Bill Wagner Blog

Term Limits – If the past 2 years haven’t made a case for term limits, consider the precedent has been set, where the career politicians will do anything to sway the populace for voting their party back into power, versus what is right. No matter who wins the next election, be prepared for more of this nightmare. The 2 party system is governing us, not the other way as it was intended. When politicians snub working for us, instead of making things better for their constituents.

Live in District – This really is no brainer. If the representative does not live in the district, how can they know what is actually happening.

Politicians Lying – We must request that members of Congress be held to the same level of truth that is expected of people testifying before them. Double standards should not be acceptable. How many people believed Schiff, claiming that he has seen “more than circumstantial evidence” of a Trump-Putin conspiracy. He didn’t, yet people still believe he does. Just a single example, no time to list all the lies in the past year by politicians, both parties are guilty.

Campaign Contributions – Everyone complains that companies are buying politicians, but what about the rich? Tired of all the campaign commercials full of half truth. How about we stop any campaign funds from companies, corporations and superpacs. Make campaign contributions only legal from U.S. citizens and limit the total amount. This should include comps and perks. Take away any financial gains that gives a candidate an unnatural advantage.

Bill be own Merit or Subject Matter – Tired of campaign ads full of half truths or Bills full of bloat? Why couldn’t politicians vote on a straight forward stimulus package for people without including millions for state bailouts. Want to make your representative accountable without excuses, this would remove the grey area.

Poll Constituents – Start building web sites and apps for representative area which give you a visible accountability in your area or district. You register with your physical mailing address. A post card is then sent to that address with a code and no other registration information, user name and password. You then sign into the web site and enter the annual verification code. When a Bill is introduced, you receive notification to give your input., After your input, you can see how you and all others in your district feel and voted. This isn’t an official vote, but if you know there 500,00 people in your district, 315,00 use the app, and 200,000 of you gave an opinion and mostly voted for or against, some semblance of direction can be surmised. While not perfect, daily activities is no longer a dark hole.

We really need to get our country back. Each of these steps would be a positive in getting the fundamentals envisioned by our founders. While our country has never been perfect, but let’s never stop trying to get there.

Mail in voting appears to be heading towards populace implementation, but just one’s persons’ ideas.

Keep the fill in the dot, this can be automatically read, no human intervention, “MOST” of the time.

Make each Ballot fold-able, where the voter signs, this way each ballot cannot be substituted, to help prevent fraud. Make sure the signature is on outside for verification, without opening the ballot, keeping the ballot secret. Additionally, once folded, a tab available for a machine to unfold and automatically count your vote, after signature verification, without human interaction to cut down on fraud.

After all ballots completed, folded and signed, they get placed in a tamper proof envelope, with a bar code for tracking purposes only. Nothing on the bar code to identify party affiliation. Give the Voter ability to scan tamper proof envelope to notify State, ballot on its’ way, with a phone app. Not mandatory, but would aid in locating areas where ballots not delivered in a timely manner. My ballot made it to State agency in 2 days. If a number ballots in my area start taking 5 days, it could raise suspicions for investigation.

Audit each ballot, for completeness or rejection. Determine an acceptable amount of missing completeness per ballot. If it exceeds the allowable percent of missing sections, then Pull ballot for manual inspection, to ensure not a malfunction. Missing sections, when someone doesn’t complete sections for judges, county supervisor, and so on. A rejection should include where someone votes for more than allowable, like President or Representatives. The Voter should be notified. This is problematic, should the entire ballot be rejected and if enough time, allow voter to resubmit? Should only that section of the ballot be rejected? Can Voter be allowed resubmit rejected section? Let each State decide the process.

Another option, is allow people to fill out the ballot at home, and walk into the voting location and feed the ballot themselves into counting machine, obtaining a reference number if no voter id. Walk into a private verification booth, enter the reference number, or voter id number, and review their ballot on screen, and either accept or reject. Of course, this would need some work, because maybe the person is happy just accepting without verifying. If the voter doesn’t like what they see on screen, the ballot must be returned to them and a new ballot issued for getting their vote in.

Of course there are other ideas, our State leaders need to work on a solution now. No matter who is declared the winner somewhere between Nov 3rd and Nov 5th, will end up in court(s). Technology exists for these things. I do like Arizona Alert System, I was notified when Ballot received. Then another notification once my signature was verified. If our State leaders don’t make improvements towards safe and accurate voting, we should elect leaders who will.