone
number will be provided on the video broadcast – a local
number registered voters can call. Their calls will go into
the computer. |
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5) When calling to vote, the computer will ask them to press
1 for English and 2 for Spanish. The next prompt will ask
the voter to press 1 if they are registered and 2 if they
are not registered. Those pressing 2 will be informed on how
to get registered. The next prompt will ask for their
personal ID number and another fact to verify the voter’s
identity. Then the caller will be asked to enter the number
of the issue they wish to vote on. Finally, the caller will
press 1 for "yes" and 2 for "no." Their vote will be counted
and they will be prevented from voting more than once. |
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6) Every time the debate is replayed, there will be an
updated tally of the "yes" and "no" votes. At the end of the
ten days, not only will the people in the community
understand the issue in its entirety, but the outcome will
come from the people. |
7) The resulting information will be given to our elected
officials so they can make much more educated and informed
decisions. Those officials who do not vote with the people
will be held accountable, since the people will be updated
on who voted for or against a given issue. At regular
election time, the people can then make a much more informed
decision as to which candidates best serve the well–informed
populace.*
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The new system will empower our local officials to better
serve the people, and empower the citizenry to have more
input in, and better knowledge of, local government and
which way their elected officials vote on key issues. It
will empower our local officials to pass laws we want passed
(and even take laws off the books that no longer are
needed). We could finally get busy fixing our communities
and stop waiting for politicians to try and do it with
little in the way of broad, meaningful public input.
This is the communication tool we have been waiting for to
bring our community into the 21st century. We can use our
voice and our knowledge to reinvent our failing educational
system, our crumbling roads and our troubled penal, tax,
judicial, and economic systems, etc. |
*(This article is an excerpt of a guest "perspective"
article that appeared in The Herald Republic quarterly,
Summer 2005 edition.) |